"I had the great honor of being at a screening of the restored print in Los Angeles some years ago. I think this is Bertolucci’s masterpiece, though one could argue he made several of them. Ravishingly beautiful visuals, terrific performances, and among the most liquid and complex camerawork ever. A study of fascism, based on the book by Alberto Moravia."

"A collection of, yes, four works by John Fante. Rereading this at the moment. Fante is the man who inspired Bukowski and it'd be hard not to see how great that influence is as Bukowski said: "Fante was my God." Anyway it was that comment by CB that led me to Fante who I prefer as a writer if I had to pick. The crab-shooting passage of The Road to Los Angeles will stay with me for ever and Ask the Dustcorrect, a doomed Los Angeles romance is just fantastic. Robert Towne directed a film version of this a little while back. It's an admirable misfire but he did use the novel previously as a template for the LA of his Chinatown screenplay. The quartet also includes Wait Until Spring, Bandini and Dreams of Bunker Hill."

"Yes, that was a brilliant film. I particularly liked Elizabeth Banks in it, she was great. And it also relates a bit to what I'm doing now – I moved back to Los Angeles and made this new album, and I think half of the songs were recorded in the studio where Pet Sounds was made. So I'm just very much part of that tradition."

"Wanda was my mentor and has such a sharp, vicious, lyrical voice, her poems almost come off the page and sing to you. I revisit this book often. Wanda was and is considered the voice of Los Angeles. She wrote about everything from growing up in the tough neighborhood of Watts California, to writing for a soap opera, to the objectification and marginalization of not only being a woman, but a woman of color."

"I once met Harry Dean Stanton in Los Angeles. He told me at that time he had made eighty-eight films. I asked him which one was his favorite, and he said this one. His silence and facial expressions convey so much without saying a word. A journey of regret and remorse—trying to find a way to set that feeling free. Again, shot wonderfully by Robby Müller, with the perfect soundtrack by Ry Cooder."

"This is a portrait of a city I love as well as a self-portrait of a woman who changed my life profoundly, and who I miss every day. Through the oral history tradition she helped found with her groundbreaking book, “Edie,” Stein chronicled the histories of prominent Los Angeles families, including her own, through edited interviews with a huge cast of characters, a masterwork by the most intuitive conversationalist I ever knew."

"Charles Burnett. It’s a really incredible film, shot all in black and white, 1970s, it’s Watts in Los Angeles. And it’s this guy who works in a slaughterhouse. They put it out in theaters, I think a year and a half ago, and I raced out to go see it live. The soundtrack is just so provocative, it’s so of that time. It was shot for less than $10,000…It’s a remarkable, remarkable film, and when you watch it, it’s just so profound."