"My mother took me to see Jethro Tull for my 14th birthday. We were living in the Los Angeles area and they were playing a couple of towns over. It was pretty much my first rock concert. I was heavily into Jethro Tull back then and I still am. Stand Up is the record that moves me the most. It's only their second album and they're still kind of scruffy. There's a heavy rock influence but they had that English thing going on, you know, university dudes who were really into folk music. It didn't seem like an affectation to me – it still seems real."

"Robert Altman turns his multilevel, multidimensional auteur’s eye on the short stories of Raymond Carver, and creates one grim portrayal of Los Angeles culture that will leave you breathless. Many of the stories that make up Short Cuts could have spun off into TV series, so well drawn are the characters. Released after Altman’s smash hit The Player, Short Cuts came across as a disappointment, but after a recent viewing, I feel Short Cuts to be the superior and more lasting success. A killer cast that never gets in the way of the material has to be an all-time favorite of mine. With Tim Robbins, Julianne Moore, Robert Downey, Jack Lemmon, and Jennifer Jason Leigh."

"I’m gonna say Chinatown. That’s just great storytelling, acting, directing. I think Polanski’s an amazing director. It’s opera, you know. It’s the biggest issues. You can’t tell an epic without a big problem, and Chinatown is brilliant in the sense of Los Angeles history — the whole creation of the Valley, and the diversion of water to make the Valley. [Screenwriter] Robert Towne was able to take a very interesting historical fact — what’d he call it, Mulwray instead of Mulholland? — and tell this amazing personal story about it. I like that very much. I guess The Godfather is similar to that in many ways; obviously based on certain facts. I like that historical aspect to Chinatown as well."