"The title of the film refers to “the gods”—in French, le paradis—that upper gallery in a theater where the seats are cheap and the audience boisterous. Throughout the film, we are the audience watching parallel stories in which the world of the stage, presented largely in mime, mirrors the “real-life” setting, itself of course a fiction shown on the screen. Through the obvious theatricality of the stage and the far subtler theatricality of the “real” story, we follow a tale of love, loss, and revenge straight from late nineteenth-century French literature but reinvigorated by the magic of film."

"This clever-enough confection about warring cheerleaders proves that films don’t have to be classics or award-worthy to work their magic. I wish I could say it was James Taylor’s music or Robert Frost’s poetry that soothed my post-9/11 anxiety. But no, it was star Kirsten Dunst’s perky, bouncing breasts that lifted my spirits. Whether ever-so-lovingly hoisted in a bikini top or shaking to-and-fro as she dances on her bed, with ta-tas like hers in our midst, I wondered, could the world still be that hopeless of a place?"

"One more. Let me say Persona, one of my favorite movies of all time. That’s another one that I saw later. I saw it in my twenties, like 20 to 21 or something. It feels like it wasn’t made by a human being, because what it does is like magic. I could never imagine making something of that level. It’s just a beautiful thing of its own, and it blew me away. I don’t know how to talk about it. I love a lot of his stuff, but that one – man – it’s one of the greatest movies of all time."

"Charlie Kaufman wrote it. All of his movies I Love. I have not seen a Charlie Kaufman film I didn’t love. And in the hands of the right director, you know – Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry — when you let them [work on] a Charlie Kaufman script, it’s cinematic magic. Being John Malkovich was at a certain point in time in my life and it stood out against all the other noise that was happening in my life. It left an indelible impression on me and I still can revisit that movie anytime and watch it and enjoy it."

"I think that film, for me, showed me what cooking is really about, in a way that line animation was never able to. It made we want to cook, it made me want to go out to a new restaurant, it made we want to appreciate life, to taste everything, not just food but the air, everything. Frankly, to be able to put that kind of magic back into a film that is targeted for kids is just amazing. That’s all it’s trying to do, is say to kids, “Hey look at the world, it’s an amazing world, did you see that?"

"This was Robert Redford‘s follow up to Ordinary People. It’s just about a small South-Western town that is being taken over by moneyed interests. There’s this beautiful scene in the beginning where this obnoxious pig comes and wakes everybody up in the village out of bed, and everybody is like “Ergh, get away from me you pig.” But actually the pig is a force of great good; he’s just rousing everybody for the morning. There’s a certain poetry and stillness to the picture, and a magic that seems to emanate from the land and it casts a delicate spell."

"I don’t know how controversial it is in Beach Boys fan circles but I really like the Brother years. It’s as if they’ve all spent years with a genius, learning how to do it, soaking up musical know-how like sponges and then just gone for it themselves. There are some great songs – The Trader is one of my favourites, and Sail On Sailor is one of my wife’s all-time favourite songs. I’m drawn to beauty in music. You can put three chords together and it does something weird to me. It feels a little bit like magic."

"I include this quirky novel in my list, because it is a satiric gem and one of the guiltiest of guilty pleasures. Terry Southern was a comic genius (Dr. Strangelove, Candy) who has never quite been given his due. The argument of The Magic Christian is a simple one, namely: There is no limit to what you can make people do, if you give them enough money. Everyone has his price. In this slim volume, Southern illustrates this point in a story that becomes increasingly outrageous and culminates in one of the most absurdly comic scenes in the American literary canon."

"Little Linda Manz’s voice-over is enough of a reason to watch this film. Forget the perfect performances by Richard Gere and Sam Shepard, or Brooke Adams’s twisted damsel in distress, or the way the wheat blows at magic hour making you forget the specter of murder that hangs over it all. I’m obsessed with the fact that production designer Jack Fisk built the farmhouse, which is meant to look as old as time and it really does. Also, while shooting Badlands (the previous Malick), Fisk wooed his future wife, Sissy Spacek, by leaving gifts for her in her character’s drawers. Swoon."

"My mother gave me this book to read in high school when I was sick with malingering cold and missing out on social events. But it was absorbing, unlike any other historical fantasy I’d read. Viewing Arthurian legend through the eyes of the female characters upended my sense of history altogether, showing me that even real world events can be viewed through many lenses. I loved identifying with the enchantress turned crusader. So dramatic! The heart strings it plucked—sexual frisson, jealousy, courage, betrayal, magic power—perfectly aligned with my turbulent emotional state as a restless young woman."