"It’s such a modern film and it was really just taking all these risks and pushing the boundaries. When you know the history about it, it’s so interesting because it bankrupted the people that made it. I don’t even think it was that successful when it first came out. It just kind of built up this audience over years and years. It’s so beautifully shot and the music, everything just came together, and Sean Young. That was a defining moment in her career. Perfect."

"The searing regret of having made the wrong decision in life and realizing it too late makes this book as heart-wrenching today as it was a century ago. Wharton’s writing style, too, is fresh and durable—surprisingly modern when compared with that of her friend and contemporary Henry James. Among the most memorable passages are her prose portraits. Her mocking 165-word description of the doyenne of New York society Mrs. Manson Mingott in chapter four is a hilarious classic of the genre"

"I still think this may be the most nerve-racking film I’ve ever seen. It blows away modern action thrillers, doing so much more with so much less. No big effects, no CGI. Just a few desperate men, a few old trucks, a bumpy old road, and tons of explosives. Add in a political consciousness that was sharp enough it was censored out of early U.S. cuts, and a sense of irony that raises this beyond “entertainment,” and you have a thriller unlike anything before or since."

"Bo Widerberg is – like, to a certain extent, Jan Troell – one of the great modern filmmakers who has been least recognized. In a way, he was a Swedish Pialat – another great filmmaker whose international recognition remains problematic – his cinema intensely sensitive, inscribing itself in an osmosis with nature observed with an eye like that of the impressionists. The dry lyricism in this work is also that of revolutionary hopes at a labor movement’s inception, a lyricism also found in another of his films, Joe Hill."

"The granddaddy of all modern comedies, Spinal Tap set the gold standard for the mock documentary. Just like with Stranger Than Paradise, I had an encounter with this film when I was in film school: I drove past the set one day in downtown L.A. and saw the band in their wardrobe walking to the set, and thought it looked like some dumb movie with crazy costumes. Little did I know I was so close to the set of one of the funniest movies ever made."