"I find a lot of comedy from this period to be dated, but I never feel that way about Annie Hall. Somehow even references to psychoanalysis and Marshall McLuhan feel vital. And you’ve got to love Paul Simon as the most unlikely lothario in film history."

"For a period of time, I thought I might only make documentaries. Films like Gimme Shelter had a lot to do with this attitude. Why make narrative work when real life was so interesting? I loved the Maysles approach to filming; I loved the Rolling Stones during that period; I loved the controversy surrounding the film. It still kind of seems like the perfect movie. Anytime this is playing in the theater, I try to see it."

"I saw that film and I don’t like to cry in movies — I don’t think anybody does — just because it’s embarrassing, but I was sobbing in that film. It was such a beautiful story. It was this little film that spoke volumes and emotions were just so real and it just moved me. And honestly, I saw it at a time where I’d grown up loving movies and there was a period where suddenly it seemed like everything coming out was the same and I started getting annoyed and then I saw Central Station and Life is Beautiful within months (of each other) and it restored my faith in film-making."

"Though the film takes place over a short period of time, you feel that the infinite is expressed in that one night. The elegance, the style, the decadence, and the existential crisis of everyone on-screen—all of those elements are so powerful when they are combined. There’s an intensity that can be generated by compressing the time frame of a film, and La notte is one of the great examples of that."

"I am mainly obsessed with the 1920s and 1930s. A lot of this record is inspired by the art, music, and film of that time, like Aelita, which is this 1920s sci-fi Russian film about a woman who lives in space. Their version of sci-fi in that time period was so elegant, beautiful, and minimal because they didn't have the same kind of imagination yet. It didn't become sci-fi in the way we see it now. "

"I love everything about this film—the script’s tone, the color palette, the production design, the costumes. It’s beautifully directed by Ang Lee, and it’s interesting to me that he so richly captured this specific time period in America without having grown up here. He is a master filmmaker. As a young actor, I wanted so badly to be Tobey Maguire in this film. He was so good! I’ve yet to be invited to a key party."

"If the game is a film, then what are the rules? According to Renoir, who like Hoyle could load a deck with the best of ’em, you take a cast that presages Altman’s later operatic ensembles, you take an upstairs and downstairs at war through manner and subterfuge, you take a manor house with a camera that has an omniscient sweep—and you get one very fine film that can tell you more about social politics and film in a single two-hour period than Emily Post or a textbook can in a month or a lifetime."