"It is storytelling that is so unexpected and brilliant as to seem inevitable, and that’s the best kind. I wanted to put down my pencil and back away until I learned how to write when I saw this movie. Structurally, it’s insanely sound. Everything that they’re doing is visually ecstatic, and philosophically it could be studied for centuries. It contains every aspect of modern life and religion and philosophy and knows it, and they’re doing something that is very deliberately very heady. But at the same time, when asked what is this movie about, their answer was “It’s about kung fu versus robots.” If it was just that, it would be on this list. But it’s that and everything else."

"A extraordinary document of letters, written by a man in jail under extreme duress, as he resists the Communist regime, trying not to crumble, struggling to maintain his integrity in the face of the physical and mental punishments set upon him. These letters are not particularly romantic in spite of being addressed to his wife Olga, and in many places not even personal, but they clearly show his wit and will to survive, and in the end, they outline the tenets of his philosophy. The fact that we know he ends up as the President of Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic, adds to the pleasure of the reading. The many requests for tea and chocolate strike me as particularly poignant."