"Man on Fire, I think what Tony Scott did was ahead of his time, revolutionary. I mean, as far as how he shot it and how he used and maximized his ability to shape a film with sound. He would loop in, like, tiger, animal noises with Lupita Ramos’ scream. He put in a foreshadowing scene, like when we first see Creasy in the cab with the beard, and he flashes to the end when he dies, and then he flashes back to the cab scene, and we didn’t even know. It took me like four times to realize, “Oh, that was at the end!” And just getting introduced to Mexico in that way, how he captured it. How he captured the performances of Christopher Walken and Mr. Washington. It was like an indie film, and then it turned into this beautiful action film in the same movie. To me it was the perfect film. It was the perfect balance of art and commerce. You could sell this thing, but again, like Dances with Wolves, he didn’t compromise anything for the sake of story. Again, how he used language, too., When they’re speaking Spanish, but how he kind of had it where you can read the subtitles — how he did that, and how he mixed sounds and mixed music. I think it’s a perfect film. I love that film. I really do."

"Well, obviously, I would have to say my dad’s movie, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is one of them, for sure. You know, I was lucky in that case not only to see the film and see the first movie where an overtly empowered black power character goes up against the system and survives. That was the first of its kind. But also to see my father insist on working with a multiracial crew. He had women on it, he had hippies on it, Hispanics, Asians, you know, and really bring all these folks together. That was super inspiring, to see that you could take sort of a multiracial, sometimes ragtag crew and make the first overtly revolutionary film in America and win and change the game. Because after that, Shaft came. Shaft was written for a white detective by a guy named Ernest Tidyman, and when my dad’s film Sweetback made money, they rewrote it with a black guy, and they got a young guy to do the music from Stax Records named Isaac Hayes. My dad, when he did Sweetback, had used Earth, Wind & Fire. So that was a super influential movie on me.Easy Rider was one I remember that just seemed to be the Peace and Freedom Party movement, in a way, reflected on screen. [Editor’s note: the Peace and Freedom Party was an organization founded in California in 1967 with the goal of ending the Vietnam War.]"