"The masterpiece. I keep an American Cinematheque membership; they do an amazing job of regularly screening classics (including many from the Criterion Collection) at two great theaters in LA. Bronwyn and I had the privilege of attending their screening of Seven Samurai at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica last year. Seeing this on the big screen, among the more talked-about aspects of this film, the unexpected humor really shines. It was the shortest, most engaging three and a half hours I’ve ever spent in a theater."

"I think I’ll probably have to go to from Seventh Seal to Seven Samurai. With Kurosawa using the tracking shots, the way he… the energy, just the kinetic energy on screen was amazing, especially with Japanese-style acting, which is very structured and very formalized, which then breaks out, and you’re slashing somebody in half. That is pure filmmaking. I just thought, “It’s just beautiful.” Again, another movie that’s about texture, and it’s a very different texture than you get growing up in America. That began my love affair with things Japanese."

"Most people don’t want to hear about the weird dream you had. It may be interesting or bewildering to you, but really no one else cares. I would say that unless you’re Akira Kurosawa and can get Martin Scorsese to play van Gogh in the weird dream you had about van Gogh, you should knock it off because you’re only losing friends. This whole list could have been Kurosawa films. Tied with (in preferential order): Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Rashomon, High and Low, Throne of Blood, Ran, Stray Dog, Yojimbo, Red Beard"

"[Akira] Kurosawa’s Rashomon. I mean, any Kurosawa blows my mind out my ass. We did a production of Rashomon that was actually a play. We did that at my college. We had this amazing sword teacher named Robin McFarquhar, and that was one of his big triumphs, was this production of Rashomon. It’s such a cool play, because you do it four times in a row, and you get everybody’s perspective. You know, one time the samurai is brave, one time he’s a coward. It’s really delicious for the actors."

"I also related to [Yojimbo] too because he’s a samurai who doesn’t really have to give a f— — forgive my French — but he doesn’t really care. He has [some of] the morals that I do in the sense that… Kurosawa is brilliant. He doesn’t really come out and let the audience know what Yojimbo’s doing. You almost wonder if he’s immoral because he’s killing all these folks and you’re not sure why until the end. At the end of the second act, you’ll see. You realize that both sides are evil, the whole town is evil. He wants to kind of annihilate all of them [laughing]."