"This was Orson Welles? last chance to work for a major studio and it was all going quite well until they saw it and didn?t quite get what he was doing. But it?s an audacious film, with all of his usual signature flourishes. Prior to that period, he?d seldom had the opportunity to use the technology the studios had and so it?s an exciting film to see visually. Thematically, it?s very dark. At its heart it?s a Universal-International B-picture, which is what they wanted. Their reaction to it is fairly inexplicable because the movie is extremely entertaining and could?ve been promoted into a solid box-office picture. Instead it was released at the bottom of a double bill and they fooled around with it."

"I typically don’t like Western-type movies that much, but Red Hill. I really enjoyed that. I’m very picky about the bad guy, and whether or not he looks intimidating to me, you know? Like, I saw the I Spit on Your Grave remake, and all of the bad guys looked like soap opera actors that let their stubble grow. They didn’t have the aura of being a badass. And I’m sorry to those actors. They’re probably going to ****ing hate me, but this didn’t come across as intimidating or scary or anything, or even convincing as criminals, whereas this guy in Red Hill was the best bad guy I’ve seen in a long time. Just when he would look, he would look scary as ****. I love a bad guy that really convinces me."

"It’s another one of those movies that just feels so real. You watch those scenes and you’ve got tanks and armies, you know. It’s the first film I saw, as far as docudrama film style — you know, hand-held, very real, in the streets, in the world. And if I’m not mistaken, he only made a couple of films; the filmmaker made it and then he disappeared. He stopped making [fiction] movies. He made one with Marlon Brando and then that was kind of it. But the fact that he pulled off this movie — it’s a masterpiece. I remember watching the movie and feeling like it was a documentary, it felt so real. It’s so amazing. The performances of the actors, everything — it’s mind-blowing when you watch it."

"I didn’t even know when I saw it that Marisa Tomei had won an Academy Award for it, but it makes so much sense ’cause she’s amazing. It’s also my dad’s favorite movie, so I literally had a tape of it. But it wasn’t an official tape, it just kind of had a strip on it that said “My Cousin Vinny.” We would put it on, and me and my grandma and my dad would sit there and just be cracking up. And I really liked it because, you know, I’m from New York City, and you know, he kind of [embodies that]. It’s the perfect juxtaposition between someone from New York City that goes to the south and all the kind of lost-in-translation stuff that occurs."

"When I was in college, first year, I saw it and I really hadn’t been exposed to a lot of European filmmakers. It’s such a ‘film’ film. It wasn’t required viewing, it was just a film playing on campus and I hadn’t been interested in film before then. Nowadays people are deciding to get into film at age five when they’re sitting, watching the Oscars. I really didn’t come out of that culture — I was pretty much a John Wayne fan and that was it. Zabriskie Point was a time when I was in a lot of change and flux and these incredible visuals hit me like they had rearranged the organs in my body. The ending and the free-floating debris and everything is an image that burned itself in my consciousness."

"I saw this opening night, loved the first thirty minutes, phased in and out for the rest. I really liked Alden Erenreich’s performance, the visual effects were top-notch and of course Bradford Young’s cinematography was a wonder, but otherwise I didn’t really feel strongly about it one way or another. Maybe, like most of the world, I didn’t need more STAR WARS just yet – but several months later, whilst on a long flight, I guess I definitely did because I randomly decided to rewatch the opening scene and before I knew it the credits were rolling. Freed of expectations, scaled down to an 8 inch Lufthansa screen, SOLO was a delight. I’m not too broken up about not getting additional young Han adventures, but I could definitely use more Lady Proxima in my life."

"First, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was very important to me. I probably saw that when I was 12 or 13. I really loved acting, and it was the first thing I had ever seen, it felt like, on film where acting just felt alive in a way that I had never seen before. I couldn’t believe how free and chaotic and amazing and human it all felt. Those therapy scenes are just so incredible and special. To be able to have a scene of 15 people where no one is taking you out of it and everyone just seems very vivid. It was scary to me how alive it was but very, very exciting. It just felt like, what an incredible thing it would be to be a part of that."

"This Is Spinal Tap. Let’s put that one on there. This list is gonna get really long in a minute. I mean, I love all of Christopher Guest’s movies, but I’ll put that one up there. I could easily say Best in Show as well. I don’t know, there’s just something about the Britishness of the rock and roll, which has always made me laugh, in a way. It seems to say a lot about the age that I grew up in and just before I came along. At the age I first saw it, I was very right for watching a satire about the ’70s and ’80s and a culture that had just come before, I guess. The performances are so delightful. I also really like Waiting for Guffman. God, he’s wonderful director."

"This is in no particular order, but Private Benjamin. That, I think, is a perfectly made comedy. I usually stop watching when she gets together with Armand Assante, not that I have anything against it, but for me, the movie’s over. [laughs] I thought Goldie Hawn was great, and the people who play her parents, those secondary characters whose names escape me now, do some incredible work. Albert Brooks – I just saw Private Benjamin again for the first time in four or five years a couple of months ago – he is amazing, he is so good. He’s only in the first couple of scenes, and he plays her husband and he has a heart attack on the night of their wedding reception. But it’s a great comic performance by Goldie Hawn."