"This is the most terrifying film I’ve ever seen. It’s a story about a quiet young woman named Carol Ledoux who is a manicurist in London. As the story unfolds we see that she is more and more disturbed and strange. We learn that she is sexually obsessed and actually repulsed by sex at the same time. Her sister and her sister’s lover share an apartment with her, and she’s more and more disgusted by hearing their lovemaking every night. When they leave London to vacation in Italy, she barricades herself in the apartment, and as the days pass she becomes more and more insane. The story escalates, but I won’t tell you the ending. It would spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. This film freaked me out so much that it was a long time before I could stay alone in my apartment—and I must admit, I’m still affected by it."

"I was later than James on Public Enemy, he’d be copying all the raps. You’d go down his house and he’d be rapping ‘It Takes A Nation Of Millions’ to the record, like I’d be singing along to Ian McCulloch, which was really disconcerting - he really nailed it. I guess <>i>Fear Of A Black Planet is the bigger, more obvious album but it just felt like the rap equivalent of London Calling to me. It was really extensive and scattershot, obviously ‘Fight The Power’ was the main point of entry, but ‘Burn Hollywood Burn’ and ‘Who Stole The Soul?’ in particular are some of the best angry lyrics ever written. It felt like some sort of peak. I love the idea of NWA being the nihilistic, horrible Sex Pistols and Public Enemy being The Clash. I always loved those comparisons, and that album reminded me of a time when you thought things were possible. Before you were defeated."

"I like movies like Gone with the Wind, or The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but I’ll actually choose Traffic. When I did not speak the language, I watched the movie sex, lies, and videotape, and I didn’t understand; I thought American movies were always blockbusters, hard movies, with action and male leads. But that film was like pieces of life, pieces of dreams. I did a movie called Nipples, based on my dreams, with different characters coming together…very sexy, and very modern, and very open. I think that’s something that’s very contemporary and I didn’t think a lot of American directors were [that way]. [Steven Soderbergh]’s mind is very modern. I like Traffic because he shot it like a documentary, but there’s mystery, there’s modernity. There’s an unknown danger in it. When the characters are crossing the border — I just like the momentum of life, when people cross each other, when lives cross each other. In that moment of life, what can happen."

"A thriller wrapped inside an enigma, this is my desert island disc, the one I’ve watched
 more than any other on this list. The psychology of the characters is revealed
 slowly and ambiguously. Each time I see the wheelchair (the husband’s fantasy) and hear the sound of the horse-and-carriage bells (the wife’s), and the way
 the two achieve harmony in the final scene, I’m reminded of Luis Buñuel’s ability to
 fuse reality and illusion in his characters and for the viewer. He performs this
 magic in plain view, like the best magicians. This is the film that illustrates that
 Catherine Deneuve is not only one of the world’s most beautiful women but a
 fine actress. Belle de jour is truly subversive in its satiric depiction of middle-
class society, the church, and our social mores. If a ratings board ever understood
 this film, it would receive an NC-17, though there is no sex and little violence."