"When I first saw Brazil in the late ’80s, it hit me like a truck. It was such a powerful, bold vision, so joyous in its escapism and so crushing in its ultimate nihilism, that it left my teenage mind in tatters. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d watched but knew it was unlike anything I’d seen before. The impressive (and somewhat sad) fact is that, decades later, I still haven’t seen anything quite like Brazil. It escaped from Terry Gilliam’s brain with such velocity that its power even today is undeniable. I showed it at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles in January of this year, and it still confounded me. I asked Terry Gilliam if he would write a quick intro for me to read out before the screening. This was it: Brazil was made by a bunch of young people who didn’t know any better. They are older and wiser now, but it seems America isn’t. It’s a pity that George W. and Dick Cheney aren’t still running the show. I was tempted to sue them for the illegal and unauthorized remake of Brazil. Just think . . . more people are living my movie than ever went to see it."

"This is going to sound ridiculous because it’s going to sound like I’m doing a bunch of ass-licking but Pulp Fiction. And I shouldn’t hesitate, because it’s good cinema, but… I remember watching Pulp Fiction — whatever age I was, teenage years somewhere — and really struck at the cleverness of it and loving that you can have something as violent, but as humorous and as… I could feel — you know, because I didn’t know him as a person at that point; he was just the director — but I could feel his brain working in the conversations in his head, and his opinions about stuff. The conversations that were like, “I’ve had conversations like that about why you call it a quarter pounder or a royale with cheese.” It was so clever and reachable by me. And I wasn’t a film buff, I wasn’t sort of like a fan about any of that stuff. It just really spoke to me, it was so clever. Then I went back and watched Reservoir Dogs. I think I’d seen it before but I went back and watched it again. But yes, Pulp Fiction was definitely… Actually, it’s cool that I get to say that; I’m happy to be able to say that."

"I was at NYU film school when I first saw If…. The second time was the very next day, when I brought friends and classmates to share this extraordinary movie experience. I have always harbored fantasies of blowing up my high school, but until If…. I never realized that I was not the only one. Obviously If…. was a huge influence on Rock ’n’ Roll High School. In the mid-1980s, I wrote an article about high school movies for American Film magazine in which I opined that If…. was the greatest of them all. A month later, I received a lovely letter from Lindsay Anderson, my hero (I also love O Lucky Man!). We corresponded for several years, finally meeting at the Telluride Film Festival. He called me “a movie brat typical of my generation” for preferring The Searchers to She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. (I treasure his criticism.) Wrapped in a scarf, Malcolm McDowell is as riveting and charismatic as ever in his screen debut. I showed the movie to my teenage daughters, who only know Malcolm as Linderman on Heroes, and it impressed a whole new generation of rebellious teens. If….’s DVD extras, especially “O Lucky Malcolm,” really capture the spirit of the man and the movie."

"There are a few different ways to experience the Twin Peaks franchise. One is as pure vibes—as Brenda Walsh puts it, “it’s not hippie witch, it’s Twin Peaks and it’s very in.” That’s easy to dismiss, but honestly it’s often what gets me to watch. Another way, and this seems to have gotten increasingly dominant lately, is as a puzzle-box mystery-mythology, a more arcane Lost. And that’s wonderful, if only because it encourages a communal conversation to untangle it. But Twin Peaks is also about a teenage girl who was repeatedly raped and ultimately murdered by her father. About how the ongoing abuse shaped her whole world, creating desires and addictions that terrified and excited her, and drawing in a circle of men fascinated by the prospects of saving and/or exploiting her. About how the tortured energy she exuded made the other girls, even her best friend, jealous. It’s a scenario so human and awful that those people—or a viewer—might need a whole fantastic mythical framework just to be able to take it in. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me foregrounds this last aspect. And that’s why, to me, it’s the beating heart of the series."