"It’s a documentary, but I remember liking Crumb a whole lot. When Crumb came out I would go and see it like three times a week; I would be bringing different people to see it. I’d seen a couple of documentaries before, from Errol Morris or whatever, but that, I mean that one took it to a whole other level as far as I was concerned. I just thought it was the most interesting family I’d ever seen in a movie, really."

"The Daphne du Maurier book on which this film is based is on my summer reading list every year. This film is such a solid early example of feminist horror. It’s an obsessive love triangle between three women, one of whom is only known as “the second Mrs. De Winter” and another of whom is dead. This gorgeous film draws you in with a dizzying seductiveness while at the same time plunging itself into your chest and stopping your beating heart."

"I saw this again at the twenty-fifth anniversary screening at BAM, and I (still) think it’s a masterpiece. Spike Lee’s day-in-the-life in Bed-Stuy feels more bracing and urgent than ever: angry, sexy, and very funny. It’s exhilarating filmmaking, both hugely entertaining and shocking. The ending is devastating. I always think of that image of three guys sitting in front of a red wall . . . the faces of the cops, driving past in slow motion, looking at them."

"Kelly Reno gives one of the three greatest performances by a kid (next to Anna Paquin in The Piano and Victoire Thivisol in Ponette). Watch him be his own stuntman on an island with no hospital, a production with no net. Kelly Reno is a beast of an actor, and then controls beasts himself. The present crop of abs-obsessed, fake-tough actors should tremble before him. Director of photography Caleb Deschanel shoots this movie effortlessly but still drenches it in beauty."

"I sang this song, a capella, at a talent show and won three weeks in a row. As a young African-American woman, I found the lyrics resonated with me, because I was still trying to find out who I was, what I wanted to say and how I was going to make music. Everything she says in the song helped shape my early thoughts. She hasn’t made an album in a long time, but that’s cool — I’ll be here waiting."

"I think it's the most singularly beautiful and sad piece of music ever written. I don't often listen to it - you need to treat it with respect. I've heard some people say that it changes your molecular structure when you listen to it - I don't know if that's true but it definitely does something to you that's special. I wouldn't have appreciated it when I was younger so it's a recent record that I love. All three movements in that symphony are incredible."

"This book is one of those beautiful accounts of a terrible time in our history. His calm and sagaciousness, while witnessing one horror after another played out during his time in three separate concentration camps, is awe inspiring. He speaks to the strength of the human spirit and there is a sentence in the book that made me put it down and think — ‘I stopped asking myself what I expected out of life, and asked myself what life expected out of me."

"Train Station Fight Hero fights with two people are the most fun to choreograph and probably also the most entertaining to watch. This film was a long time in the making – almost three years. The actors trained hard to learn martial arts and it all shows in this scene. Zhang Ziyi’s bagua and Max Zhang’s xingyi are on full display and we incorporated the best moves from each style. It was the perfect culmination of martial arts, hard work, and cinema."

"A late-night friend right up there with Cosmos and Hearts of Space. I’m sure I wouldn’t like this series as much without the Matt Dillon segment (episode three). The camaraderie in the other pieces is great, but the tension of that segment is built in real-time improvisation. The story unfolds right before you—one of the coolest, most magical feelings you can get. I still get really uncomfortable at the fish/trousers part in the Tom Waits episode, though."