"Horrors and desire, death and lust go hand in hand in Onibaba and Kuroneko, a perverse, sweaty double bill from Kaneto Shindo. I saw these two films at age ten, and they did some serious damage to my psyche. Both are perfect fables rooted in Japanese folklore but distinctly modern in their approach to violence and sexuality. As exuberant and exquisite as a netsuke carving, these atmospheric jewels show mankind trapped in a cosmically evil world. The tales seem to fit together so perfectly that they fuse into one as time goes by. Onibaba and Kuroneko make a perfect double bill for the second circle of hell."

"Robert's voice does the same to me as Antony's – it's all about vulnerability and power together. I also love Robert's playfulness in his language, in the way he makes music, and his humour. It's like he makes up his own rules. 

And to think of what he'd experienced: to have been this virtuosic drummer having to change his whole way of making music. He's always taking me on lots of different journeys when I listen to him. He also came to see us singing his songs live once, which was terrifying! But he was so generous and so full of warmth afterwards though, which just as I'd expected from his songs."

"“Redoubt” isn’t Matthew Barney’s finest work (“River of Fundament” would be on my top 10 of the decade list I haven’t bothered to make), but his control of rhythm, editing and non-verbal storytelling is unmatched. I wonder what it would be like if he made one of those Pixar shorts that play before features. As a rule, I generally try not to put movies by close friends on these lists but I’ve known Daniel Schmidt since we went to NYU together and couldn’t believe the leap forward he (and Gabriel Abrantes) made with “Diamantino.” I think these two would be a swell double feature. Speaking of double features…"

"“Redoubt” isn’t Matthew Barney’s finest work (“River of Fundament” would be on my top 10 of the decade list I haven’t bothered to make), but his control of rhythm, editing and non-verbal storytelling is unmatched. I wonder what it would be like if he made one of those Pixar shorts that play before features. As a rule, I generally try not to put movies by close friends on these lists but I’ve known Daniel Schmidt since we went to NYU together and couldn’t believe the leap forward he (and Gabriel Abrantes) made with “Diamantino.” I think these two would be a swell double feature. Speaking of double features…"

"Horror of Dracula. First of all, the match up of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee was so brilliant. They were so great together. Plus, the ending — I hate to say this, because you’ve to see it — when Dracula has Van Helsing at his mercy, and the sun’s come up outside, and Van Helsing tears down the curtains, so the sun comes streaming in, and then takes two candlesticks and forms a cross. It’s just so cool. And I think that’s the first time anybody ever did that in a movie; now they do all kinds of versions of that thing. But I just thought that was pretty brilliant writing."

"In a politically fractious America in which “bearing witness” has been attacked as a motive for art in recent years, emerging writers have nonetheless written boldly across divides of class, ethnic identity, and gender. Outstanding among these has been Anthony Marra, a young American author whose first two books are set mainly in Russia and the former Soviet Union. In A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Marra’s debut novel, three survivors of the Second Chechen War band together in an abandoned hospital. In 2015’s The Tsar of Love and Techno, linked short stories follow various characters’ dreams and dashed hopes from the 1930s to the present, and then beyond."