"And then I’m gonna say… What’s a modern movie that I’ve seen? How about… you know a great movie that I saw was… [extremely long pause] Oh, I got a movie — the one where he goes to the Turkish Prison. Midnight Express. There you go. That movie terrified me. [Laughs] Go to Turkey, but do your hash before."

"The love story is so powerful, the spectacle so grand, that Marcel Carné’s masterpiece (an indispensable Criterion production) isn’t often regarded as a genre piece, though it is inhabited by every kind of criminal and involves an unforgettable murder in a Turkish bath—made particularly ghastly for occurring just off camera. Yet Marcel Herrand’s Lacenaire is one of the cinema’s most fascinating monsters, and his machinations resolve the fate of everyone else, including the muse incarnated by the great Arletty."

"One of my favorite films of recent years is A History of Violence, but I don’t share the notion that we are implicated in its violence. Where is the conflict in seeing psycho killers rubbed out? In Leonard Kastle’s sole film, however, we are painfully implicated. The victims, all defenseless women and a child, are brutally murdered in a context so unreasonably entertaining that we hate ourselves for not turning away. The setup for the most grueling of these murders appears to be an homage to the Turkish-bath scene in Children of Paradise."

"This was spoofing these airport movies that were big in the ’70s. When you watch, there are so many quotable scenes, but one is [where] there’s a little boy who comes up to the cockpit of the airplane, and Peter Graves is the pilot, and he goes, “You ever been in a cockpit before, Joey?” And he goes, “No, sir, I’ve never been on a plane before.” He goes, “You ever seen a grown man naked?” And the kid acts perfectly, acts like he didn’t hear what he said, really, and then the questions get crazier. He’s like, “Joey, you ever been in a Turkish prison?” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the copilot. It is just so well-acted. There are so many jokes – it is jam-packed with jokes. You won’t ever forget Airplane!; [it’s] one of the best comedies I’ve ever seen in my life."