"I first saw this in Detroit— I was seventeen, it was 1975. We lit up our Colombian spliffs, along with everyone else in the theater, an all-smoking venue. I’d never listened to reggae before. I’d never seen a movie where the hero is last pictured in a rain of gunfire, still blasting his pistol, the immortal prince. I hid my eyes from many of the scenes of cruelty: the sadistic pastor assigned to “care” for our young Ivan, the vicious corruption of the record companies, dope kingpins and government goons—who seem to be one and the same. When Ivan punctuates his overdue revenge strokes with a knife with “Don’t. Fuck. With. Me!”—I wondered if I’d draw another breath."

"I guess it was originally two EPs, put together in one record. I don't have the original versions but the songs all feel like one record and it's kind of them at their catchiest. They were always a little bit creepy. Some of the other things that came out on Ralph Records like Renaldo and The Loaf were wackier but there was a creepiness to The Residents that I found very, very appealing. Do you know Long Gone John, the label boss from Sympathy For The Record Industry? I went down to visit him at his house in Long Beach. This band I was in, Bloodloss, was on tour and we all went over there because he released a couple of our records. We went to his house and he was just a massive collector of crazy rock stuff and also that kind of juxtaposed art, like Robert Williams paintings. The Residents came up and his eyes lit up. He was like, ""Come here, follow me"" and he took us to this back room, opened up a safe and pulled out a copy of Santa Dog their first record. He prized that so much he kept it in a safe!"

"A vanguard film (again). 1957. A great love story. But mostly a work of overimpressive technical virtuosity. Breathtaking crane shots, hair-raising forest sequences (with a memorable rotating low-angle shot of trees dissolving into one another), an amazing and very swift traveling shot (captured from a tram in movement) in which the lead actress dives into a crowd, looking for the man she loves. We follow her, and once she is stopped by a fence, we tilt up fluidly, and end the scene with a great ensemble shot. Superb art direction, superb lighting, with curtains flying in the wind, hiding the face of the actress, partially lit with lightning flashes. A true work of art. Tatyana Samojlova, who won an award at Cannes for this role, is brilliant and touching, and delivers a rather minimalist performance for its time."