"As with Bresson, I could have picked almost any Godard flick. I went for this one because it’s the one Criterion carries that I’ve seen most recently. Also, the filmmaker (who credits himself in this movie as “JeanLuc Cinéma Godard”) could do no wrong in this period of fifteen films in eight years, starting with Breathless in 1959 (though I prefer his most recent, late movies). As is often the case in Godard films, characters in this one come to a bad end. The director has a deep, fatalistic, despairing streak. Truffaut, who conceived the original story for Breathless, described how, when at the end of that movie Belmondo is shot, Godard wanted one of the cops who’s responsible to shout to the other “Quick, in the spine!”—but Truffaut persuaded him it was excessive. While, again, what’s really striking about Band of Outsiders is the sheer thrill of life in it. It’s so pretty and overflowing with life it hurts. Even when the director is boring or a buffoon, it’s moving and happy to see. You feel like he wants you to come out and play with him. It’s inspiring, the way a guy could have Godard’s grasp of cinematic “language” and then just say to hell with it and do whatever he feels like: run away to the south, start dancing, turn the sound off. His sensibility in that eight-year period reminds me of Frank O’Hara more than anybody else. Godard is a great poet—and I mean as a writer, of film reviews, etc.—as well as a filmmaker."

"My number two movie is Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of Murder starring Jimmy Stewart — one of my favorite James Stewart performances. He’s the country lawyer, so all those folksy tricks that Jimmy Stewart uses just really come into play here– ’cause he’s also so bright, you know? He’s the brilliant, folksy country lawyer. And Lee Remick is in it, in the flower of her youth. Bra-less and in Ray-Bans — you know, who doesn’t want [to see] that? And gosh, Ben Gazzara in a really neurotic, strange performance. I think it’s the screen debut of George C. Scott as the young lawyer from Lansing, MI, who takes on this case; and he’s — it’s just brilliant courtroom stuff. Murray Hamilton — who plays the mayor in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws — he’s the bartender, and he’s wonderful; it’s a great turn. And the music: Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, so it’s a great jazz score. The Jimmy Stewart character tinkles on the ivories and he plays a little bit of jazz sometimes as a kind of hobby, so that justifies the score. But that’s a great film — black and white, beautifully shot, underrated. Almost a perfect film."

"[Sidney] Lumet, Dog Day Afternoon. I mean, I don’t know what there is to say about Al Pacino’s performance as John Wojtowicz. But it’s a really complicated, really emotionally messy, but driven performance. Now there’s a documentary about the real guy called “something” Dog; I forgot the name of it [editor’s note: it’s The Dog], but the doc is just as much worth seeking out. It’s almost kind of neat to see it after you watch the movie. But the way that Dog Day Afternoon unfolds almost in real time over the course of one day in Brooklyn. And the John Cazale character. First of all, it’s just a beautiful portrait of an outlier community. The homosexual community at a specific time in New York, and that niche, there were these tough guys. They were going to do anything for their dream, anything – rob a bank. But nothing they do goes right. But watching him get wrapped up in his own ego and the drama of it and the romance; it’s one of the most romantic movies I’ve ever seen. It’s a really, really beautiful film, but it’s devastating. It’s also a very regional film. I love it."