"I think [Barry Lyndon is] the ultimate movie for men. I think it’s a classic story of how you go through life, and also, for me, it’s Kubrick’s most emotional film. I know everyone accused him of being very cold, but the last movement of that movie is, I think, piercing and just beautifully told. There’s kind of this inevitability of incident that starts happening at about an hour before Barry Lyndon ends. It’s breathtaking in terms of the narrative control along with the visual control of that movie. Even though it’s very different from the [William Makepeace] Thackeray novel it’s based on — the Thackeray book is actually funnier and kinda faster, [while] Kubrick makes it a little more glacial and stately — but it still is a phenomenally beautiful movie made at the height of the great American studio era. It’s really a pinnacle of 1970s American moviemaking. And I think Ryan O’Neal was incredibly poignant in that film. And the music? The sensory experience of seeing Barry Lyndon, you can’t really make those movies anymore. It’s not even in our DNA anymore. I don’t think the sensibility even exists to build movies like Barry Lyndon. And that’s just a huge loss."

"“It’s predictable, but Performance, the Donald Cammell movie, contains one of the great cinema performances from James Fox. Mick Jagger is in there too giving a very good performance, and I know that by heart too. The soundtrack is epic, it’s beautiful, including a great Mick Jagger song called “Turner’s Song: Memo from T” which is a great, great song with some beautiful lyrics. It’s just a film that I have a soft spot for. I always remember watching Mean Streets, which was the first time I ever heard a Stones song in a movie. It was on the jukebox in the club, Jumpin’ Jack Flash was the song, and it was shocking that the Rolling Stones would allow one of their songs to be in a movie. But Scorsese has always had them in there; he’s a man of taste. They have a long relationship, because the Stones don’t use to let just anybody use their songs, you’d never get a Rolling Stones song in your movie. I also enjoyed Shine a Light, I thought it was wonderful. I loved the guests, Christina Aguilera, my god! What is that? She’s got so much talent, she’s so brilliant, and she looks so beautiful. You can see Mick’s face; he looked like he was so happy. Not only is she sensationally beautiful, glamorous and sexy, but also she can really, really, really do it, and the two of them pumping out that song was just beautiful. I’ve never seen a man look more happy or more grateful than Jack White, standing there singing Loving Cup. If you ever want to see a portrait of a young man looking as happy as it’s possible for a young man to look, check out Jack White in Shine a Light. At one point they’ve both got a microphone, Mick’s got one, he’s got the other, but he can’t bear it, he rushes over and shares a mic with Mick, because you know he wants to be able to say, “I shared a mic with Mick.” Then at the end he shakes everybody’s hand, Charlie, Keith and everybody, and if he was a dog he’d wag himself to death. If he’d had nine tails, it wouldn’t have been enough."

"Okay, how about House of Games as kind of the David Mamet representation? You need him in there if you’re gonna talk about con man movies. It’s a movie I love more and more every time I see it. I just think it’s beautifully constructed, and it also really has something on its mind in terms of this kind of dark, sticky psychology of the con and of our human fascination with the con. It’s just a terrific film, and it’s also a lot of fun. I mean, the opening card game scene. That’s got Ricky Jay in it, Joe Mantegna, you know. “I’m from the United States of kiss my a–.” [laughs] It’s one of the all-time great card table scenes in all of cinema, I think."

"I recently was taken to an old cinema in Atlanta to watch this. I hadn’t seen it before, and it resonated with me for weeks: it’s quite preposterous and absurd, but it’s a real picture of alienation juxtaposed with love and growth, and this exploration of losing your visibility even when you’re the focal point. There’s something so stark and brutal about the film. And also to watch it after Bowie’s death, it resonates a bit more, because it feels like there’s a little bit of his soul captured in the movie."