"My favorite of all Fellini’s films, it seems his most perfect and certainly his most likable and affecting. And it’s his most comical, thanks to the wonderful performances of Leopoldo Trieste and, especially, Alberto Sordi, who went on to star in over three hundred films in Italy and is rightly regarded as their greatest actor. Its story also prefigures the theme of three of his later films (La dolce vita, Toby Dammit, and Ginger and Fred), as to the corrosive effect of the new media religion of celebrity. In 1950, the inroads of paganism on Christianity still seemed only foolish when a photo¬-comic-book character almost destroys a Catholic marriage. But already by 1959, the lust for media attention had become all consuming and malignant in La dolce vita, where a journalist goes from one idiotic media event to another, including an imagined miracle in the rain. In Toby Dammit, on a nightmarish TV talk show, the church itself parades in front of the TV cameras; and in Ginger and Fred, about another ridiculous TV celebrity program, it has all become totally absurd, only momentarily relieved by a nostalgia for older performers. Half a century later, the celebrity media religion rules, and there is no end to its reign in sight."

"Mulholland Dr. and Blue Velvet were the two films that had the most impact on me during my college years. This was the first time I realized how cinema can depict our dreams and nightmares. This film represents our deepest fears of celebrity, fame, and identity—and how ambition, greed, and jealousy can make our realities a nightmare. I see it as a cautionary tale of Hollywood, blurring the lines between reality and dreams. "

"Quoting, from memory, one of the many questions posed by the multiple voice-overs by celebrity Marines who lined up to enlist in Malick’s comeback film as though Pearl Harbor had been attacked just days before: “Why is man pitched against man in eternal struggle?” Because it looks so good on-screen? Something to do with Heidegger? Darned if I know, but happy to watch repeatedly in the hope of finding out."

"If all the other books on my list were taken away, the one that would accompany me to the desert island is this small book of inspired poetry by the great Bengali man of letters, Tagore. When translated into English, it won him the Nobel Prize in 1913 and made him an international celebrity. Gitanjali turns the spiritual life into a love affair between the poet and God, a theme that is thousands of years old. In my heart of hearts, I wish I was Tagore."