"We all know the deal: a group of people want to get together and do something simple—see a movie, drink some coffee, eat some dinner. But it never works out that way. That’s what Buñuel did here, but with greater stakes/steaks on the table. Levity and seriousness, the intrusion of the surreal into the upper crust, forcing a single question at the end: would anyone portrayed in the film actually watch the film? After all, each oneiric explosion in it is something the politesse class doesn’t speak of at the table: sex, death, religion."

"After a life of watching silver-screen idols and debonair ne’er-do-wells, this film came out like a punch to the sternum. It showed that film was not simply a convenient vessel for story and adventure but could say much deeper things about us, as if we were shifting pieces on chessboards . . . but also about death, about the Crusades, about fighting or playing for one’s soul. And what comes after it all: a credit scene, starring everyone important in your life? There’s more to it, more to this film than it lets on—and I’ve been thinking about it for years."

"How is it possible that Franz Stangl, a kindly, unassuming, mild-mannered family man and policeman from the small Austrian city of Linz became the commandant of the Nazi death camp Treblinka, where he wore white riding breaches to oversee mass murders of Jews? Gitta Sereny conducts her months of interviews of him in prison—as well as interviews with his wife and acquaintances—with her customary decorum, intelligence, and respect. One of her many outstanding strengths as a journalist is that she is entirely committed to understanding her subjects rather than demonstrating that she and her readers are unassailably superior."

"The nonfictional account of Mary McCarthy's idyllic childhood, cut short by the death of her parents. McCarthy was orphaned by the influenza epidemic that followed WWI; both of her parents died in a flash. She was then raised by her grandparents in Seattle. The wonderful thing she does in the book is to tell what happened, and then to write about what might have happened. It takes 'memoir' to a whole other level. It gives you a shot of adrenaline; it makes you ask yourself, 'What was the transformational moment in my life when my story really begins?'"

"His new album is called Carrie & Lowell, and I love it. I love all his albums, but that one is on another level because from start to finish it’s brilliant songwriting and some of the best production I’ve ever heard. The song 'Death With Dignity' has got that acoustic guitar in and out, left and right side, it’s just brilliant. It sounds so lame but every time I hear that song, it just beats the shit out of me. It just bruises my whole body. It’s one of those ones that’s even hard to talk about because it’s so good."