"The title of the film refers to “the gods”—in French, le paradis—that upper gallery in a theater where the seats are cheap and the audience boisterous. Throughout the film, we are the audience watching parallel stories in which the world of the stage, presented largely in mime, mirrors the “real-life” setting, itself of course a fiction shown on the screen. Through the obvious theatricality of the stage and the far subtler theatricality of the “real” story, we follow a tale of love, loss, and revenge straight from late nineteenth-century French literature but reinvigorated by the magic of film."

"What’s the most chilling last line in the cinema? How about “cranial drill”? Followed by an unforgettable sound effect. John Frankenheimer’s nightmarish adaptation of David Ely’s be-careful-what-you-wish-for novel has a weary, middle-aged businessman (John Randolph) buy out of his old life and be transformed into Rock Hudson, only to find that renewed youth isn’t satisfying. A unique, affecting, paranoid science-fiction film noir, with a perfectly cast Hudson doing his best-ever screen acting and the too-seldom-used Salome Jens an extraordinary presence as the girl on the beach."

"A novel that has as its main character an Old Lady who is liberated from the boredom of her secure life at an eccentric home for elderly ladies when given a hearing trumpet — and whose wish to go to the North pole before she dies comes true in the most unlikely fashion — has to be good. Even though she is better known as one of the best painters of Surrealism Leonora Carrington’s novels and short stories have had a strong influence on feminist and fantastic fiction. Constantly entertaining and unpredictable The Hearing Trumpet is infused with warmth and rebellion in equal measures."

"The first time I saw this film I thought there’s no way Tarantino wasn’t influenced in some way by Repo Man when he was making Pulp Fiction. This type of genre mash-up, a film that has unapologetic fun and is blissfully self-aware, is the kind of vibe I am always pulled to as a filmmaker. It's also insane that he made the film—as a student, for no money. The Criterion packaging for this one, with the comic inside, is one of my favorites. I showed it to the distributors when I was packaging A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night."

"This dark, fast-paced novel is a visionary masterpiece. It’s populated by hackers and cyberpunks, Gibson’s creations that have since become fixtures in the electronic matrix. I first read the book in the mid-1990s, when the Internet was beginning to wrap itself around all of us, and I read it with increasing excitement—but not without some difficulty. Gibson doesn’t bother to explain his terms or lead the reader by the hand through the puzzling dislocations of his futuristic landscape. Neuromancer is pulp fiction, but it’s guided by a hip wisdom about a baffling phenomenon that was only beginning to take shape."

"The Twilight Zone. I had never watched it before, and it is so scary and so fantastic. My first advice would be to just go watch it (without) researching it, because the thrill of it is not knowing anything about the show, and then just watching it. It’s basically an anthology series where there’s a bunch of these weird stories, (in which) the world is just a little bit off. And it’s all these different, weird, crazy 30 minute episodes giving you portraits of the world in this science fiction scenario. At the same time, there’s always some crazy, fun twist."

"While most people tout “The Color Purple,” and rightly so, I love, beyond measure, “Possessing the Secret of Joy,” which is a not quite sequel to “The Color Purple” about Tashi, the wife of Celie’s son Adam, and how something that happens to her body at a very young age shapes the rest of her life. This is the novel that taught me how to write fiction with political ambitions. It is searing and wondrous and painful and every time I read it, the ending wrecks me. And still, I go back for more. That’s how important this novel is."

"While most people tout “The Color Purple,” and rightly so, I love, beyond measure, “Possessing the Secret of Joy,” which is a not quite sequel to “The Color Purple” about Tashi, the wife of Celie's son Adam, and how something that happens to her body at a very young age shapes the rest of her life. This is the novel that taught me how to write fiction with political ambitions. It is searing and wondrous and painful and every time I read it, the ending wrecks me. And still, I go back for more. That's how important this novel is."