"Trading Places. Like most people, I don’t love the ending of the movie on the train with the gorilla costume, but I feel like even with that, it’s still a nearly perfect movie. What is it about that movie? Well, there’s a few things. For starters, when I was a kid, I watched Saturday Night Live from a very young age. I was obsessed with Eddie Murphy, and I don’t know why. He captured my imagination. I loved his energy, and he was always such an uninhibited performer on Saturday Night Live, and then later in his movies. I feel like Trading Places is a phenomenal performance by Eddie Murphy as he goes through this kind of metamorphosis, but also, it’s just an insanely funny movie. This image of Dan Aykroyd in a Santa suit, pulling a salmon steak out of his suit, which he’s hid, and he hid a salmon steak in his suit and stole it and ran out in the street, starts eating it, and he’s pulling his Santa beard hair out of the fish while he’s eating it because it’s all getting mashed… It’s genius. So, the physical comedy, the dialogue comedy is top-notch, but also, I think thematically it’s a piece of social satire that I’d love to see more of. I feel like it’s really what storytelling is at its best, where it’s kind of pointing out some social ills. In this case, it’s inequality, it’s corrupt influence, it’s corrupt power, it’s racial tension, racial disparity. It’s all baked into this hilarious comedy, and if you’re paying attention, you’re hopefully maybe learning a little something as well, or it’s just kind of seeping under the laughs, which is the best stuff. Dan Aykroyd’s character kind of… His performance is so great because it goes from really broad and silly to ultimately very humble and human, and it’s kind of like he and Eddie Murphy are playing these characters that have really great arcs that sort of crisscross right in the middle, right? It gets weirdly poignant, and as soon as it’s poignant, then Clarence Beeks will throw someone down on the pavement and just this explosion of physical comedy, and you’re laughing again."

"The thing about Shiny Beast is it features Beefheart having come through a very difficult period. If you look at him, he started off with The Legendary A&M Sessions doing 'Diddy Wah Diddy' and then Safe As Milk with Ry Cooder, which is a great blues album with a bit of pop to it. And then you've got Trout Mask Replica which is one of the wonders of the world, really. I love the myth of it, him locking the musicians up in the house and feeding them hallucinogens but not proper food, of them having to go to the local store to thieve food to keep body and soul together, and Beefheart taking credit for all the music when he couldn't really play and he was surrounded by these musical geniuses - so the myth of it is well deserved. They're all great records but then the Magic Band left him and he got session musicians in and it just got depressing. He wasn't a particularly nice character, he was just hell bent on making records the way he wanted them. For example, there's a story about him firing a crossbow at one of his musicians. That's why Ry Cooder left, he had to dive behind the sofa and then left not long afterwards. [Actually Ry Cooder quit in disgust after Beefheart fell off a ten foot stage at the Mount Tamalpais Festival, landing on the band's manager Bob Krasnow. The singer was on LSD and in a state of shock after seeing a girl in the audience turn into a fish with bubbles coming out of its mouth. It was the original Magic Band drummer Doug Moon who threatened Beefheart with a crossbow, unable to put up with the singer's incessant criticism. Ed] It was Mark Smith who introduced me to Beefheart and it was this album, it was 1977 and I was 16. It was an amazing album and so beautiful. 'Tropical Hot Dog Night' is one of the most beautiful songs you'll ever hear. 'The Floppy Boot Stomp' is so exciting… it just rings like a bell. It has some of the most beautiful and exciting music you'll ever hear and the musicianship is great."