"#2 is Showgirls. Again, a movie I’ve seen at least a dozen times, and I know that everybody gets it now, but I was a true believer right from the beginning. It is, really, the accidentally funniest movie I’ve ever seen. It never gets any less funny. There’s just something about watching Elizabeth Berkeley in that role, when she’s like flopping in the water like a fish, or when she’s in that club, and Cristal Connors pays her $500 to give Zack a lapdance, and she’s all flapping around on his lap. It’s so cringeworthy, but it’s so funny at the same time. And I’m normally not really a fan of cringey humor — shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm — I can’t even watch those shows because I end up running behind the couch, I’m cringing so bad. The thing about Showgirls, and how earnest everybody was, and how over-the-top it was — I just love that movie. I practically have it memorized."

"It’s so funny, I was literally laughing out loud. I heard it was on Quentin Tarantino and Ed Norton’s list of top movies ever of all time, and I didn’t even know what it was. I’d never heard of it. I heard it was a huge box office flop, and then I saw it and wondered why it isn’t more known. I think people just don’t know what it is or don’t understand the idea. These guys are in North Africa, in these awful situations, with the mafia involved. It was totally over the top. For me, it was so funny. Such a great story, so original, just hilarious. I have very rarely laughed this much in a movie. I have no reason why it wasn’t a huge smash success, in the top five funniest movies ever. It’s Dustin Hoffman — I could make a Top Five just around him. Like Rain Man. Watch that again. It will touch your soul."

"I think, since we’re on Peter Sellers, Being There has always been very, very close to me. I just love that film. I love everything about it. I love what it said. I love his performance and the whole thing of doing the outtakes when Sellers was laughing. There’s a wonderful thing — terrific actor whose name I do not know, he runs the elevator in the mansion there. And at one point Sellers gets on the elevator. The first time he gets on, he says, “This is a very small room,” and it makes the guy laugh. At any rate, there’s one where Sellers gets on the elevator and the actor bricks; he starts laughing before anyone says anything. It’s just that what they were doing was so funny, and Sellers was so funny, this actor bursts out laughing and then composes himself. It’s all in character, and yet it’s all completely genuinely him. It’s one of my favorites."

"What I love about Tati is that the things that are funny are always secondary, not on the surface. In American comedy, you build up to the summit of the joke, and the joke is the central element. But Tati has a unique type of humor that always leaves a place for the viewer. If something isn’t funny for you, you don’t have to laugh, and that’s all right. You might even pass without noticing. The antipode of this attitude for life is American stand-up comedy. Here you are permanently directed—there’s no way out; you have to laugh and there might even exist recorded laughter in case you didn’t get it. Tati is the exact opposite. His comedy just unfolds as things actually happen in life. His situations are so direct and clear, you don’t have to be witty or have a sense of irony or sarcasm to get them; you just have to have a sense of observation."