"I watched this movie dozens of times as a kid. I could not get enough of Bill Murray at that kitchen table. I don’t think this movie could be made today. Any movie whose story is even remotely similar becomes a joke. But while Tootsie is very, very funny, it is not a joke. Dustin Hoffman’s commitment to his portrayal of Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels turns something that could have just been silly into a grounded and relatable story about the challenges of being not only an artist but also a human being."

"My remaining three I organized by directors because I was like, “OK, there are three directors that I adhere to like gospel,” and so I collected my favorite of each of theirs. The third one being The Big Lebowski by the Coen Brothers [Ethan and Joel], because I think that if you can’t enjoy that movie than I don’t think we could ever be friends. It’s like a rule in my life. There is no way I could ever be friends with someone who didn’t find that entertaining and funny."

"The last one, for me, just in terms of comedy, is This is Spinal Tap. [Laughs] I mean, I love Spinal Tap. When I first saw it in 1984 I was the only person in the cinema at Swiss Cottage in London, and I didn’t know whether it was real or if it wasn’t. [Laughs] It was just so profoundly funny. I think it obviously inspired me personally, in a huge way. I would say that the movies that inspired Anvil! were a combination of Withnail and I and This is Spinal Tap. [Laughs]"

"I do remember talking with [filmmaker David] Fincher. He was telling me about the original one that [Michael Haneke] did, Funny Games, and I was telling him about Hidden. And we didn’t realize in that conversation that we were talking about the same filmmaker. But it is truly, for me, the God of cinema, that just does not breathe a step wrong, and is contemporary life apart from Kieslowski’s time — is Haneke. I looked at that film and I thought it the most thrillingly, chillingly, correctly timed movie that I have ever seen."

"I think I was graduating from college, yeah. It was just so fresh and amazing, and the storytelling, you know, changed cinema forever. I just loved it. And it brought back John Travolta. Every character was incredible, and I loved its really dark sense of humor. Like, literally some of the hardest laughing I’ve ever done in my life was when John Travolta accidentally blows the head off that guy. [laughs] Making that funny is such a feat. The comic sensibility of Quentin Tarantino never ceases to amaze me."

"That’s a film that, for me, that’s one that, even more than Annie Hall, is like an I-know-every-word kind of movie, you know, that I just can’t get over. It’s very comforting to me. It’s one of those comfort films. And it’s also really funny. And it’s one of those movies like… All the things about these romantic comedies and relationship movies or whatever, they don’t even make them like that any more, you know? Except for independent film. Independent film sometimes does, but you don’t really see them."

"Mark Sandrich was the superlative director of Fred Astaire musicals, strikingly more successful at this demanding (though charming) form than the better known George Stevens. It’s very funny, chock-a-block with great character actors, and with wonderful music (Cole Porter) and choreography (Astaire with Hermes Pan). There’s something about works at the beginning of a form or style of cinema, even if rough and lacking couth, that I find more lovable and compelling than that form perfected (which in this case would be the gorgeous Top Hat made by Sandrich the next year)."

"Hey let’s lighten it up a bit shall we? This isn’t even my favorite Albert Brooks movie (that would be the amazing and prescient Real Life) but this is the funniest. Maybe one of the funniest movies ever. I’m not going to try to give written down examples as they will lose a great deal in that process. Just please go get it and watch it. The scene where he takes the Valium and then has to deal with a couple of — f**k it, trust me, every scene is funny and smart."