"Wanda was my mentor and has such a sharp, vicious, lyrical voice, her poems almost come off the page and sing to you. I revisit this book often. Wanda was and is considered the voice of Los Angeles. She wrote about everything from growing up in the tough neighborhood of Watts California, to writing for a soap opera, to the objectification and marginalization of not only being a woman, but a woman of color."

"I’m going to go with Murmur of the Heart, the Louis Malle film. That’s one that I’ve seen in the last couple years that has become a new favorite. It’s about a little boy growing up and his love for his mother and the complication of being a child and becoming an adult and living in that liminal space. That movie really broke my heart and surprised me in just one hundred ways."

"The reality is, the movies that were most impactful to me growing up, when I decided I wanted to make movies, I was going to see Woody Allen double features with my brother, back when they had double features. Younger audiences today, they don’t even know what that word means. But they would show two Woody Allen movies back to back. Bananas. Take the Money and Run, that era of Woody Allen."

"This is my favorite Fellini movie. It’s so fun and sweet and bold and effortlessly weird. You feel this young filmmaker surprising himself. It also captures the claustrophobic yet epic feeling of growing up in a small town and hanging out with your childhood friends all the time. And the whole carnival sequence is so great . . . especially the aftermath, when Alberto Sordi is wandering around the town square at dawn dragging an oversize clown head."

"I loved the book. I’m probably one of those readers who judges movie adaptations far too harshly, but I was very excited to see the movie and when it came out, not disappointed at all. So incredible. I loved Logan Lerman, and Ezra and Emma as well. The cinematography, the acting, everything was just spectacular. A special film, especially to teenagers growing up in this world and finding out completely who you are."