"Mike Leigh might be my favorite living filmmaker. Topsy-Turvy is perhaps the most generous period piece I’ve ever seen. It is so funny and so filled with period detail and so clearly a film that doesn’t want to stop. It’s purely anecdotal; there’s no real plot. It’s structured around the writing of The Mikado, but really it’s just about the period, and every scene is so rich. As for Naked, David Thewlis’s performance is my favorite male performance ever. There’s nothing like it. It’s a bleak film, but it’s so filled with life and passion and it’s so funny. Leigh is an inspiration but not an influence. I don’t think anyone can work the way he does—nobody has the resources. He spends six months improvising characters and relationships and histories with the best actors in the world, and then he goes off and writes a script. I go to his films just to remind myself what I want out of movies about people. Ultimately I am a genre filmmaker and he’s not, but I’ve always wanted to make genre films that are rooted in character. I go to his films to pull myself a little bit out of genre and remember what it is that makes us care about any story in the first place—the people at the heart of it. But Leigh gets so much credit for his character work and his work with actors that people forget to mention what a brilliant craftsman he is."

"Mike Leigh might be my favorite living filmmaker. Topsy-Turvy is perhaps the most generous period piece I’ve ever seen. It is so funny and so filled with period detail and so clearly a film that doesn’t want to stop. It’s purely anecdotal; there’s no real plot. It’s structured around the writing of The Mikado, but really it’s just about the period, and every scene is so rich. As for Naked, David Thewlis’s performance is my favorite male performance ever. There’s nothing like it. It’s a bleak film, but it’s so filled with life and passion and it’s so funny. Leigh is an inspiration but not an influence. I don’t think anyone can work the way he does—nobody has the resources. He spends six months improvising characters and relationships and histories with the best actors in the world, and then he goes off and writes a script. I go to his films just to remind myself what I want out of movies about people. Ultimately I am a genre filmmaker and he’s not, but I’ve always wanted to make genre films that are rooted in character. I go to his films to pull myself a little bit out of genre and remember what it is that makes us care about any story in the first place—the people at the heart of it. But Leigh gets so much credit for his character work and his work with actors that people forget to mention what a brilliant craftsman he is."

"Number three would be The Breakfast Club, which might be kind of on the nose but you can’t not put it on the list. It’s a great film and you can say it in place of naming all of John Hughes’ films, because we drew so much inspiration from a lot of his. The thing that John Hughes did, which was really the genesis of why we wanted to produce the movie, is that there were equal parts drama and comedy. Now today you’ll see a movie and it’ll be all raunchy — and it’ll be great — but it’ll be just sort of a raunchy fun time. Or you’ll go see a movie and it’ll be really romantic, so it’s all one thing. John Hughes dared to do both, to have kind of a four-course meal, and also he could have young ensembles do it. I love having worked with movie stars but I really wanted to find a bunch of young ensemble peers. The little side note is that all of John Hughes’ kids, in his films, go to Shermer High, and that’s where we talk about having gone to. At the beginning, when you see the yearbook, it says “Shermer High.” That’s the only thing that tips its hat in the movie; everything else is like, we wanted to use some conventions — you know, we wanted to steal a red car, we wanted to have a guy chasing a girl at a party, have a platonic best girlfriend — but with Shermer, we went for it."

"I started playing flute when I was about six or seven and I transferred to saxophone when I was 14. It was mostly just playing trad jazz in the school jazz band and so I'd actually played a lot of jazz, because I was classically trained too, so I'd read a lot of jazz solos. But I hadn't really heard much modern jazz. I started listening to Miles Davis and Charlie Parker at the same time as I started listening to The Velvet Underground and Led Zeppelin. I was completely obsessed with jazz for so many years. That was all I listened to. John Coltrane and Miles Davis were like my bread and butter for so long. But obviously, where there's John Coltrane, there's Wayne Shorter, there's Archie Shepp, Joe Henderson, all these other people, and the same with Miles Davis. Miles Davis I've taken such inspiration from because he's someone that says: you've got to change, you've got to adapt to survive. You can't just stay doing what you're doing, you've got to try and engage with the zeitgeist. He was unique in the jazz world really. The people that came after him, that he brought up musically, if you like - Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Weather Report, Chick Corea - obviously they were very much engaged in the music of the time but Miles was so fearless and iconic, not just as a musician but as a figure in his society. To be young, angry and black was such a unique thing. He was absolutely amazing. I've got so much respect for him."

"I think initially I almost had a resistance to wanting to like Blonde because of how hyped it was, but when I finally heard it I could see through all the hype about Frank Ocean, it was just refreshing to hear. Me and my wife listened to it on a long drive home and we loved it, it was the first time I’d heard him and I thought it was a really cool, really experimental record. I haven’t grown up listening to Hip Hop, I’m kind of rooted in other things, but Blonde really spoke to me and I could really hook onto it stylistically. “It was similar with Beyoncé’s Lemonade, that was really hyped as well, but she did this quite odd record. From what I understand the way it was constructed was editing lots of bits together and that’s how I made my record, from a solo artists point of view it’s a lot more about piecing things together. I found both Blonde and Lemonade really inspiring even though on paper they’re not my genre. “‘Nights’ is a really good song. I really like his subtlety, the way he doesn’t overcook it and I thought that was really different. Blonde is an inspiration for how to make and approach a record. He’s not just relying on a single or four big hits to sell the album or to get the point across. It’s a complete record, it’s got weird little segue-ways and tracks that aren’t particularly commercial, they’re a bit weird and that really spoke to me.”"

"Leonard Cohen’s records were very well produced and orchestrated; this one is produced by Bob Johnston the same guy that worked with Dylan. I really just love the title of the record because it’s Songs of Love And Hate and that puts it all into perspective and kind of defines Leonard in a way, that the music is about emotion . ‘Avalanches’ is such an amazing song. I always loved that song, but I kind of came back to it after I heard Nick Cave’s version of it, because Cave’s version is so intense and brings out all the intensity of Leonard’s version. Leonard’s version is much more understated but once you hear Nick’s, Leonard’s is equally intense without having the electric guitars and the drums and all that. Cohen’s another person I just constantly go back to for inspiration, especially these days as I’m writing more songs on my own and playing more acoustic guitar and getting deeper and deeper into the acoustic guitar. A lot of the Leonard songs are done not just on an acoustic guitar but a nylon string acoustic guitar – a real folk guitar. I just love his atmosphere. Songs of Love And Hate is full of interesting songs that cover a whole range of emotions that folkies were supposed to cover but the idea of covering songs of hate: love and hate are two sides of the very same coin. It’s hard to break his songs down because they’re so enigmatic. That’s the Cohen album I chose this week, but next week it will be a different one."