"I think I’ll probably have to go to from Seventh Seal to Seven Samurai. With Kurosawa using the tracking shots, the way he… the energy, just the kinetic energy on screen was amazing, especially with Japanese-style acting, which is very structured and very formalized, which then breaks out, and you’re slashing somebody in half. That is pure filmmaking. I just thought, “It’s just beautiful.” Again, another movie that’s about texture, and it’s a very different texture than you get growing up in America. That began my love affair with things Japanese."

"The Japanese New Wave is almost synonymous with Nagisa Oshima. His film In the Realm of the Senses outraged critics and audiences alike with its many scenes of unsimulated sex. Here he takes similar themes of lust and murderous passion and explores them through the supernatural, crafting a ghost story that puts Japanese society and cultural conventions on trial in a masterful way. Who are the criminals here? Those who dare to pursue their feelings and impulses, or the society that forbids them the freedom to do just that?"

"Ozu! One of my wife’s favorite movies. Good Morning is a sweet and simple story about two Japanese boys who refuse to speak after their parents won’t buy them a television set. It also has a lot of fart jokes."

"A true story, which I love. Edmund de Waal writes the story of his family and the destruction of it through WWII. It’s told through the history of a collection of Japanese netsuke miniature sculptures. A beautiful and moving story."