"My third and final pick is “Grandma,” a comedy about a grandmother and her granddaughter. Her granddaughter is pregnant, she wants to have an abortion. And it’s this very low-key, good-humored… it’s not a movie that tries to be about too much. It’s just about these characters and their situation. The grandmother is played by Lily Tomlin, and [in] this performance she plays this feminist poet and writer who’s just a wonderfully cranky, uncompromising woman. I don’t know, if that is not a great performance, I don’t know what is. And it’s a very underplayed, very controlled performance. The Oscars like to award sort of big, emotional, weeping-and-fist-pounding moments of acting, and there’s none of that in “Grandma.” It’s just such a delight. If I were to give the Oscars advice, first thing I would say is: just lighten up. You know, there’s a lot of really great movies that are funny. And I don’t even wanna get started on the Foreign Language Film category, which is such a mess. The one-film-per-country-rule… Just find the movies from all over the world that are most exciting and most original and find a way to give those some prizes."

"I also loved Madeline L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time.” My introduction to it was by my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Jeness, who read it aloud to us in class, a chapter at a time. Each day I could hardly wait for him to begin reading. I very closely identified with the heroine, Meg Murry, a girl who felt extremely disenfranchised in her world. She was physically awkward – skinny, with glasses and braces and crazy hair – felt socially inept, and was close only to her very brilliant, but very strange baby brother, Charles Wallace. Their father, a scientist, has been missing for some time – and one night the crazy ladies next door (witches, presumably – science fiction witches) prevail upon the children, and their friend, Calvin to “tesseract” through time and space to rescue Meg’s father. When they reach the planet where their father is held captive, they discover that it is a place where there is no free will, and beings are governed by a tyrannical “IT” a pulsing, logical brain that insists on conformity. Meg triumphs at the end, by using her illogical self – her passion for language, her emotional heart, and her tremendous love for her family. She saves them using only her awkward, non-conforming self as a weapon."

"A Man For All Seasons is basically porn for people who love dialogue. Paul Scofield’s brilliant performance. Robert Shaw’s equally brilliant performance as Henry the VII. It’s always appealed to me. I was 13 years old the first time I saw it. Absolutely fell in love with it because it’s wall-to-wall language with compelling performances. And [it’s] about something to me, in terms that I was raised Catholic. So Thomas Moore’s decision to not sign the oath of succession appealed to me as I was growing up because this is a dude who’s martyred for his beliefs and whatnot. And people will always compare that movie to The Crucible for some reason. But I never felt the same connection to The Crucible because in that instance John Procter is just going to great lengths to try to keep his name. Whereas Thomas Moore went to great lengths to keep, what he felt was his soul, intact. By taking that oath it would’ve been selling out on his soul, it would’ve been lying. He couldn’t do it and I always found that insanely admirable and the life one wants to emulate to some degree, without being crazy Catholic at the same time."

"I didn't get into him at all for ages. For years and years I just thought, what is all the fuss about?' I just could not get into it. And then one day someone said: ""Have you listened to Hunky Dory?"". I hadn't checked that out at all. I really got into Hunky Dory. I transcribed and analysed nearly all the songs on it. I got into Low, and I quite like 'Heroes', and Scary Monsters. But there's a lot of stuff I don't like. I could probably list 10 Bowie songs that I think are amazing, and the rest of it I'm not too bothered about. I'm really obsessed with him as a character, as an artist. To me he's incredibly impressive and really exciting, his relentless drive to reinvent himself. Probably one of the most inspiring people I can think of. But musically, it's not quite as abundant. That last album: it's quite weird. I was really into Death Grips, he was really into Death Grips, and Kendrick Lamaar as well. It's an album that owes a lot to those guys, but then it's also got a saxophone player on it. This track 'Girl Loves Me', he uses the language from Clockwork Orange. It's just a brilliant idea."

"When I was first living in Los Angeles. I was in love with a French girl, now my wife, and I became immersed in the way her culture viewed life. There was a different set of priorities at work, a value of simplicity and pure ingredients, both in the food and the filmmaking. This film blew my mind. The cast is all children. It contains one of the great suspense sequences of all time: a toddler climbing out an apartment window trying to reach a kitten while his mother talks on the phone, ignorant to the tragedy at hand. Another vignette follows an older boy teaching a younger boy how to pick up girls. Very French, but so honest and pure. I remember watching the extras on the DVD of A Man and a Woman, another great film. The crew consisted of a handheld Bolex and a sound recordist, mostly natural light. Everything was in the eyes, the body language — just two people learning each other. It informed the way I made Safety Not Guaranteed. Stripped down, but not messy or ugly. Clear and audible sound, like what your ears would capture if you were there. Intimate. Real. The best."