"I return to Polanski’s early films to get excited about blocking and also adjusting the camera in relation to blocking. He’s the master of the camera adjustment. I’ve learned so much about directing from watching his films. Cul-de-sac is like his existential Beckett movie, and it draws a lot from absurd theater. Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby play with genre so brilliantly, upending conventions while honoring them. Macbeth always struck me as one of his masterpieces, and it’s clearly haunted by the Manson murders in a very visceral way."

"I return to Polanski’s early films to get excited about blocking and also adjusting the camera in relation to blocking. He’s the master of the camera adjustment. I’ve learned so much about directing from watching his films. Cul-de-sac is like his existential Beckett movie, and it draws a lot from absurd theater. Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby play with genre so brilliantly, upending conventions while honoring them. Macbeth always struck me as one of his masterpieces, and it’s clearly haunted by the Manson murders in a very visceral way."

"I return to Polanski’s early films to get excited about blocking and also adjusting the camera in relation to blocking. He’s the master of the camera adjustment. I’ve learned so much about directing from watching his films. Cul-de-sac is like his existential Beckett movie, and it draws a lot from absurd theater. Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby play with genre so brilliantly, upending conventions while honoring them. Macbeth always struck me as one of his masterpieces, and it’s clearly haunted by the Manson murders in a very visceral way."

"The Lives of Others would go in there. It’s just an amazing movie. And then he went and did The Tourist, which, I think, got a 20 percent rating on your site. We look at your website quite a lot. But, [The Lives of Others] was just a beautiful film. So many great movies coming out of Germany, like… Well, The Reader was a Stephen Daldry film, but it was all about coming to terms with their past. And also, Downfall was as well. God, I could continue forever because I love movies."

"In Argentina’s ‘dirty war’ in the ’70s, the military government had thousands of activists and political opponents ‘disappeared.’ This novel is about a mother and father dealing with the disappearance of their son. It’s a moving book that also has a lot of dark comedy in it. For instance, the parents accept free nose jobs in exchange for a debt. It also captures the comic absurdity of the bureaucracy of a dictatorship. What’s most interesting to me is, as one character makes clear, the truth tellers in life are so often written off as crazy."

"I really loved The Wiz with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. I remember hearing that Stephanie Mills, who played the part of Dorothy on Broadway, wound up not getting the part. They had to change a lot of the details for the story to make sense for Diana Ross — that’s what got me interested to go see it. And then to see Michael and all the other stars in it. It was also really amazing how they transformed New York City into the fantasy world of an urban Oz."

"That movie is spectacular in so many ways. It has everything a documentary should have: unexpected twists, characters that are flawed and complex and crazy. And the story is told in a way that it feels like a compelling — almost fictional — narrative but its obviously as real as it gets. But there are times when you’re watching it and you just go, “Oh my God, did this really happen? Is this real?” I love documentaries and there are a lot of great ones. I’m a big Werner Herzog fan as well, and Errol Morris."

"I’ll start with Midnight Run. Just one of the finest Goddamn movies I’ve ever seen. Charles Grodin and Robert De Niro. If there’s a better buddy comedy, show it to me, and I’ll shake your hand. It’s so funny. It’s also where I learned what chorizo is. Being from Illinois, not a lot of truck stops serve chorizo and eggs. It was part of my “goin’ out west” legend, like, “One day, I will go to California, and on the way there, I will experience chorizo and eggs.”"

"I’m currently reading Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick. Young Elvis lived in a non-wealthy section of non-wealthy Tupelo, MS and Memphis, TN, and liked to wear a lot of pink, which was unusual in either place. He was kind of a rebel without a cause, but then he found his calling, and the success story is pretty entertaining. His junior prom picture shows a young girl with what looks like a cardboard cutout of the King…he’s just already totally there, and he’s like 16."