"I’m going to be honest, since it’s just you and me here. I’d considered this my favorite film for many years. I hadn’t seen it in maybe five. When I came back to Los Angeles after our short hiatus on Jurassic World, I woke up early the first day of pre-production, still on Atlantic time. This movie was on Netflix, so I sat up in bed in a very nice hotel suite and watched it. The movie starts with a filmmaker in bed in a very nice hotel suite, who proceeds to remember his childhood and relationship with a great mentor and friend. I cried for two hours. Straight. It all unpacked right there and then. I got to our production office and my eyes were still red, my voice was gone. My producer, Pat Crowley, sat me down and asked if I’d been on a weekend bender. I hung my head and gave him the least embarrassing of the two available answers. “Yes.”"

"A phenomenal slice-of-life family drama directed by the late Edward Yang from Taiwan that exemplifies some of the great realist cinema that was being made in Asian countries during this time (see Ang Lee). And despite the films having very little to do with each other, I always personally associate this film with In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar-wai. Both films were released here in the U.S. at the same time, and I watched both on the same day. That was a crazy day. I still remember how the air tasted after stepping out of the theater that evening. Also—and I feel I have to mention this—I watched a third film that amazing weekend, After Life by Hirokazu Kore-eda, and it was my favorite of the three (and is one of my all-time favorites). Kore-eda has a nice movie called Still Walking available from Criterion, but I am hoping for a nice edition of After Life someday."