"[Anything in Ashby’s] body of work is always recognizably him, but it’s pretty elastic. Like Being There is very different than Shampoo in a lot of ways. There’s a little bit of the surreal that can enter in, but at the same time, they’re very grounded and very of their time, and have a certain gritty feel to them. They’re not so clean. There’s a naturalism there that he marries with some very bold moves and even magical realism. [The Landlord] is this movie that not too many people have seen, didn’t have a big release originally, and it’s hard to find on DVD, and doesn’t have the reputation of Harold and Maude and Coming Home. But I kind of think it might be his best movie. Maybe it’s just because it’s so screamingly brave in a lot of ways, and it hits so many issues. There’s so few American movies that touch on class, and this just comes straight at you like a train, talking about class issues, race. [It’s about] this young man who’s born into privilege, struggling with his place. “He is to the manor born,” you know? He has money in his blood, and he can afford to go buy a building where people are living. Just a young man, Beau Bridges, and it’s probably my favorite thing I’ve ever seen Beau Bridges do, too. It’s sort of startling to see him in this role as the golden boy, and you can almost see Jeff Bridges playing it, too. And the fact that this white guy, automatically, just by the color of his skin and the place he was born and the family he was born into, has the ability to be responsible for the lives of all of these far less fortunate or privileged people. [He struggles] with that sense of responsibility and [tries] to reject it and give up that control, but [also] do right by these people. I don’t know, it’s so complex. But [Ashby’s] not afraid to have some very broad comic moments. You know, there’s a few people who can do it since. Like Alexander Payne or David O. Russell, a few other people whose work you can see owe a lot to Ashby."

"I just recently saw Slacker, actually, within maybe the last year and a half. It definitely marked a certain bracket of youth at that time—and more specifically, Austin. But I love the way he captured this lackadaisical, lethargic driftiness, and conversations and characters and life. I love that trick where people are just talking and walking down the street, and then suddenly someone walks out to get something from the mailbox or something and the camera just stays with them and it becomes their story for a moment. That structure totally fascinated me. Even when I was in Seattle in the ’90s, that idea of people just hanging out, and you don’t even know what you’re doing, you’re just spending time with people and talking philosophy, but it’s not really going anywhere. You’re just talking about things to talk about things, and I really identified with that. I’m surprised I didn’t see it back then. I’ve walked around Austin and done nothing and just had some random conversations with strangers and that spirit still exists there, to a certain extent. It’s not what people who are productive members of society would say is a good way to spend time, but I actually think nowadays that’s kind of a premium. I would like more of that in my life at this point, because just the overstimulation and how much information is pouring in constantly is ridiculous and also kind of false. There’s this sense of urgency and importance that we have with time. And a lot of it has to do with technology and the culture that builds around that. But I think a movie like Slacker is hard for people to watch these days. Their attention spans are much shorter, and Slacker is the antithesis. Many of the movies in the Criterion Collection are atmospheric, and sometimes people are like, “I don’t know what to do with this.” But to relax into it and use that as an example of another way of existing, I think, is important. So Slacker both reminded me of a time period and also kind of reminded me of the importance of that way of being."