"As a moviegoer, one of my favorite things is encountering a vision that you don’t understand. I love the scenario of this man having visions he has to keep secret from his wife, who’s been seeking out psychics to help access their dead child. That image of the funeral boat going down the canal haunts me. It’s spooky and gorgeous at the same time. I’m drawn to horror movies that treat the genre in an unusual way. And of course, this movie has one of the greatest love scenes of all time—it’s incredible to see that level of intimacy on the screen."

"In regard to acting, I have to mention Secret Sunshine. It has a performance by Jeon Do-yeon that must be one of the most shockingly truthful, harrowing—unbearable, really—performances in the history of film. When I walked out of the theater, I wondered out loud to my wife Cindy if performances like that shouldn’t perhaps be against the law. So naked. Too naked? I will never forget it, and anyone reading this should watch the film. If you can bear to witness such depth of feeling. And it isn’t just acting. It’s the truth."

"While most people tout “The Color Purple,” and rightly so, I love, beyond measure, “Possessing the Secret of Joy,” which is a not quite sequel to “The Color Purple” about Tashi, the wife of Celie’s son Adam, and how something that happens to her body at a very young age shapes the rest of her life. This is the novel that taught me how to write fiction with political ambitions. It is searing and wondrous and painful and every time I read it, the ending wrecks me. And still, I go back for more. That’s how important this novel is."

"While most people tout “The Color Purple,” and rightly so, I love, beyond measure, “Possessing the Secret of Joy,” which is a not quite sequel to “The Color Purple” about Tashi, the wife of Celie's son Adam, and how something that happens to her body at a very young age shapes the rest of her life. This is the novel that taught me how to write fiction with political ambitions. It is searing and wondrous and painful and every time I read it, the ending wrecks me. And still, I go back for more. That's how important this novel is."

"To be found in the When Horror Came to Shochiku set from Eclipse, Horishi Matsuno’s engagingly demented Japanese picture jumbles gruesome crime, supernatural vengeance, psychic twins, mad science, and strange sea story—it may never settle on a tone, but its unpredictability is compelling. Haunted by her twin sister, who was murdered during a pirate attack, Saeko is mentored by a priest whose cool sunglasses conceal an evil secret identity and scars. Other pirate victims appear as living skeletons who inhabit a wreck and bring about the deaths of their murderers, and there’s also a mad scientist with vampire tendencies in the mix."