"I’m going to say Seven Samurai by Kurosawa. I’m going big to start with. I just, I feel like it’s close to being the perfect film. It’s thrilling. It’s adventurous. The action is incredible. The final battle, the rain-soaked battle, is just an absolutely phenomenal feat. When we did The Raid 2, we did a prison riot in the rain. We stopped the rain after about a day or two because it was costing too much money, and so we just shot the rest of it in just wet mud. That was us, modern technology, modern experiences, being able to be actually relatively quite comfortable in comparison. I cannot imagine the logistical nightmare that would have gone into them shooting that sequence in that time on film, so it’s an astounding achievement in cinema. It means something, and you feel something for each of those characters as well. I just feel like Seven Samurai is a no brainer."

"This film was long very difficult to see; it was tangled in legal battles and became mythic as a result. I first saw the film with Les Blank present during his residency screenings at the Maysles Cinema in Harlem. Blank had an incredible ability to blend in with the surroundings and be a literal shadow on the wall or friend on a bar stool while shooting. For this film, he moved onto a boat on Leon Russell’s property and subsequently filmed for the next half-year, only to be told toward the end by Russell that he didn’t like the film and didn’t want it be released. After Blank’s untimely death, his son restored the film and thankfully put it into circulation. I think this film captures a little of what it must have been like during that time: an inexplicable, strange dream. A fascinating film from an inspiring and visionary filmmaker."