"Number four I would have to say is the best one out of all of them: Aliens. That’s just one of those movies that I think was so well done. It was ahead of its time. [James Cameron] was just ahead of his time — it was so well written, so well acted. I loved the extended version of Aliens because it shows just a little bit more that you don’t see and what they always show on television. The drones shooting aliens, a lot of things like that, which I thought was great. I just thought Ripley was never better — I thought Sigourney Weaver was never better — than [when] she was in Aliens. Now Alien kinda had a slow start; you kinda had to get into it. These guys weren’t really prepared for [the] alien — some kind of breakdown with the crew, [that] kind of like reminded me of a play. But Aliens just kinda jumped in feet first man, and just went for it, absolutely. And by there being so many of the aliens it just heightened the danger that they all faced. You sat on the edge of your seat, you know, scared to death. So, I really love that movie."

"Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece was an international critical and financial success, winning four Oscars. And that was in its truncated, just-over-three-hour version. Included in this set is Bergman’s full version, made for Swedish television. Presented in four parts, it comes in at over five hours, nearly twice as long as the theatrical cut. It’s truly a marvel to behold, intricately detailing every aspect of the lives of the Ekdahl family in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Sweden. As it brilliantly charts a span of several years through the eyes of children, the film is equally detailed with its adult characters’ points of view. Equal parts joyous and tragic. A marvelous and loving tribute to Bergman’s life in the theater. Full of magical realism and stark, painful reality. A meditation on death and a celebration of life. Dickensian in nature (Dickens is said to have been a major influence on Bergman for this film). Truly unlike anything else he ever did. It recalls the great epics of David Lean, which were massive in scope while also being concerned with intimate details of the human condition and its fragility. A masterwork in either version. Watch them both and never be bored for a moment."

"I’m a fan of Ed Norton. He had quite an amazing double act this year with Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel. I remember I read the script of Birdman at one point and I thought it was brilliant, but then when I saw his performance… I mean, it’s wonderful when you’ve read something and when you then see the performance, you go, “There’s no way anyone else could have done that but Ed Norton.” I thought he was very, very good.What I love about Birdman is that most movies — when I see movies and television shows — dramatic things happen, and then people act dramatically, and sometimes you go, “Would you really do that?” Horrible things happen all our lives; we all experience loss and death and trauma. Usually, most people, I think, we just get on with it. We don’t have a whole soliloquy in the middle of something. [laughs] You just deal with life, right? But then when you see Birdman, one of the places where it actually works is in the theater, because people are so dramatic. That’s just the way it is. So it was very true in that movie. Of course, on a technical level, that movie was just insane."

"As I was a young film fan growing up in a VCR-less household in rural England, my access to international cinema was limited to whatever was playing on the (then) four channels of network television. Which basically meant that Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy and Jacques Tati were some of the only European films I saw until I was in my late teens. During a brief art college stint, my eyes were opened as I was exposed to surrealism. First Luis Buñuel’s Un chien Andalou and L’age d’or, but then later, my favorite film of his, the 1972 masterpiece The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Dipping into the history of cinema is an exciting yet overwhelming task for some. When appreciating older works, I like to contextualize by tracing back to them from their influences. So if the work of Buñuel ever seems daunting, know this: he directly influenced Monty Python, and John Landis was inspired by this movie for a classic shock sequence in An American Werewolf in London. I know that has now inspired some of you to watch the film immediately. Buñuel has a fiendishly prankish sense of humor to go along with his endless smarts. If you have never watched a film of his, this is a good place to start."