"When people ask me what my favorite movie is, Hoop Dreams is always a safe bet for me. It’s the one that I can say with confidence will always be in my top ten and won’t go away. It’s another movie about family, and it’s also a movie about aspirations, hard work, reality, and not having money. It’s just a beautiful, poignant movie."

"For a comedy, I’d say probably Election you know? Frickin’ Alexander Payne, dude? Come on. Yeah, Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon? So good. The perfect blend of real and absurd. Completely buyable characters… just turned up a couple notches. And these completely realistic scenarios and situations just turned up just a couple notches. Complete believable absurdity. It’s not just over the top."

"I would say Four Weddings and a Funeral, just because I have seen it the most times, and I just love it every time. It’s so funny and charming, and everybody’s great in it. It just looks good. It just feels good. I’d be lying if I put any other movie on top, because that’s the movie I’ve seen the most."

"Switching from that to a small indie movie, a Lynne Ramsay movie called Ratcatcher — I just think it’s a masterful piece of filmmaking. I mean, there’s Taxi Driver, there’s Raging Bull… there’s even — I love King of Comedy. Then there’s Kubrick; the list goes on and on. So there’s many, many, many — but off the top of my head, that would be five."

"As far as the modernists go, this is neck and neck with Beckett for number ten (that’s cheating, I know), but Woolf must win. Like Baldwin, Woolf has made many a top 10 list, but again, there’s a reason: I know of no more gut-wrenching, soaring prose about shared consciousness, mortality and water. Truly a book for the cradle to the grave."

"I was certainly intrigued by this book because of the topic — Malcolm X is a fascinating guy in the Black Rights Movement. However, what really makes me appreciate this book is the top-notch journalism that Alex Haley exhibited, putting together these stories of Malcolm X's. I think about this book whenever I am at Red Rooster, located appropriately on Malcolm X Blvd."