Music:
The Strokes, The Rolling Stones, The Secret Machines, Modest Mouse, Everclear,The Early November, The White Stripes, Taking Back Sunday, Dashboard Confessional, Brand New, Fall Out Boy, The Pixies, Thursday, The Who, Jeff Beck & The Yardbirds, Jimmy Eat World, Matt Monroe, Henry Mancini, Neil Young, Pachelbel, The Postal Service, The Band, Bob Dylan, Death Cab for Cutie, Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention, Garbage, The Get Up Kids, Rachmaninoff...
Movies:
American Beauty, Lost in Translation, Ghost World, Ordinary People, Being There, Dr. Strangelove, anything by Jim Jarmusch, Roman Polanski, Gus Van Sant, Tim Burton, David Lynch, Terry Zwigoff, Sam Raimi, Terry Gilliam, Alvin Rakoff, Hal Ashby, Sam Mendes, Stanley Kubrick. Anything written by Alan Ball. Anything with Nicole Kidman. Far too many to name. Mostly films that resist the sterile formulation of Hollywood.
Books:
This Side of Paradise, The Divine Comedy, Candide, The Prince, Mein Kampf, Masters of Light, the ASC manual, Jane Eyre, "Shall I Eat You Now?," The Glass Menagerie, Tender is the Night, Philosophy in the Bedroom, Beyond Good and Evil...
Heroes:
Roy H. Wagner, Conrad L. Hall, John Seale, Lance Acord, Darkman, Dr. Strangelove...