Film/Filmmaking, Screenwriting, Sketch Comedy, Improv, New York Fucking City, Media Slavery, Converse Sneakers, Upright Citizens Brigade Theater (NYC), England (the country), Sushi, Drinking Like a Fish, Smoking Like a Chimney, Eating Like a Pig, Using Analalogies, Falafel, (Post)Modernism, Vaudeville, Green Tea, Yerba Matte, Cinephelia, Girls with Glasses, Slapstick, Militant Recycling, Politics, Salon.com, (Post)Punk, Lapsed Vegetarianism, Used Bookstores, Armchair Activism, Black Coffee, Drunken Karaoke, The Onion, Comics, Jew Envy, the BBC, New Wave (Movies and Music), Pulp Novels, Diet Coke, Situationism, Dumb Comedies, Texas Hold 'Em, Passing Judgment on Everyone, People Watching, Pretending to Appreciate the Avant-Garde, Carbo Loading, Drunkenly Singing Songs from Disney's The Lion King at the Top of My Voice in Order to Embarrass You, Punching You For No Good Reason, Fucking Shit Up, Kicking Out the Jams, Making Fun of Retards, Throwing Cream Pies, Spraying Seltzer Botttles, Slipping on Banana Peels, Hating Doctors, Hating People that do Yoga, Hating Philosophy Students, Hating Legitimate Theater, Hating (in General), Pissing and/or Shitting on L. Ron Hubbard's Grave, The United States of America (U.S.A.), Kefir, The Boston Red Sox, Stealing the Sunday New York Times, Crossword Puzzles, Shamanism, Chaos Magic
Culturally minded, exciteable nonconformists that love to discuss, argue, laugh, spit, and curse: goofy intellectuals, film buffs, art punks, comedy geeks, nerds, grrrls, writing partners, musicians, stoners, drinkers, eaters, painters, librarians, brains in jars, slackers, weirdos, cultists, and madmen. Fellow filmmakers and actors to create bizarre, spastic movies with me. Also pirates, ninjas, and robots (NOT the evil kind!). And, of course, Paula Abdul and Patrick Swayze.
Someone that wants to build a fort in the woods with me.
Talking Heads, Velvet Underground, Beck, Magnetic Fields, David Bowie, Radiohead, Beastie Boys, They Might Be Giants, Devo, Brian Eno, Flaming Lips, The Beatles, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, Spoon, The Dandy Warhols, Wire, Wilco, Air, Frank Zappa, Aphex Twin, X-Ray Spex, Oingo Boingo, Donovan, Gang of Four, Gary Numan, Sonic Youth, The Shins, Nirvana, Lightning Bolt, Clinic, Beta Band, Johnny Cash, Sex Pistols, The Fall, Buzzcocks, The Pixies, Can, Beat Happening, Joy Division, Minutemen, , Le Tigre, The Ramones, Kraftwerk, Danielson Family, The Kinks, DJ Shadow, Kissing Book, Dr. Octagon, Belle and Sebastian, T. Rex, Nouvelle Vague, Nina Simone, Serge Gainsbourg, ABBA, Of Montreal, Django Rheinhardt, Supergrass, The B-52s, Public Image Limited, The Moldy Peaches, Neko Case, Petula Clark, Yo La Tengo, The Clash, X, The Waitresses, The Slits, DNA, The English Beat, The Jam, XTC, The Fiery Furnaces, The Raincoats, Liquid Liquid, Sparks
2000s
Y Tu Mama Tambien, Wet Hot American Summer, Requiem for a Dream, Mulholland Drive, The Man Who Wasn't There, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Shaun of the Dead, Secretary, Chuck and Buck, CQ, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 25th Hour, Storytelling, Napoleon Dynamite, Sin City, Made, Z Channel, The Virgin Suicides, Amelie, Wonder Boys, Donnie Darko, Owning Mahoney, Ghost World, Bad Santa, Before Night Falls, Fahrenheit 9/11, The Royal Tenenbaums, Punch-Drunk Love, Waking Life, Before Sunset, A Scanner Darkly, 24 Hour Party People, Spider, Bad Education, Talk to Her, City of God, Team America: World Police, The Fog of War, Kill Bill, End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones, Notre Musique, In the Bedroom, Chopper, The Aristocrats, 2046, Grizzly Man, Brick, Borat, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, When the Levees Broke, United 93, Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, Michael Clayton
1990s
Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Velvet Goldmine, Safe, Dadetown, The Young Poisoner's Handbook, Henry Fool, Simple Men, Rushmore, Boogie Nights, Hard Eight, Bound, The Last Seduction, Red Rock West, Trainspotting, The Butcher Boy, The Crying Game The Big Lebowski, Barton Fink, Schizopolis, The Limey, The Player, Short Cuts, Bullets Over Broadway, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Deconstructing Harry, Heavenly Creatures, Crumb, Pump Up the Volume, Macolm X, He Got Game, Clerks, Chasing Amy, Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost, Being John Malkovich, The Spanish Prisoner, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, Kids, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, Mr. Jealousy, Kicking and Screaming, The Road to Wellville, Live Flesh, All About My Mother, Army of Darkness, Flirting, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, The Remains of the Day, Waiting for Guffman, Basquiat, Fight Club, The Freshman, Election, L.A. Story, Billy Fucking Madison, Happy Fucking Gilmore, The Truman Show, Angels and Insects, Six Degrees of Separation, Riff-Raff, A Midnight Clear, Dead Again, Gattaca, Starship Troopers, Defending Your Life, Barbarians at the Gate, Croupier, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, GoodFellas, Cape Fear, The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys, The Filth and the Fury, Metropolitan, Barcelona, I Shot Andy Warhol, Run Lola Run, Flirting With Disaster, Three Kings, To Die For, My Own Private Idaho, In the Mood For Love, Secrets and Lies, Dumb and Dumber, The Insider, L.A. Confidential, The Straight Story, Swingers, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness
1980s
After Hours, The Last Temptation of Christ, The King of Comedy, Raging Bull, Brazil, Beetlejuice, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Airplane!, Top Secret!, The Naked Gun, Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, Withnail and I, How to Get Ahead in Advertising, Do the Right Thing, Drugstore Cowboy, Mishima, This is Spinal Tap, Videodrome, Road House, Roger and Me, Amadeus, Wings of Desire, Stranger Than Paradise, Stop Making Sense, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Sid and Nancy, Repo Man, The Thin Blue Line, True Stories, A Fish Called Wanda, Fast Times at Ridgmont High, The Grifters, Dangerous Liaisons, Blade Runner, Return to Oz, Red Sorghum, Stardust Memories, Broadway Danny Rose, Crimes and Misdemeanors, The Evil Dead 1 + 2, The Unbelievable Truth, Aliens, Blow Out, Raising Arizona, Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, Spaceballs, The History of the World Part I, Gallipoli, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Talk Radio, Salvador, House of Games, National Lampoon's Vacation, Stripes, Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach, A Christmas Story, The Killer, Hard Boiled, The Man With Two Brains, All of Me, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, The Times of Harvey Milk
To anyone seriously interested in David Lynch I highly recommend David Foster Wallace's essay "David Lynch Loses His Head" in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Really fascinating, funny stuff.
Scorsese's After Hours. Kafka in SoHo. His funniest film, and my personal favorite. Bonus points for the scene devoted entirely to discussing Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. Here's to Scorsese, virtually the only New Hollywood director not to suck serious ass in the 1980s.
1970s
The Godfather I and II, Apocalypse Now, Paper Moon, What's Up Doc?, Taxi Driver, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Pink Flamingos, Desperate Living, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Carnal Knowledge, Harold and Maude, Shampoo, Being There, The Last Detail, The Jerk, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, California Split, Brewster McCloud, Lenny, All That Jazz, The Bad News Bears, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Network, Dog Day Afternoon, The Warriors, Suspiria, Amarcord, Straight Time, Chinatown, Slaughterhouse-5, Slap Shot, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Turkish Delight, Sleeper, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Day for Night, The Story of Adele H, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Bye Bye Brazil, Le Magnifique, Saturday Night Fever, American Graffiti, Animal House, Dirty Harry, Harlan County U.S.A.
1960s
F For Fake, The Knack...and how to get it, A Hard Day's Night, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Band of Outsiders, Weekend, Contempt, Masculin-Feminin, Playtime, Mon Oncle, The Wild Bunch, The Graduate, The Battle of Algiers, Mary Poppins, Head, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, David Holzman's Diary, Jules and Jim, The Wild Child, Psycho, Frenzy, Macunaima, Rosemary's Baby, The Manchurian Candidate, Easy Rider, The Producers, M*A*S*H, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Blow Up, Point Blank, Take the Money and Run, What's Up, Tiger Lily?
Ray Brooks as Tolen in Richard Lester's The Knack...and how to get it. Cooler than Marlon Brando in The Wild One and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause combined...plus he's mod so he doesn't even need a leather jacket to be cool.
"I have a plan! Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!" - Dr. Strangelove
1950s
The 400 Blows, Breathless, Beat the Devil, Stairway to Heaven, Vertigo, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Singin' in the Rain, Some Like it Hot, Ace in the Hole, Sunset Boulevard, Touch of Evil, Bob Le Flambeur, Shadows, The Sweet Smell of Success, Le Trou, Touchez Pas Aus Grisbi, Casque d'Or, Paths of Glory, A Face in the Crowd, Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, Imitation of Life, Night and the City, Pickup on South Street, Wild Strawberries, Duck Amuck! and all Looney Tunes (especially Roadrunner cartoons)
1940s
Out of the Past, The Bank Dick, La Marseillaise, Rules of the Game, The Crime of M. Lange, Citizen Kane, My Darling Clementine, Double Indemnity, Force of Evil, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Third Man
"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." -Harry Lime, The Third Man
"If it causes pain, it's funny. If it doesn't, it isn't." - W.C. Fields
1920-30s
Sherlock Jr, The General, Duck Soup, Animal Crackers, A Night at the Opera, M, Metropolis, His Girl Friday, The Awful Truth, Modern Times, Un Chien Andalou, Ballet Mecanique, Entr'Acte, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, The Scarlet Empress, Shanghai Express, The 39 Steps, The Public Enemy, Page of Madness
Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. The vaudeville avant-garde.
Foreigners tend to adore Chaplin. If you are an honest to God American, you love Buster Keaton. Comedy's purest comedian. A prodigy, a master, a genius.
Directors I Love to Hate: Lars Von Trier, Ingmar Bergman, Michaelangelo Antonioni, Alain Renais (Fuck you, European "art" cinema! Frauds!)
The Simpsons (seasons 3-10), Mr. Show, The Larry Sanders Show, The Office (BBC), Alias, The Sopranos, Seinfeld, Black Adder, Twin Peaks, Family Guy, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Daily Show, Conan O'Brien, Da Ali G Show, Upright Citizens Brigade, The State, Kids in the Hall, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, The Twilight Zone, The Ray Bradbury Theater, Tales from the Crypt, Ernie Kovacs, The Ben Stiller Show, Freaks and Geeks, Arrested Development, Wild Palms, Mr. Bean, Disinformation, South Park, Ducktales, 321 Contact, Looney Tunes, Monty Python, Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, MST3K, Liquid Television, Dinner for Five, Chappelle's Show, Reno 911, You Can't Do That On Television, Get A Life, Sealab 2021, Home Movies, Beavis and Butthead, Deadwood, Father Ted, Entourage, Wonder Showzen, The Best Week Ever, Saturday Night Live (1975-79, 1990-94), Law and Order: SVU, Lost, Project Runway, Weeds, Six Feet Under, Stella, Veronica Mars, The Colbert Report, Battlestar Galactica, Frisky Dingo, 30 Rock
(Sherilyn Fenn as Audrey Horne, in Twin Peaks. If I could have sex with any fictional character it would be Audrey Horne. Such a naughty girl...)
Saint Ernie
Novels / "Fiction," i.e. Literary Stuff, etc, etc.
DFW: Infinite Jest/A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Henry Miller: Tropic of Cancer, DeLillo: The Names/White Noise, Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Candy (by Terry Southern!), Vonnegut: Breakfast of Champions/ Slapstick/Slaughterhouse-5, Albert Camus: The Stranger/"The Myth of Sisyphus," Bukowski: Ham on Rye/Post Office/The Last Night of the Earth Poems, Tom Wolfe: The New Journalism, Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full, Elmore Leonard: Freaky Deaky/Get Shorty/Killshot, Would You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver, Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, Philip Roth: Portnoy's Complaint, A Confederacy of Dunces, Stephen King (The Stand, Misery, Four Past Midnight, Different Seasons, On Writing) Erica Jong's The Devil at Large/Fear of Flying, Rick Moody: The Ice Storm, Paul Auster: The New York Trilogy/Hand to Mouth, Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead (yep, i went to college), Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy, George Orwell: 1984, "Politics and the English Language," William S. Burroughs: Junky/Naked Lunch, Dave Eggers: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (McSweeney's), Thank You For Smoking: Christopher Buckley, What Makes Sammy Run? - Budd Schulberg, William Gibson, Labyrinths by Borges, Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451, Picasso at the Lapin Agile by Steve Martin, Hard Case Crime Novels, Harry Motherfucking Potter, The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Nonfiction/History/Journalism/Theory, et. al.
Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century / Dead Elvis by Greil Marcus, Lawrence Wright's Remembering Satan, CAMILLE PAGLIA: Sexual Personae, David Mamet: Three Uses of the Knife, George W.S. Trow: Within the Context of No Context, Robert Frank's The Americans, The Onion - Our Dumb Century / Dispatches from the 10th Circle, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991, "Simulacra and Simulation" by Baudrillard, Catch Me if You Can, Positively Fifth Street by James McManus, Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces, David Sedaris: "Santaland Diaries," Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation" / On Photography, Hunter S. Thompson: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Neitzsche: "The Genealogy of Morals," Berendt: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Sontag and Kael by Craig Seligman, This Must Be the Place: Adventures of Talking Heads in the 20th Century - David Bowman, Antonin Artaud, The Diary of Anais Nin, American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story, Fast Food Nation & Reefer Madness by Eric Schlosser, The Prince of Providence, Breaking Open the Head, Disinformation's Book of Lies
Movie Stuff
Pauline Kael's movie reviews (esp. "Trash, Art, and the Movies"/ For Keeps/ 5001 Nights at the Movies), The Devil's Candy: The Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco by Julie Salamon, The Oxford History of World Cinema, The Late Shift: The Network Battle for the Night by Bill Carter, Tom Gunning's "Cinema of Attractions" essays, Peter Biskind: Easy Riders Raging Bulls/Down and Dirty Pictures, Spike Mike Slackers and Dykes by John Pierson, Final Cut, Cartoons: 100 Years of Cinema Animation - Bendazzi, The Films in My Life: Francois Truffaut, the Faber and Faber Filmmakers on Filmmaking series, Agee on Film (especially "Comedy's Greatest Era"), I Wake up Screening by John Anderson & Laura Kim, and, of course, film critic Charles Taylor! Let me say it again: Charles Taylor is unbelievably fucking awesome. Also, J. Hoberman's Vulgar Modernism. Christine Vachon's Shooting to Kill and A Killer Life
Pauline Kael, the film critic as passionate fan and art philosopher. The funniest, ballsiest writer I ever encountered.
Comics
Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics, R. Crumb, Alan Moore's V For Vendetta/Watchmen, Daniel Clowes: Ghost World / David Boring, Waterson's Calvin and Hobbes, Larson's The Far Side, The Invisibles by Grant Morrison, Sin City by Frank Miller, Brian Michael Bendis: Torso / Jinx / Ultimate Spiderman, Spiegelman's Maus and Maus II
Childhood:
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, Roald Dahl (Boy, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, the BFG, The Witches, Matilda) Avi's Providence Cycle: Something Upstairs/The Man Who Was Poe/The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, MAD Magazine, David Macauley (Pyramid, Castle, Motel of the Mysteries), Chris Van Allsburg, E.L. Konigsberg's From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Tuck Everlasting, A Bridge to Terebithia, Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume, Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Fucking Bad Day, Dr. Seuss: The Lorax, The Butter Battle Book, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Oh The Places You'll Go! (my elementary school principal started crying when she read that aloud at our graduation.)
I also read every issue of Entertainment Weekly cover to cover, goddammit!
All Jews without money and WASPs without power.
"Up Down Up Down Left Right Left Right B A Start."
-Contra Master