Pulp Fiction was really my introduction to Quentin. I saw it before I saw Reservoir Dogs, and as a 12-year-old kid, it was the first time that it dawned on me what a brilliant screenwriter can do.

Pulp Fiction was really my introduction to Quentin. I saw it before I saw Reservoir Dogs, and as a 12-year-old kid, it was the first time that it dawned on me what a brilliant screenwriter can do.

Another one of my favorite films is Blue Valentine, and I think that, in a modern sense, it has a lot of the same energy that I experienced when I watched John Cassavetes films.

I was torn between A Woman Under the Influence and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. John Cassavetes is truly one of the masters of cinema.

I was torn between A Woman Under the Influence and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.

I was torn between saying Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy or Mean Streets.

I was torn between saying Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy or Mean Streets.

I was torn between saying Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy or Mean Streets.

And it's just beautifully shot. I love the music. I love the black-and-white, and it's also in the context of the other films that they were making around that time.

“I watched Rebel Without a Cause so many times.” East of Eden too, he tells me, describing how the television at his father’s house was always tuned to Turner Classic Movies. “It seems almost impossible what Dean was doing,” Butler says, “the animalistic power that he had.”