Patton Oswalt

“With some Sam Fuller, this is an amazing film, Forty Guns. Barbara Stanwyck with a whip, basically leading Gene Barry around by his nose. Fantastic Western. I got to see this back in the day with Sam Fuller and got to see Gene Barry talk about Sam Fuller giving him acting tips which was just, 'Be louder, grab him.' So boom, I'm in.”

“Detour, Edgar G. Ulmer. Look, if I had my way I would just be grabbing every '40s film noir that they had here in the closet, but this, it's 69 minutes long. It is the darkest, bleakest film noir. This, if you want to learn how to do efficiency in storytelling and characterization. Tom Neal, who's perfectly cast because basically his life was paralleling the life of the doomed protagonist in this movie. And then Ann Savage is Vera, maybe one of the scariest film noir femme fatales.”

“John Waters, Female Trouble. I love so many John Waters films, but this is far and above his best. It's still weirdly timely. It is a saga about punk rock and true crime and evil celebrity, and it has the funniest opening 10 minutes of any film I have ever seen. Oh my God, John Waters, forever in our hearts, and you're still alive.”

“I gotta grab an Ozu, and I'm grabbing The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice because this movie actually has a shot where the camera pans in, which for Ozu is like a Michael Bay action sequence. The fact that the camera actually moved forward, it's like, 'Whoa, fuck me up, Ozu.' So strap yourselves in for Ozu going crazy.”

“Le Samouraï, yeah. Jean-Pierre Melville used to walk around—he built his own studio in Paris which then I think eventually burned down—but he apparently used to walk around it during the day listening to the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack to get inspiration for his movies. This is how a French hitman would be. Just, you know, 'I'm ready to die. I'll die before my own victims.' That's how existential I am.”

“Frownland. I love this—well no, I don't love this movie, I'm fascinated by it. I'm not taking it home with me, but I have seen it twice, which says something about me. And I don't know if it's good, but wow, if you want to know what Henry from Eraserhead would have been like in Modern Times, our times, check out Frownland. Don't see it on a date.”

“Pale Flower. I've seen this thing so many times. Amazing Japanese crime film about an ex-gangster who is trying to save a young girl from heroin addiction and he jolts her out of heroin addiction in maybe the most disturbing way possible. I won't spoil it, but the soundtrack of this was incredible with the little clinking chips. He's a gambler and it deals with the gambling houses and this movie is gorgeous, gorgeous. Pale Flower, go find it.”

“Yeah, I'm grabbing the Dekalog box set. Yeah, I am. I saw this years ago over a couple of nights. Like all great art, when you're done watching it, it makes you look at and react to the world differently, and I love that. I love when they can do that.”

“One False Move. This, look, the '90s was an amazing time for films. This is my favorite film from the '90s, directed by Carl Franklin. An amazing Bill Paxton should have gotten an Academy Award nomination just for the scene where he is talking to the two cops after he has overheard them making fun of him and he has to put on this brave face. This is one of the best crime films ever made.”