Rian Johnson on Annie Hall: “If you look at it, they were fundamentally mismatched from the beginning. All of our relationships—it’s hard for me to point to a relationship in my life that wasn’t a fundamental mismatch. That’s what creates the beauty of it, the bittersweet memories of the relationship. I think it was near the start of the relationship when they’re in the bookstore, and she wants to buy the cat book and he wants to get her these books on death.”

“In Hong Kong, especially in the early ’50s and ’60s, the whole society was tough. Everybody had a tough life. So that’s why when we watched a gangster movie: it was easy to find ourselves. We knew that kind of life. We know how they are feeling. People like to worship the hero. Sometimes when they watch the gangster movie, we know they are all bad guys, but they are also the heroes.”

John Waters on The Wizard of Oz: “To me, it’s about one person, the whole movie: the Wicked Witch of the West. She inspired me. When I first saw the Wicked Witch of the West, I was completely obsessed by her. I didn’t know why Dorothy wanted to go back to that smelly farm, with that badly dressed aunt and black and white, when she could live with gay lions, basically, and magic shoes.”

“…for me, it’s more than the physical effect I like. I would say it’s more like a twist in the way you see the effect. The perspective—it’s like a different logic, basically. What you find while dreaming is that there is a logic, but it’s a different type.”