Neon Magazine UK
August ??, 1998
1. Putney Swope (Robert Downey Sr.) (1969)
"I came across it at a video store when I was fourteen or fifteen. I got it because Robert Downey Sr. seemed interesting to me because I'd just seen Robert Downey Jr. in some little movie. I was also having a 'black culture' phase in my life, and this seemed like a real cool movie to watch. When I watched it, it was the first time I realized that you could be really punk rock in a movie. You could do just anything: it didn't necessarily have to make sense. As long as it was funny, or funny to the guy who was making it, it would come across as exciting somehow. It was made in 1969, and at the time, Downey Sr. style was considered to be very odd and very avant-garde."
2. Nashville (Robert Altman) (1975)
"I actually just got a print of this to screen tonight because it's my birthday and that's what I'm going to watch. This film is perfect, absolutely perfect, to me. It's a cinemascope movie, which I love, and so incredibly bold. The long camera takes, the overlapping dialogue, the multi-track recording that he first implemented here. And to have all these stories but still keep you interested, it's amazing. The film feels so natural, dirty and fucked up, but so cutting-edge. Nashville gets me speechless - it's just one of his best. For me, it's right up there with The Long Goodbye."
