Chelsea Peretti

“Oh, I saw this. I'm curious. I was looking for female directors and this is, this looks interesting. I've never seen it. Girlfriends, not the TV show.”

“So, okay, speaking of female directors, Miranda July actually went to my high school. Prior to seeing this film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, I had seen her perform live, very kind of, I don't know if avant-garde is the word, but I think it is. And this film to me, look I'm saying film, it's happening, it's something in the air in here. I thought, wow, she figured out a way to capture her voice, but translate it to film. And I thought I'd never seen anything like this. And the way that I hate child actors, and I thought the child actors in this were so interesting and human and strange and I thought that was that was a incredible feat to get such an offbeat voice into a film so clearly.”

“I mean, Trainspotting was like exciting filmmaking, you know. Like, it is so hard to give anything stakes when you're creating an imaginary world. This is stakes up the wazoo, you know.”

“Grey Gardens, honestly, truly an influence, where you go, yes, like there's something amiss, however, should I wear underpants on my head? I've always been told I'm weird, and I think I love anything where that's reflected and it's not me. You feel less alone. Okay, anyway, these were interesting, interesting subjects.”

“Also, that makes me think about Crumb. Did we find Crumb? So, again, in that same vein, Crumb, I kind of just love that this guy was obsessed with big butts. Also, I just love people with compulsive passions, compulsive repeating passions that drive them. So I remember feeling some relief in this kind of representation of a non-waif body type.”

“Okay, Hollywood Shuffle, I've been thinking about a lot lately. I think I saw this long, long ago. When did it come out? Let's see, yeah, 1987. I would have been so young, too young to understand satire that well. I think it's going to speak to me and I love satire and I love satire of Hollywood because it's a dark and broken world.”

“Ooh, Wild Strawberries, that sounds cool. I love strawberries. People are going to just shred me in the comments, what can you do? A remarkable voyage of self-discovery, forced to face his past, come to terms with his faults, and make peace with the inevitability of his approaching death. Thank you, we're all doing that, yeah.”

“Oh, let's see, what was it? Is it 400 or 500 Blows? I always forget. After I made my film, my movie, I was like, oh, I kind of forgot to try to be really pretentious, and I was thinking about Natasha Lyonne and how I feel like she has such a good eye for cinematography, and I was asking, what are some good pretentious films I can watch? And she had recommended The 400 Blows, which is somewhere in here, right? So, The 400 Blows, I was expecting to be like this pretentious shit, whatever. I loved it so much. It's like, as a parent, as a mom... Tote bag. I felt so much empathy for what kids go through in just being socialized and how much it sucks and how much adults can kind of dampen your joie de vivre. Yeah, I'm speaking French in the Criterion Closet.”

“So, I wanted to get something from Elaine May because I was listening to Nichols and May and thinking, again, this comedy still is funny, still holds up. I mean, this doesn't, I don't think this is a comedy, I think it's about gangsters, but maybe has some funniness to it. Anyhow, I want to check it out. I love a female trailblazer, so I'll check that out.”

“And I also want to see, I'm curious about The Blob, 'cause I, again, I'm wondering, could I watch this with my child? Will it be too slow? We'll see.”

“So, I'm always looking for things to watch with my child, who is six, that aren't annoying, basically. And so I literally Googled like 'Criterion kids' in hopefulness, and someone recommended this, The Red Balloon. It's short, which is unfortunate, I wish it was longer, but he loved it. And so it was a moment of peace and respite from the direction that children's entertainment has gone, which is just greatly underestimating children, in my opinion. So thank you Criterion for I think about 30 minutes of peace.”