Jason Bateman

“All right, I’ve never seen Amores perros, I’m embarrassed to say. A bunch of shame all the way through this Closet.”

“Moonstruck I’ve never seen. Again, completely embarrassed.”

“Here’s another great choice here: Klute. As far as cinematography goes, this is a Gordon Willis project. This guy loves to, you know, keep the fill side real dark. He’s just a master at low-light photography, was, and is a big inspiration for me. You kind of have to watch the stuff I do at night and on your bigger screen, so it’s his fault. Send your letters to him. Alan Pakula is one of our great directors of the past. All the President’s Men is one of my favorite films. He did that one, too, as did Gordon Willis.”

“Stanley Kubrick is someone who, you know, is just a master at how he uses the frame and the symmetry of everything. So this is perfect: Barry Lyndon. This is, I think, all candlelight, I think. I think they had special lenses made for this. And so I’ll bet this particular version tells me all I need to know. I didn’t get to go to film school. Thank God Criterion’s around, you know?”

“So there’s some danger and some crime and some violence in Black Rabbit, as there was in Ozark. I really… There’s a way that Europeans film violence and danger that I admire. I haven’t seen enough of it, and so I’m imagining that some of that is in here. Funny Games I have heard of as something that does it real well in a way that is a bit life-scarring. Michael Haneke. Apparently there’s nothing funny about this. As you can tell by the nice poster here.”

“Being There. Here’s something… Hal Ashby, Peter Sellers, you can’t go wrong. I haven’t seen this forever. Peter Sellers, one of the original kind of no-winking comedy guys. So there’s a lot of pure acting chops in what he does. He never asks for a laugh. You’ve got to pay attention. No jokes. It’s just characters that would be deeply offended if they ever heard anybody laughing at what they were going through and what they were doing or saying. Takes a lot of good acting to do this kind of comedy, the stuff that Hal Ashby did, and that Peter Sellers did. So a must-see-again for me.”

“Shampoo. Another great Hal Ashby, so I hear. I have not seen this one. I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’m going to be an old man by the time I’m educated in film, and then dead and unable to direct any more movies. But at least I’ll be smarter.”

“Here is something… I’m not even going to try to pronounce this brilliant man’s name. But I could get the Blue, White, Red part down pretty good. My father always told me about these films, as something that I need to see and should see. He’s the one that kind of inspired me to go into acting and directing, and he said that I need to see these films. I have yet to see them. I am going to see them now.”