Mulholland Dr. was probably the nerdiest experience I’ve had. Just watching the film and then thinking about it, listening to commentaries, then researching online what other connections I missed and seeing all these deeper themes and meanings, I realized that’s how you can make a film!

This was the first Lynch film I ever saw. That Naomi Watts performance, and the performance within the performance, still haunts me. The movie felt like it was just kind of fucking with me, and I really enjoyed that.

Being John Malkovich was another one of those formative films that expanded my horizons on what film can be, what it can comment on, how many layers you can attach, and how meta it can get. Mulholland Dr. and Being John Malkovich came out around the time when I had already cemented in my mind what a movie was. Then for all that to just blow up in my face was really awesome.