Movie Playlist: Garth Jennings

Filmmaker Playlist is a new feature on /Film where we ask writers, directors, and stars to tell us their favorite movies of the moment. I've always found the celebrity playlists on iTunes to be interesting. Most everyone in the film business became involved after discovering their love of films. And I always love talking to people about their favorite films. So talking to the people who make the movies about their favorite films just seemed like a natural idea.

First up in the series is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Son of Rambow writer/director Garth Jennings.

"You tend to have a top five that shifts around over the years and certain films go up and down. I definitely come back to a lot of Billy Wilder's films very often. I could watch those again and again and again. Certainly The Apartment is one of my favorite, favorite FAVORITE movies."

"Harold and Maude I think is a terrific film."

"Raiders of the Lost Ark I think is a perfect film. Because I loved Star Wars. Star Wars was the very first film I saw but Raiders of the Lost Ark, oh, whenever I see it, I can't not watch it. It's just perfect and it has such a terrific sense of wonder, and it just has everything I want in a film. And it's got a great sense of humor, and you travel the world... there isn't anything wrong with that film. Those selections are very different, I know. But they're all just big hearted."

Garth later talked a bit about films that terrified him:

"My first real horror film where I remember being absolutely terrified, it was a music video for Pink Floyd's The Wall. Do you remember that? I remember sitting up watching that and there is a shot – Gerald Scarfe's drawings were really macabre and brutal. And he pushes all these children through a mincer. I remember being up for weeks after that. I always had terrible nightmares as a kid anyway. And I remember seeing a clip from the Elephant Man and I didn't know what it was. He just had a bag over his head and a hole for his eye. And he turned around for the camera and that was it. That was another week of sleepless nights."

"But then by the time I got to horror films, I had left it so late because I was clearly not so good at watching them that I got to a point where I couldn't tolerate it. And I haven't gone back because Horror has become more gruesome – more about torture and less about creeping up on someone or creating frightening tense moments. Although I heard The Orphanage is good, and it sounds like I would actually quite like it."

Garth Jennings' Son of Rambow expands to a theater (hopefully) near you on May 9th 2008.