Some would say that a 15-year-old boy should not be allowed to watch Blue Velvet. Did doing so forever warp me? Yes, it did and my eternal thanks go out to David Lynch.

To follow that up with Twin Peaks, a television series that showed what the medium was capable of cemented his reputation in my book. And just when he was in danger of becoming a parody of creepy pretentiousness, the genuine warmth of The Straight Story earned tears.

"It's a strange world, isn't it?"

I could devote pages and pages to actors I admire but the ones who really excite me are those with range and Sigourney Weaver is astonishing.

She's a delightful comedian (Galaxy Quest, Jeffrey), a riveting dramatic actor (Death and the Maiden, A Map of the World) and an intense action hero (the Alien series).

Find another actor who can do all that, I dare you.

You might say Kevin Kline but, despite being the only watchable person in Wild Wild West, he's yet to make a decent popcorn action film.

Why care, however, when he continually excels in both drama (The Ice Storm, Sophie's Choice) and comedy (A Fish Called Wanda, In & Out).

Is it any surprise that he and Sigourney Weaver have worked together in both?

Ang Lee is the director equivalent to Weaver and Kline, a man with an astonishing range of styles in his filmography: the bittersweet modern comedy of The Wedding Banquet; Jane Austen's England in Sense and Sensibility; the spiky emotional terrain of The Ice Storm; the martial arts romance of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

An exhausting list -- and I've skipped many, like the Civil War picture. Lee is apparently a director capable of anything and I for one can't wait to see what genre he tackles next.

I guess everything I said about admiring actors with range must now be taken with a bit of skepticism because I've always appreciated Harrison Ford for his lack of range.

I could just say he's a childhood hero, thanks to Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and leave it at that but no, Ford continuously displays a calm, solid dignity combined with a wry wit and that's a combination I'm always happy to see.

Take those qualities I just described and add in a lifetime of stage acting, elegance and a hint of flamboyance and you've got Ian McKellen, whose performance in Gods and Monsters left me speechless.

Having first noticed him in one of my favourite films, Six Degrees of Separation, I've been thrilled to watch him bring gravity and grace to movies like X-Men which would have been sillier otherwise.

Oh, and he's openly gay in a business that says an actor could never be without losing his career. Good work, Sir Ian.

I await each new Tim Burton film with the glee of a manic child, which is OK because he seems to direct them with that same glee.

The giddy weirdness of Pee Wee's Big Adventure made me an instant fan and the unexpected emotional impact of Edward Scissorhands made me a lifelong one.

I particularly like the way he inspires others to work with him repeatedly, producing eccentric and intriguing performances from Johnny Depp and Jack Nicholson and the strange and wondrous music of Danny Elfman.

Martin Scorsese is arguably the most revered director working today and part of that may be because he himself loves movies, especially, he says, films "that colored my dreams, that changed my perceptions and even my life in some cases." I've felt that way myself and would include a couple of his own films in that category.

Scorsese's films wrestle with morality, whether in gritty dramas like Taxi Driver and Goodfellas or the spiritual explorations of Kundun and The Last Temptation of Christ. The latter is a movie so resonant, it almost made me a Catholic again. I can think of no better compliment.