had made between them and the Coen brothers, who had "made five, maybe six great movies…" at that time. Speaking to Bernard Weintraub of The New York Times in April 1999, the Wachowskis mentioned explicitly that they prepared for their first Matrix production by studying the works of John Woo "and other Hong Kong filmmakers", as well as reading and rereading Homer's Odyssey, and studying the works of John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, Fritz Lang, George Lucas, Ridley Scott, and Billy Wilder. Mark Miller, writing in Wired in 2003, also listed Homer, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and philosopher Cornel West. In an interview with Gadfly in 1998 (after their first movie), the Wachowskis reiterated their influence by or enjoyment of Huston (e.g. Treasure of the Sierra Madre) and Wilder (e.g., Sunset Boulevard and Lost Weekend), and added to these the impacts of Alfred Hitchcock (e.g. Strangers on a Train and Psycho), Roman Polanski (e.g. Repulsion), and Francis Ford Coppola (the Godfather movies, and The Conversation). Ken Wilber has been cited as an influence. The Wachowskis admit to a love for telling multi-part stories. "Because we grew up on comic books and the Tolkien trilogy, one of the things we're interested in is bringing serial fiction to cinema," Lana has said. Lilly says: "We think movies are fairly boring and predictable. We want to screw with audiences' expectations." In terms of themes expressed in their body of work, Lana has cited "the inexplicable nature of the universe [being] in constant dialogue with our own consciousness and our consciousness actually affect[ing] the inexplicable nature of the universe", "interconnectivity and about truth beneath the surface", "the paradox of choice and choicelessness", "transcendence ... transcending archetypal boxes, stereotypes", "race ... an important component" and "gender ... it's one of our most significant cultural subjects". The Wachowskis cited the art of comic book artist Geof Darrow as an influence on the look of The Matrix. Also, they said that Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, and Akira were anime that inspired them, saying "in anime, one thing that they do that we tried to bring to our film was a juxtaposition of time and space in action beats". The Wachowskis cited Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as a major influence for Cloud Atlas. They first saw the film when they were ten and seven, respectively. Lana has most been influenced by 2001: A Space Odyssey,