Have a good one, folks!

I watched the third season premiere of The House of the Dragon, or at least the first half of it...it was getting late... Boy is this a lot to keep track of!

There’s a lengthy and very engaging interview with John Ottman on YouTube courtesy Half a Picture: Good stories!

I am really enjoying Sugar on AppleTV—I am catching up with the first season as it starts its second. The big twist was spoiled for me but it hasn’t detracted from the enjoyment, and might have even helped because I wasn’t thrown for a loop. (I will not say what it is.) Great cast, great L.A. locations, and a great protagonist played by Colin Farrell. Good taste in music too, both the score and needle drops. I am eager to keep watching.

Tuesday the 23rd was the 50th anniversary of the U.S. theatrical release of Logan’s Run. I will always have a fondness for this movie, as uneven as it is. And what a score!

It’s 2026. Sort of crazy to think about. Let’s put it this way: Raiders of the Lost Ark is set in 1936, was released in 1981 = 45 years. Today, Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 45-year-old movie. Wild. My generation, the Gen Xers, have gone through the entire life cycle of our favorite movies, shows, toys dominating the culture. First it was the stuff we loved as kids. We made it unexpected popular via nostalgia in our twenties. Then it became big business in our thirties and for

Years ago I went to see Tron: Legacy with a friend (who shall remain nameless) who walked about after around eight minutes. I gamely stuck it out. I asked later, “Why’d you go?” The movie was lame, but it didn’t seem walk-out-level awful to me. He said that it was as if the logo played for the theater speaker system (which it did)—and then the entire movie happened inside the logo. And yeah, that is what these movies are like. Nothing is real. There’s no gravity, no weight, n

I have created a new blog/community/portal called PROTOCALIA, which is a word I invented to encompass a certain kind of elevated genre storytelling—concerned with the systems created by human beings, and the pressures they put on the individual. It’s simultaneously the thing I want to do most—build an audience to make the kinds of films and TV shows I love—but also the thing I find most daunting, because of the heavy lift involved...and the fact I’m starting from scratch. But

I almost skipped Star City, but I checked it out and I am glad I did, it’s terrific! This look at the franchise’s alt-history space race from the Soviet Union’s point of view is a cracking good Cold War thriller. I never had any particular interest in what went on behind the Iron Curtain, but I always liked Gorky Park—and Chernobyl was mesmerizing. Like Chernobyl, there seems to be a lot of attention to the drab, brown details of Soviet life, and the terror, absurdity and lon

As a born-and-bred New Englander of course I despise all of the New York teams. But I admit I was happy for the Knicks breaking their championship drought. It certainly seemed like a team of destiny. The Red Sox are so lame this year, it’s mystified. They have so many good players but are so dull to watch. And the World Cup is here, which I’ve always enjoyed. I was amused to see that FIFA won’t promote any companies without a direct bribe, so all of the American football stad

I had such a great time at Disclosure Day. Spielberg’s still got it! No spoilers here, so this will have to be brief. What a gift to have a new John Williams score! Screenwriters should study this for one of the all-time great “in medias res” openings. There is a massive amount of exposition built into an opening chase. The degree of difficulty with this is almost off the charts. Spielberg is the GOAT, what can we say? Just for the moving masters alone. Wow. Can’t say much mo

Thanks to everybody who bought from the new FSMCDs.com sale yesterday. We are shipping the new orders asap! Here is a spreadsheet of the current inventory. I am so excited to see Disclosure Day tomorrow for many reasons—but here’s one you might not have thought of. As far as I am aware, this film is set in the present day (or very near future). Since Jurassic Park and its sequel, Spielberg has directed 19 films. Know how many have been set in contemporary reality? Just three:

I saw Backrooms and thought it was cool. For all the talk of Backrooms and Obsession being game changers, as far as the young, YouTube-era filmmakers, I think it comes down to people wanting to see a new movie that’s different and has a cool, easy-to-understand concept. Word gets out that it’s good, and it takes off. I remember when the found footage craze happened, and it was similar: dirt cheap horror movies becoming massive phenomenons. But it was not sustainable indefinit

I’ve been so busy with our Kickstarter that I haven’t had a chance to talk about how much I enjoyed the end of The Boys—and this entire demented, perverted show. No notes! Just loved it. Bravo to everybody involved.

My cousin David Kendall has died at the age of 68. This is such a cosmic injustice. He was one of the nicest, warmest, kindest men I have ever known. I don’t want to sound like I’m from The Manchurian Candidate but he really was such a good person. I was not aware he was ill and I am just reeling. He has a long list of credits as a comedy writer, showrunner, director and producer—and from the outpouring of affection on social media, he was much loved. As a kid, I remember my

Saw this on James Marsden’s back on Your Friends and Neighbors . That wavy diagonal line across his back, under the coat? That’s almost certainly the wire for the lav (lavalier), the microphone. I think I saw a Law & Order rerun a few weeks ago where you could actually see the black transmitting box inside one of the cops’ coats, when it momentarily opened.

I’ve been watching some returning TV series and I don’t want to say which ones (I know that’s annoying, sorry) but it just feels like they’ve gone stale. I find my mind wandering, and checking the timeline to see how much is left. It feels like the series architecture was never designed to go this long—that new crises are manufactured and thus not very interesting. Characters have long, static, sit-down scenes about their huge life dilemmas, and the filmmaking points towards

I wish I understood Tenet . It hurts my head. This video tried to help: I’m still struggling. I do think it’s time to retire the “good guys have to help the bad guys achieve their goals in order to trick them into thinking they’ve succeeded so they really lose” plot. That last Mission: Impossible movie did it in.

I am showing the Star Wars films to one of my daughters (she asked). I don’t want to go blow by blow, but it’s an interesting experience. Especially given that she’s never seen them, it’s a chance to “view them with new eyes.” The first twenty minutes of The Empire Strikes Back reminded me of that halcyon period of Star Wars fandom. At the time, I hadn’t even seen Star Wars —I was three in 1977—but I knew the story from the Storybook, comic books, toys, “movie on record” a

Happy 95th birthday to the one and only William Shatner. Here’s a February 1969 TV interview that just surfaced where he talks about whether the show is about to be canceled (spoilers? haha). The man is a physical freak of nature!