A plug today for my longtime pal Robert Meyer Burnett who is raising money on Kickstarter for a collection of Star Trek essays, The Future of People. He’s over halfway towards his goal, please check out the campaign!

These entertainment conglomerate mergers are so depressing. It feels like we are living in Succession, which I guess we are (and always were). Superman and Star Trek are now owned by the same company. And so many thousands of people are about to lose their jobs. Sigh.

The review embargo has lifted on Behemoth!, the new film by Tony Gilroy, so I can finally say how much I truly loved it. I was lucky to see a press screening in August. Pedro Pascal stars as a cellist in a love letter to movie scoring. He literally records the music to his own flashbacks—it is so cool. The actual music was written by numerous composers including James Newton Howard and Alan Silvestri. You’ll be reading about all of this—including in the virtual pages of FSM O

I rewatched some of Rosemary’s Baby on AMC—to quote Minnie Castavet, “Ugh, ads.” What a masterpiece. I never grow tired of it. When I was learning how to write I was given the assignment to watch it like five times. You have to get over the first watch, when you’re swept up in it, in order to study the details. I could go on and on. Polanski is a genius.

I remember not thinking much of The Lost World at the time—it seemed rather contrived, like nobody was pretending otherwise—but I find I listen to the expanded CD a lot. I always loved the theme, but I feel like I can hear the glee that John Williams found in evoking all the old jungle tropes. He lays down these percussion grooves and then goes nuts with the orchestra on top: You can make the connection between this and Lost in Space, but it’s so much bigger and more sophisti

Writing about The Mandalorian and Grogu yesterday, I am reminded of something I heard (can’t locate where) about the development of Andor. Initially the showrunner was going to be Stephen Schiff (The Americans), and the concept a kind of Butch and Sundance “continuing adventures of” buddy show with Andor and K-2SO—because K-2SO stole the show in Rogue One. Quite a lot of development work was done. At some point they asked Tony Gilroy what he thought—and I don’t want to paraph

I caught up with this on Disney+. Two thoughts... This is what happens when you have a lead who doesn’t show his face and a co-lead who doesn’t talk. You just don’t have the connective human tissue for a feature film. You need the scene where Bond sits down to dinner with Dr. No. Where he seduces the bad guy’s girlfriend. Where he pretends to be the salesman to infiltrate the lair. That’s what makes the action scenes pay-off. And I know they have versions of these scenes, but

Unicorn thumbs way up for Buddy, the demented feature film debut of my new idol, Casper Kelly. In case you haven’t heard, this is a send-up of Barney where the star of the kids’ show is emotionally unstable, prone to murder, and holds the kids (and some adults) hostage in an alternate dimension (sort of like Backrooms, oddly) that consists a banal 1990s kids’ show. The various teasers online withhold the true extent of the violence, swearing and insanity that this movie conta

The new Supergirl was on HBOMax so I was like, how bad can this be? By that measure, it’s not bad at all. Milly Alcock, who I loved in Game of Thrones, is great. Matthias Schoenaerts is a fabulous actor, even under crazy makeup. I think a lot of the bad buzz came from the usual “bro crowd” who don’t like a girl beating up dudes in a movie. It may be that stupid, but that’s where we are. I understand this was based on a well-regarded comic series, Woman of Tomorrow, but it’s n

So sorry to read, just now actually, that Peter Cullen has died—most famously the voice of Optimus Prime. But he had quite the career beyond that. As a Gen X kid, Optimus Prime was up there in wise, trustworthy authority figures—and Cullen’s deep but gentle tones were a huge reason why. It was so cool that they brought him back for the films, instead of recasting with a celebrity as is typical. Autobots...transform and roll out.

I haven’t spoken about this before (I don’t think) but wow, I hope the Paramount acquisition of Warner Bros. does not go through. These consolidations are so bad for everybody except a handful of billionaires.

It’s insane what people make nowadays. Here is a walkthrough of the Discovery from 2001: Nicely done!

Mark Rydell has died at the age of 97. Here’s the Deadline obituary. He made some great movies, and worked with great composers, notably John Williams on The Reivers, The Cowboys, Cinderella Liberty and The River. And On Golden Pond by Dave Grusin is good. His first feature film as director was The Fox, with a great Lalo Schifrin score. R.I.P.

I forgot to mention I saw Project Hail Mary on the plane during last month’s vacation, and thought it was excellent. I liked the score, too, with its sort of galactic hymn-and-world music approach. It’s funny because if this was made in 1983 we’d have a top-five all-time Jerry Goldsmith score, but times have changed and so have audience sensibilities. Lord and Miller definitely have an approach that works, but to think they tried to make Solo full of this kind of jokiness—tha

I find myself bailing on a bunch of TV shows lately. (Sorry, Zendaya. You are a star!) I don’t want to go into it all...in case I’m in meetings one day with the producers...unlikely but who knows? It’s hard to keep the plates spinning, isn’t it?

I watched Pulp Fiction last night, maybe for the first time in its entirety since it was in theaters. One of our college friends was a big Reservoir Dogs fan at the time—I didn’t really know about it—and took us to see Pulp Fiction, and it was right when it was becoming a phenomenon. Yes, it totally holds up, and is a masterclass in holding the audience’s attention with dialogue and human behavior. It’s iconic and full of so many indelible moments. I remember the theater bein

Here’s an interesting interview with the film editor of Tomorrow Never Dies, including discussion of David Arnold and his score: The Brosnan films really haven’t held up, I’m afraid.

Many thanks to Cine Circle films for including our Sky Fighter short film in a new sci-fi anthology called Final Orbit. Their first teaser trailer: More info here. Happy to get more exposure!

I love the original RoboCop—an all-time classic. All the sequels and remakes pale in comparison—because Robo’s storytelling arc is so complete in the original. I’ve long though of Paul Verhoeven as a director with a unique sensibility, but this video essay helped me appreciate what a good technical director he is as well: It’s all in the blocking and the moving masters. And today everything is just shot as coverage by multiple cameras. And get off my lawn!

I saw the Star City season finale, but I was traveling right afterwards, so I forgot to write about it. I loved it! What a great show. Way better than I hoped! Apple has not yet renewed the show and I hope this is not another Counterpart—another chilly/smart show that at least got two seasons. (I was obsessed with Counterpart.) You can read a good interview with the Star City creators at Variety.