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.

Last week I was like, man I really need to start a Substack. So I went to the platform and was like, huh, looks like I already signed up. Then I was like, oh, looks like I already started one and wrote 3–4 columns. Great! Well, here’s a new piece about how dumb all the screenwriting “companies” are.

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

AI script coverage is exploding and I hope people take it with a grain of salt. It’s genuinely useful to get free and instant feedback, but you have to know how to use it. For one thing, there is no reason to use a paid service when you can just use Claude (the smartest of the LLMs) for free or for a basic subscription. I hope people understand that Greenlight Coverage did not actually build an LLM themselves? They just run your script through ChatGPT, with their own “wrapper

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 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

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.

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 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

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

As I wrote before, I’ve been rewatching the Star Wars films by showing one of my daughters (she asked to see them). We got to the sequels and at one point she asked, “Do these movies make you angry?” I think she was responding to my grumpy answer to one of her questions about who was who and what was what. I think the only fair thing to say is that there are some things that disappoint me, and probably disappoint most fans, mostly having to do with the change of directors an

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 read the Scriptshadow blog, and I’m not always sure why. Today he had a mega-rant about The Secret Agent , which is 98% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes . This is somebody who charges like $500 for script consultations. I would really take all these script gurus’ advice with a very large heap of salt.

I have not seen The Bride! I didn’t even know there was such a movie. I loved Maggie Gyllenhaal’s first film, The Lost Daughter . I guess The Bride! doesn’t really work but people sure are laying into it. The vitriol for it seems just so—I guess ugly is the word.

I was very sorry to hear of the passing of Robert Carradine. He took his own life after years of battling bipolar disorder . My friend and I once saw him out at an L.A. restaurant. For whatever reason we introduced ourselves—we’re fans—and I remember him sweetly saying, “I’m Bobby” and shaking hands. He played the ultimate, iconic nerd in the Revenge of the Nerds films, but it was a total performance—I remember in person being struck at how cool and un-nerdy he seemed. The o