I was a young boy in the early 1980s, and I distinctly remember the dread of the Cold War—the feeling that any minute, now, we would look...

There’s a new Sesame Street documentary on HBO which I absolutely recommend: Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street. Of course I...

I was going through the scans I made of the FSM “physical archives,” looking for something quick and fun to post. I used to have bankers...

Above is a picture I took of my best friend and roommate at Amherst College, Harris Wulfson, at our graduation in May 1996. I wouldn’t...

One of the hardest things to do when screenwriting is come up with a good concept. But evaluating whether or not you have a good concept...

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to give you this YouTube video of an orangutan driving a golf cart, which longtime FSM...

The above screen cap is from a Refinery29 article about a “death doula,” somebody who helps people die (gives end-of-life care). I’ll...

Yesterday I offered to read people’s scripts, albeit with a bunch of caveats that probably discouraged people. I was expecting to be...

I’m a pre-WGA writer looking to break in—like so many of the folks probably coming here from my tweeted invitation. I’ve made a crazy...

A YouTube user named leibniz154 has been posting piano reductions of film cues, including a great many from the Star Wars films. I love...

Here’s a 1990 interview with John Barry about Dances With Wolves for, I presume, a press junket, by a longtime entertainment journalist,...

I want to give a shout-out today to one of my favorite people, John(ny) Bender, and one of my favorite Facebook groups, The Retro Euro...

I watched Being the Ricardos on Amazon and liked it. I always watch and enjoy Aaron Sorkin’s work. He operates at such a high level, it’s...

I just woke up to the awful news that Jean-Marc Vallée has died. See Deadline. I thought Big Little Lies (the first season) and Sharp...

Here’s a good topic for your post-Christmas hangover: “Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?”—the John Barry–Hal David Xmas song...

Hope everybody has a great Christmas! For Jewish people, this is the ultimate day off. Nobody’s working, nobody’s calling, nobody expects...

We were going to visit my wife’s parents in Chicago over the holidays. Omicron put an end to that plan. It would have been our first trip...

You know who is a smart man? Harrison Ford is a smart man. One of the many pleasures of the original Blade Runner is the ambiguity as to...

Just a short note today to refer people to this terrific new article on Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs in Quillette. I think I found it...

I got my new CD player for the computer so I am happily catching up with Quartet Records’ latest releases. So great! Piero Piccioni...

I got a huge package of CDs from Quartet Records and I am so excited to listen to them! But I am waiting on a new CD player to hook up to...

So much bad news in the air, not least of which is the omicron variant of Covid. So today I’d like to give a shout-out to one of my...

UPDATE 3/8/22: Wow, was I grouchy when I wrote the below! So many negative ways to express things. Sorry!!! But for posterity’s sake,...

I’d like to do a little music theory today. Maybe somebody smarter than I am will read this and offer some wisdom? I love James Horner’s...