Writer, husband, etc. Books: Pictures at a Revolution, 5 Came Back, Mike Nichols (now in paperback). Next book in '26. Journalism: Now & then. Errors my own.
Jul 23, 2023 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Here's one way to think about why this movie weekend was so important: It crystallized not only a possibility, but a shift that’s been developing and has become undeniable this year except to those who are actively invested in refusing to face it. A thread. >
The issue is sequels/franchises. No, they're not dead. But they're underperforming. Look at the record: M:I 7 somehow dodged Indy 5's bad headlines, but in the US, its $ performance probably won’t be much better than Indy's--a finish that shows Top Gun 2 had no halo effect.>
Jul 2, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Brief midyear movie-biz thread: It is hard to overstate the degree to which Hollywood is now looking to three movies--Mission: Impossible 7, Barbie, and Oppenheimer--not only to succeed, but to solve industry problems that no three films can solve. 1/
Mission: Impossible 7 is for the "Movies are back, baby!" crowd--the execs who have been waiting since Top Gun: Maverick for the next victory lap and who are holding fast to the belief that franchises and stars, no matter how old or aging, are still a viable path forward. 2/
Jun 28, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Saw a fascinating indie about a trans woman who seeks to reconnect with an old college roommate. He's never unkind to her but he is aloof--he doesn't want to hear about her journey. Then he realizes he's being selfish, and after looking into his heart... >
...he quickly comes to understand that he was punishing her for his own discomfort. He immediately apologizes and tells her he feels lucky to be able to get to know who she is now and to get to know her better, and they resume their friendship. It was called... >
Jun 21, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Some further news about the unwarranted firings at TCM. This is about what happens when someone takes over a company and does not understand that historical stewardship is not just a moral responsiblity but a bottom-line issue. > indiewire.com/features/comme…
You cannot run a media company and make your Year One signature moves the deplatforming of completed work, the dilution of two long-respected brands (first HBO, now TCM), and the dismissal of execs with decades of expertise, talent, and grasp of what they're custodians of. >
Jun 5, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This is an important story by @Helen_E_Shaw, a journalist of unquestioned integrity. I talked to her about its subject while she was working on it, and as you will see, I am in one unhappy sentence. Thread below, for anyone who is interested. 1/ newyorker.com/magazine/2023/…
I want to be transparent about this, for anyone who has read Mike Nichols: A Life. The book contains a small handful of quotes from an interview that the subject of Helen's story purports to have conducted with Mike Nichols. 2/
May 11, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Update: The proper thing for Chris Licht to do now is resign.
A failure this immense happens when you forget that journalism's only allegiance is to the truth, and decide instead that your highest priorities are to have no opinion about anything and to platform lies by calling them "newsworthy" or saying, "But a lot of people believe him."
May 2, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The AMPTP is already foregrounding the WGA's insistence on mandatory writing staffs for TV shows because it thinks it can drum up public anti-union sentiment by suggesting that writers are demanding no-show jobs. Don't fall for it. Writers are willing, eager, desperate to work. >
What's happening is that as streamers replace the 22 (or 13) episodes per year model with 8 episodes every 15-18 months, they're trying to maximize profits by minimizing the role of writers--hiring as few as possible for as few days as possible on as few episodes as possible. >
Apr 28, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Many people assume that any actor they see on any TV show has to be doing fine. Not true. Read thread for more. Lower pay, fewer episodes per season, fewer guaranteed eps, a greater gap between top talent and everyone else. (Hope to see some SAG/WGA solidarity in wks. to come.)
For those who don't know the term, "TOS" means top of show--it's a rate that, as I understand it, guarantees guest actors a full minimum fee for the episode for which they're hired rather than just a day rate for the days they work. Actors who want to elaborate here are welcome!
Apr 18, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Fox just spent three-quarters of a billion dollars to prevent Rupert Murdoch and Tucker Carlson from having to swear to tell the truth.
To state the obvious: Dominion didn't have a patriotic duty to go further. It was defamed, it sought redress, it got a staggering ton of $$ for its efforts, and the discovery process both publicly humiliated Fox and gave the boss a good scare on his way to the grave. Take the W.
Mar 3, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
If you read the trans-clinic "whistleblower" story that the trans-hating right wing (and a lot of people who should know better) seized on, you must read this deeply reported, fully sourced story about trans care for kids at that center. Please share it! stltoday.com/news/local/met…
It's instructive to read journalism about gay rights in the 7 or 8 years after Stonewall. The take from straight Big Thinkers--now they have substacks, then they had easy access to op-ed pages--was: This is all going too fast, serious people must now step in and examine it...>
Feb 16, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
A lot of journalists like to say, "My job is to look at what's in front of me and not be swayed by ideological noise." But no, that's not the job. The job is to look at and contextualize everything--including WHY what's in front of you is in front of you, and who put it there.
In the United States, one major political party is manifestly anti-trans and seeks to warp the issue of gender-affirming care into horror stories of children being mutilated--lies that have a long, deep connection to scare tactics around LGBT "recruiting" and "predators." >
Feb 15, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
As a sometime contributor to the NYT, I hope those at the Times who oversee coverage of trans issues use this thoughtful and intelligent letter as an occasion for reflection and engagement. The paper has long acknowledged that its coverage of gay people... nytletter.com
...from 1963 to 1987 was deeply problematic. At the time, the first instinct of all those involved would doubtless have been to claim they were just telling all sides of the story. But bias can often disguise itself as neutrality/objectivity. This merits real self-examination. >
Nov 28, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
A lot of people are still writing about the movie business as if we're in a horrible pause/dip rather than a new reality that has been in the making since long before covid. If you think things are going to eventually snap back to 2019 conditions...why?
For a lot of us, the communal big-screen experience is a religion. But for many people, it was...something they liked. A basically fun thing that many factors--pricing, convenience, the rudeness of strangers--turned into a net neutral, and that Covid turned into a net negative.
Sep 3, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Random thought: The obsession with Harry Styles' sexuality fascinates me, because it's where a new generation's golden rule--sexuality is fluid, you can choose from dozens of identities, etc.--crashes into an older rule: Tell us who you are so we can decide what we think of you.
To be clear I think the same generation is doing both things & the 2nd thing is tied up in very 2022 issues--is he "appropriating" queer culture for profit or is he "authentic"?--that make an uncomfortable pairing with "Let people be whoever they are." (But they have to tell us!)
Feb 22, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Ugh, this is pathetic. Somebody please save the Oscars from the people who think they know how to save the Oscars. hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-n…
The holy grail of the Oscars has become this imaginary ABC viewer who is eagerly waiting for there to be fewer awards, no old people, no artsy movies, a super-fast pace, and Spider-Man. And I guess the Academy is going to chase that mirage right over the edge of a cliff.
Oct 13, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I've been thinking a lot about the Netflix/Ch*ppelle controversy and it is starting to feel like an important pivot point--not a pivot point about, as his defenders would have it, censorship or "cancel culture" or whatever false threat they're imagining is central. >
What it's about is the desire to keep "They're not real, they'll never be real, don't buy into it" a legitimate side of the discussion of trans people. It's about the hope that "I do not recognize their legitimacy" stays on the spectrum. >
Sep 30, 2021 • 22 tweets • 5 min read
Here's a quick thread about "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," Dreamgirls, and why Jennifer Holliday's thunderous performance on Sunday's Tonys brought some closure to an important piece of theater history. Fans, strap in! Nonfans, mute for a bit! 1/x
Holliday was still in her teens when she was first cast as Effie White. By the time the show opened on Broadway in December 1981, the story of how angry she was when Michael Bennett cut all her songs from the second act between workshops was legend. 2/x
