I get all the white people not connecting w/EEAAO on an emotional level. As I've increasingly found myself contemptuous of white people, it's been hard to give half a shit about the 98% of movies about their quotidian sads. Funny how dehumanization correlates w/lack of empathy. It's like that scene in THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS when Royal laughs at his daughter Margot's play and says "didn't seem believable to me... what characters? They're just a bunch of little kids dressed in animal costumes." If you can't recognize a complex emotional life outside of your

I wander around bookstores for hours because as a kid going to bookstores was a haven = a place where I was encouraged to buy things, applauded for my choices, followed-up with in the days to come. I had my parents' attention when I wanted to read. Not many places I feel safer. So if I lard my living spaces with books that I have curated carefully, read joyfully, share with others gladly - does that make me smug or does that make me someone trying to break a cycle by nurturing myself and others in a way that's familiar to me, comforting and warm?

For everyone wondering why no one wants to work in the service industry anymore, sit near the counter at any airport gate. The amount of shit these people eat constantly from belligerent folks wanting impossible things is just fucking insane. Literally just heard a "the plane is gone. It will not come back to get you. I'm sorry."

The only screenwriting rule besides basic formatting? Make the reader see what you see. That's it. Every note you will ever receive in your career is just a variation of that note. The good notes help you see where you failed to do that, the "bad" ones do that, too, accidentally. When I accidentally listen in on that "McKee says..." garbage I think of the first lecture in DEAD POETS SOCIETY where Mr. Keating deconstructs a poem and then tells his classroom to physically & pointedly rip out everything in their anthologies except for the actual poetry.

Quick update for the curious, my book on the career of Walter Hill is going to print on Monday. It takes a few weeks for us to get copies back - then I'm flying to Dallas to sign 1000 copies - our initial print run. That number, BTW, is a good deal higher than we projected so thank you. It's been a labor of love. I had my first conversation with Walter Hill about this project 7 years ago at his home over a few drinks. He asked some tough questions and I must have answered a few of them right. It wouldn't have happened without @flmfrkcentral's constant

If your agent is telling you you're not getting a job because you're white, it's either because they're not doing their job for you or the people they're pitching are too gutless to say they're not interested. It's a form of gaslighting: now you're allies against a common foe. ... and that common foe is minorities. Minorities who by definition are vulnerable populations, harassed, abused and, as it happens scapegoated. The same people doing this will roll their eyes at the "Mexican Caravan" tactic, the targeting of LGBTQ folks... see it for what it is.

I rewatched all of Walter Hill's films in the last two weeks - including his produced screenplays. Something I can say about them in general (and in brief)? I think he's been underestimated his entire career because how easy he makes everything look. Efficient and effortless. If you average the runtimes of his 21 directed films you get a red hot 97.77 min. His longest film is GERONIMO at 115min and GERONIMO is so well assembled, I'd watch another hour of it. I'd also say he gets dinged a lot for story stuff because his action choreography is so good.

You know the take I don't ever want to hear again (though I will and that's just my cross in a free society, I get it, I got it), the "I didn't see it that way. I'm not a part of that community/don't have that kind of trauma, so I loved it and I don't think they meant any harm." The big revelation is twofold: intent doesn't matter all that much; and I agree they didn't mean any harm. Generally, people who do offensive shit are as blind to their biases as you are. It's all they know. When you get called out for it, you either learn or you double-down.

I really wrestle with this, but this is where I am at this moment: if you dig into the creators of things that you like, you will very likely find things you don't like. It's up to you what your limit is & who you want to support. Same goes w/any product you consume. Everyone makes a choice when they do any kind of consumption. Ordering from Amazon, where you buy your chicken sandwich, listening to Led Zep or the Beatles. Choices what to patronize and how much your soul can weather. But here are two things: I'm not on the side of burning books. And

What's fun is when you develop a hypothesis and then you play it out over the course of a text to see if the text supports it. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. When it does? The endorphin rush is magical. This is also how info cults like Q get their hooks into people. When I make the case for teaching critical theory and criticism skills, I'm not just angling for an elite class of Donna Tartt's reading Virgil in Latin - I'm suggesting that our neglect of critical thinking is a large part of why we're entirely fucked from head to socks.

When I say "What if they can't get to a theater because of their disability?" Or "There is no access for them at the theater they can get to" or "There are no CC options for my hearing impaired friend," or "he can't afford it" it's not supposed to be the end of the conversation. Also, take note next time you're in a theater of where the wheelchair accessible seats are. Sometimes it's fine. Sometimes it's not. When you go to a theater are you restricted to four seats to choose from? Maybe... just maybe, it's not as great of an experience for everyone.

This whole "I saw the Mona Lisa on a t-shirt and it wasn't as powerful as when I saw it in the Louvre"... until you saw this Italian painting in a French museum surrounded by tourists and from behind a thick sheet of bulletproof glass for a few seconds before the line moved you? POWERFUL! And also a lot smaller than you thought, amiright? Cut it out. There's something magical about being there, I'm sure, but I'm suspecting this isn't what Da Vinci imagined to be an ideal way to view his work. Did he even intend it to be shown? When Chris Nolan says that

"I was inspired to become a filmmaker when I saw Cassavetes' MINNIE & MOSKOWITZ on a pristine 70mm print at the Roxy when I was a kid." I get it. You started to want to make movies because you saw a giant spectacle film in a giant auditorium with a lot of screaming and shit when you were a child. Not everyone has that path - not everyone has that opportunity - not everyone is welcome in those spaces. 😐

This is what the head of the studio says to the Holly Hunter character in BROADCAST NEWS and her response is incredibly on point. I know I don't always know better, I know I'm not always the smartest guy in the room - it makes the disappointment larger.

https://twitter.com/garymwalters/status/1451122201550278656

Mr. Walters here is a producer - Nicolas Wendig Refn's for one, w/credits on DRIVE and THE NEON DEMON so he/you obviously understand subtext & more, you get what it's like to have your work massively misunderstood and rejected financially by the public. His latest is the American

Publicist: Hey, wanna see this film and review it?
Me: Sure.
Publicist: Who are you? Who do you write for?
Me: Never mind, I got a link from you.
Publicist: How? Where? We're just trying to track it.
Me: You... solicited me. Their response:

As a retail manager, there are only two things that you can really control in terms of profit/loss. Utilities are largely set, opening costs, depreciation, marketing, executive salaries, rent... all that's more or less fixed. Shrinkage is negligible, external theft? a pittance. The things you can manage are Cost of Goods and Labor. COGs aren't how much the market dictates they cost - you can't control that, either - but rather your inventory. If you run a restaurant, are you ordering enough food but to serve, but not too much food so that it rots.

Starting History Channel's "Kings of Pain" which appears to be National Geographic's Jackass in which two idiots voluntarily get stung and bitten by the most dangerous things in the world. Why? Because it's 4:00am and I'm nowhere near sleep. The "witty" and "tense" banter is causing me to reflexively punch the "jump ten seconds into the future" button. I can't help autonomous responses, I'm sorry. Also, one of these men would like to be referred to as "caveman".