If you checked out my earlier post, you know that I’m readying the 2018 edition of my favorite films. I always add a new crop of films to the sort every time, but I also find time to re-watch some of the old films… and Thanksgiving weekend proved to be a great time to do so. One of the films was the delightful modern fantasy, Field of Dreams. Sharp-eyed readers will recall that it ranked #29…
With a family full of librarians, archivists, and history buffs, it comes as no surprise we’re all fans of used book stores. Close to home, the long-standing Idle Times Books in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC is set to change owners (and also change names) as Paul Schwarztman explains in this piece from the Washington Post.
I have a number of rituals at the end of the year. One of them is to do some cleaning and decluttering. I always mean to do “Spring cleaning” around Spring, but it doesn’t always happen that way. Invariably, this means getting rid of a bunch of old boxes and such. Also invariably, I’m deluged by a bunch more boxes from holiday deliveries. I know I’m not alone. How do all of us deal with…
Well, I mean, realistically, someone else might leap into action and have a caper film on the subject of produce theft, but Rene Chun’s article about a Virginian vineyard being robbed of grapes made me think this could be a movie to be made in my backyard. In fact, I forwarded it as a possible entrant for Scriptnotes’ periodic segment “How would this be a movie?” So, I guess what I’m saying is I’d be…
Okay, I had a weightier post planned for today, but I just needed a break. So enjoy a whimsical village constructed for mice.
The holiday season is upon us and, since it’s an even year, it’s almost time for the biennial ranking of my 50 Favorite Films. For those of you obsessed with processes or those of you waiting for an appointment and have exhausted old magazines in a waiting room, read on! I’m a lifelong movie buff and have watched literally thousands of movies. Not all of them are good. Some of the good films are, nonetheless,…
Perhaps it’s the human predilection for pattern recognition, but because of the recent passing of William Goldman, I’ve been thinking a good deal about writing as it relates to getting one’s writing produced in Hollywood… and how random the process can sometimes be. In Mark Evanier’s latest intallment of his “Rejection” series (which is worth checking out if you haven’t already, he notes that elusive, yet absolutely real writer quality of being “useful.” You absolutely…
Astronaut Chris Hadfield debunks some myths about space in a wonderfully wonky first-hand way that only he can do. If you’re worried about cooking tomorrow’s turkey just right, remember, you can’t do as bad as exposing it to the hard vacuum of space. I’ll let him explain:
For whatever reason, back when I was in school busy with acting training, many instructors felt the need to let me know that I’m not a “leading man” type of actor. My guess is they dealt with many acting students who would feel that was beneath them or represented failure. Little did they know that, having grown up with my Dad giving us Turner Classic Movies before TCM existed, I already enjoyed the work of…
I’m still reflecting on all I got out of the characters created and championed by Stan Lee and now another epic storyteller, novelist and screenwriter William Goldman, has died at the age of 87. Goldman was, and will continue to be, enormously influential for writers and his book, Adventures in the Screen Trade, is one I’ve given as a gift to several fellow writers, not only for its insights about writing and the writing process,…