Eheheheh. When I saw HOOK its opening weekend, there was a family with four children in the audience. Before the movie started, the kids were running up and down the aisles yelling, going back and forth to the candy counter, and wreaking general “Thank God I’m not sitting near them” mayhem. The movie started; the kids…

She’s this generation’s Mary Astor. The latter played wonderfully-sexy/duplicitous independent women, (THE GREAT LIE, THE MALTESE FALCON), but the studios set a record tossing her into mom roles. :p

“there was never any doubt Nine Lines would be something only watchable on TV in the gloomiest hours of the night by people at a dark place in their lives.”

.”Maybe Spacey decides fuck it, it’s not worth it, claws his kid’s eyes out and the rest of the film is his attempt to become a cat drug dealer or something.”

For that matter, how did Barry Sonnenfeld get reduced to this? He did make some good movies back in the day. Guess it’s severely-delayed WILD WILD WEST karma, or...?

...and this genre always addresses dad’s anxieties, not the moms, because moms who aren’t all up in their kids’ grilles are evil, bad, vile, depraved unwomen. :p

“the real reason that this genre is so consistently plumbed in the American cinema of the ’90s and ’00s is that it so perfectly addresses our anxieties.”

As a dumb human who is ruled by a parrot-who-will-soon-overthrow-the-vile-human-domination-of-earth-to-establish-the-glorious-Avian-Awakening, I’m advising you now to go into hiding and ne’er be seen again. You know too much. ;)

Eheheh. It’s one of history’s interesting ironies that ‘net standards of parenting have taken the place of small-town standards of parenting. You would think that once people were away from towns where they were judged for everything they did, they’d shake off needing other people’s approval. ;)

Honest to God, my mother is the same way. She could make an international/federal/NSA case about putting eggs in the refrigerator. Complains constantly about wanting to go places, but throws a thousand excuses/lame complications in the way when it gets down to actually planning. And blames everyone else for mistakes…

As Olivia Pope would say, go with your gut. Never fails. ;)

“We’re sitting at home…racking our brains, and just watching our wives in this stressed-out life trying to be a great parent…so the inspiration was basically our wives.”

Or trapped in the penultimate BLACK MIRROR episode...

That is a game you can never ever ever win. Seriously. I worked in the industry for a while and one of the hardest lessons I learned is that that little game get you nailed both ways. You’re constantly simmering inside because you can’t speak your mind and you’re so busy trying to not “act angry” it eventually…

And their premises. Come on. You could pull freshman from any HBCU with a film department and get way better stories than that. :p

Eheheh. Like the insidious specter in Edith Wharton’s AFTERWARD, you mean? ;)

Makes sense. :) I’d also like to know how she overcame the psychological pressure—especially to turn all her money over to the Church. Are there many Mormon women mega-successes?

Bad enough she’s doing a goofy Bourne take—you want her to fan-fic CHUCK too? You fiend...;)

I would much rather read how she was able to carve out time to write in the face of overwhelming pressure to stay a good Mormon wifey-and-mother. Now there’s a drama for ya. :)

She’s doing the James Patterson thing—leveraging her name on every frickin’ genre hoping something else hits. Not the worst strategy, but unless she hires someone to co-write, well...