I agree that stories about writers certainly have a high potential to crawl up their own ass, but I think those films I mentioned are the best of their genre and end up being about a lot more than just writers writing (even Adaptation, for all its meta wackiness).

Adaptation, Barton Fink, Sunset Boulevard, In a Lonely Place...yeah, fuck those circle jerks!

And episode of Sandman tackled something like this - a writer locking an actual muse away in his house and forcing her to give him ideas/inspiration for books. Until - monkey’s paw!!! - he can’t STOP thinking of ideas for books and it drives him bonkers.

What about readers reading comments and commenting on readers?

The Spartacus one is pretty famous among LGBTQ film buffs because of Vito Russo’s brilliant book The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in Movies which was turned into an (equally brilliant) documentary by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. That scene is discussed in-depth in the book and documentary.

And honestly, if…

A movie can be bold, complicated, and subtle without being transgressive. The Fabelmans doesn’t really look like it’s any of those things.

“Rhaenyra and Laenor’s coded conversation about their sexual preferences (“roast duck” versus “roast goose”) feels like a Westerosi homage to the Schitt’s Creek scene in which David Rose uses wine varietals as a metaphor for pansexuality.”

Like most humans, movie people are mostly interested in themselves and people like them. They just have a platform to be loud about it. If truckers were suddenly given a huge media platform, you can bet they’d pay a lot of attention to stories about truckers.

The reviews of the Fabelmans have been good, but the trailer seems strangely inert to me. Slate’s review kind of said the same thing—for a semi-autobiographical movie it seemed strangely distanced to them. I’ll probably see it when my friend gets his “For your consideration” screeners, but I’m not going to rush out to…

Down by Law? Mystery Train? Sheesh!

For those who didn’t live through that era, the show was everywhere in syndication. At one time in the early 80s, on channel 5 in DC, it was shown 24 times per week: four times per weekday (late morning, 7-8 pm, 11 pm), and two times on Sat and Sun (11-12 pm).

SCTV

Exhibit #1:

Don’t give that twat any credit.  He’s a bog-standard “both sides” moron at this point.

It took me forever to figure out that’s Martin Short singing.

I don't know what's worse, that you worked at a Michael's Arts and Crafts store or that you know song titles. 

Even the jump from Rubber Soul to Revolver is more innovation than most bands manage in their entire careers. 

I forget who said it, but I heard someone say that the Beatles went from essentially being the Backstreet Boys to Radiohead in the span of about 7 years.

I always find it hard to believe how dramatically music evolved during the 60s. Even if you discount bands like The Beatles or the Beach Boys, the sheer amount of innovation taking place all over the world is astounding. I can’t imagine there’s ever been anything like it before or since; certainly not in the last…