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- “Rock n’ roll! It’s the music of puberty.” — Suzi Quatro
- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Twelfth Night: or, What You Will
- “Literature is the written expression of revolt against expected things.” Happy Birthday to the least happy man ever, Thomas Hardy
- “I’m not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.” – Marilyn Monroe
- “[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
- “I don’t want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.” — Agnès Varda
- “I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.” — Howard Hawks
- “If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.” — poet Countee Cullen
- Reviews: Currents (2026)
- Reviews: Forge (2026)
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- Lyrie on “Rock n’ roll! It’s the music of puberty.” — Suzi Quatro
- Maddy on “I’m not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.” – Marilyn Monroe
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on “I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.” — Howard Hawks
- Bryan Summers on “I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.” — Howard Hawks
- Lyrie on “I just love telling stories. That’s what we do and it’s a good business to be in, especially if you know you have talent.” –Jensen Ackles
- Kendra Williams on Josh White, singer of “the fighting blues”
- sheila on “I dont want to just do just country type stuff the rest of my life. I want to do some different things.” — Charlie Rich
- sheila on The Books: “Awake and Sing” (Clifford Odets)
- Jincy Willett on “There’s nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be.” — Joey Ramone
- Bill Wolfe on “I dont want to just do just country type stuff the rest of my life. I want to do some different things.” — Charlie Rich
- Donn Harris on The Books: “Awake and Sing” (Clifford Odets)
- sheila on “Listen, I never meant to make money. I never wanted it. I’m a singer, man.” — Gene Vincent
- Pat on “Listen, I never meant to make money. I never wanted it. I’m a singer, man.” — Gene Vincent
- sheila on “There’s nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be.” — Joey Ramone
- Jincy Willett on “There’s nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be.” — Joey Ramone
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- Biff Dorsey on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- Dave on Review: The Chronology of Water (2025)
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Tag Archives: Warren Beatty
“I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.” — Rebecca West
It’s her birthday today. It is hard to talk about her without referencing the generations of writers she inspired, all of whom admit their debt. Robert Kaplan is the most open about it (in Balkan Ghosts, which launched his career, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Austria, Balkans, D.H. Lawrence, Ford Madox Ford, France, George Bernard Shaw, Germany, Katherine Mansfield, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, nonfiction, politics, Rebecca West, Roman empire, Russia, Serbia, W.B. Yeats, war, Warren Beatty, Yugoslavia
21 Comments
“Intellect and taste count, but I cut with my feelings.” — legendary editor Dede Allen
It’s her birthday today. Here’s a list of just some of her credits as an editor: The Hustler America America Bonnie & Clyde Rachel Rachel Alice’s Restaurant Little Big Man Serpico Night Moves Dog Day Afternoon Missouri Breaks Slap Shot … Continue reading
“Reach out, take a chance, get hurt even, play as well as you can.” — Hal Ashby
It’s his birthday today. One of the leading lights of the New Hollywood, bringing fresh energy into a landscape that was busy cracking-apart, and holding on tightly to old stable familiar forms. He believed in the crack-up. He helped the … Continue reading
Happy Birthday, Edward Herrmann
With a career as long and diverse as Edward Herrmann’s there is much to discuss. When he died, I wrote a piece for Ebert, focusing on just one moment in Warren Beatty’s Reds, a moment that (in its small way) … Continue reading
Warren Beatty, Quentin Tarantino, and Elvis
My thanks to my friend Jeremy Richey for uploading this clip of Quentin Tarantino talking about Elvis to David Letterman. (For context, because it comes up as a joke, the guest before Quentin was Priscilla Presley.)
R.I.P. Stephen Sondheim
An American Shakespeare. Yesterday there was a massive gathering in Times Square to pay tribute to Stephen Sondheim. I’ve been watching footage of it and it’s overwhelming. My friend Alex was there. It’s not enough to dim the lights of … Continue reading
Present Tense: Death Scenes
William Holden, “Sunset Boulevard” For my next “Present Tense” column at Film Comment, I wrote about a long-time obsession – which I have covered from time to time here on my site: Actors performing death scenes. And a tribute to … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies
Tagged Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Bonnie and Clyde, Faye Dunaway, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cagney, Janet Leigh, Jensen Ackles, Marlon Brando, Meryl Streep, Present Tense, Raoul Walsh, Roaring Twenties, Shirley MacLaine, Sunset Boulevard, Supernatural, Vincente Minnelli, Warren Beatty, William Holden
6 Comments
Year in Review: Running my mouth in 2018
Thanks, everyone, who hangs out here, who likes what I do, whether you’re an Elvis fan, a Supernatural fan, a general cinephile, a book-lover, or just someone who’s been checking in periodically for almost 16 years – WHAT? – I … Continue reading
Posted in James Joyce, Movies, Television
Tagged Anne V. Coates, Burt Reynolds, documentary, Doris Day, Dorothy Malone, Elvis Presley, England, Finnegans Wake, Frank Sinatra, Gena Rowlands, Germany, Gold Diggers of 1933, Grace Kelly, Hal Ashby, Howard Hughes, Ian McEwan, James Cagney, Joan Didion, Joaquin Phoenix, Julie Christie, Lynne Ramsay, Mexico, Minnie and Moskowitz, Natalie Portman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Play It As It Lays, Robert Altman, Russia, Sanaa Lathan, South Korea, Supernatural, Warren Beatty, women directors, Woody Allen, year in writing
10 Comments
For Sight & Sound magazine: The final shot of Shampoo
For the “Endings” column in the October issue of Sight & Sound magazine, I wrote about the final shot in Hal Ashby’s Shampoo. It’s one of my favorite final shots in cinema. (I pitched the piece before Criterion made its … Continue reading