The question “Star Wars or Star Trek” is usually only asked by Star Wars fans. Star Trek fans know the proper question is, “Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica?”

I've been threatening to write this book for two years.

Most modern art critics are wholly unprepared to engage with art unless they have the filter of the artist's intentions and decisions. It's the greatest distraction tax the modern age has placed on the perception and discussion of art, and it has been weaponized to serve cultural hegemony.

No one is broken. Everyone can heal. Yes, even him.

If a director shows up to a screening of their film and you spend more time looking at the director than the screen, you have an illness, an addiction to the creators of art. It’s the same with critics who won’t shut up about the director instead of focusing on the film. They are in cults.

Ten years ago, we were all watching Game Of Thrones. Now, we’re living it.

Discernment is the most important life skill to develop. Discernment means an awareness to the point where you can reject the things that sap your spirit and kill you, and instead choose the things that give you strength and bring you joy. Discernment. Look that shit up.

DEAR MINTON: “I HEAR THAT AI-PRODUCED MUSIC SUCKS. WHAT DO YOU THINK?” I have weakness for critical thinking, so I try not to make up my mind about something important, such as the impact of AI on art, based on what other people say. I’m a hard head who needs to touch the stove to know it’s hot.

David Lynch passed away on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s birthday. Bob Roth said David Lynch passed away while practicing Transcendental Meditation. Life is filled with circles. Consciousness is all there is.

In April, Criterion is selling a 4K John Hughes boxed set. Instant purchase. www.criterion.com/boxsets/8684...

The stupidity of transferring a Nobel Peace Prize by framing and gifting is utterly hilarious. If you can’t laugh at that, you’ve lost your sense of humor.

Most of the David Lynch scholarship I’ve come across is superficial and meaningless beyond the paragraph. So little is applicable to living a moral life in a confusing world. At best, its pointless hero worship and at worst, it’s a deliberate cash grab of thin interviews with weak points of view.

There is no greater superpower than the ability to accept things as they are.

[MUSIC CRITICISM] Taylor Swift is a musician like Bruce Springsteen. Bruce Springsteen is a musician on the same level as Bob Dylan, with one stark difference-he makes music that is mostly textual, whereas Dylan, since the late 1960s, has made mostly subtextual music.

Tool fans are like metal head Swifties who exchange middle finger gestures instead of friendship bracelets

I thought the “anti-woke” episode of Landman this week was funny because the show is one of the funniest on TV right now, playing with stereotypes as a primary plot device.

How you win is just as important as the victory. This is why losers still lose even when they seem at first to win.

For anyone willing to stake a moral claim that they will never use Generative AI for creative purpose, my response is, “Good luck being broke.”

@tedgioia.bsky.social knows about music. But listening to him about A.I. will make you go broke. Link in Comment

For writers and musicians, I agree that we should learn their histories to better understand their art and what they were trying to convey. However, when it comes to film directors, we must avoid learning about them at all costs.

The Jazz Age began in 1920, the same year Prohibition became the law of the land in America. The successful rise of the former is rooted in the moral failure of the latter.

The first time I heard about the musician named “The Boss,” who made the song that kept playing on the radio in 1985, singing about being born in the USA, was on the ABC sitcom Growing Pains. I spent most of my young life consuming entertainment without a care for who made it.

Hollywood is considering another strike that I predict will put the final nail in California’s entertainment industry. Where will all the creatives go then? They’ll have to get real jobs making real things.

There is no choice about whether to adopt Generative AI in your day to day professional work. The choice is whether you want to stay employed. open.substack.com/pub/jbminton...

2026 has at least one good thing in store for us.

When people tell me they love Andor, I tell them to thank Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5.

One of my projects this year is a spec script for a sequel to a beloved early 1990s comedy. I broke the story with all the beats. It’s a great narrative arc that will expand and counter the cynicism of our current awful cultural environment. This is going to be fun to write.

You need to read this. And if you believe you have a choice about whether to adopt Generative AI, you really need to read this! jbminton.substack.com/p/the-seven-...

Read what made 4 people instantly unsubscribe. open.substack.com/pub/jbminton... THE SEVEN SINS OF COMPLAINING ABOUT AI: "When honest brokers break"

If you're going, this will be worth your time. And when you get there, you'll already be there.

Here’s what America learned this week: this reckless, ruthless and greedy administration will also kill white people and shrug it off as collateral annoyances.

Keep calling it “AI Slop” and eventually you’ll be renting your house from it instead of owning the house.

At the heart of the anti-AI movement is the assumption that humans alone think and behave “better,” meaning non-Generative AI users are more morally and intellectually superior than those who actively use it.

Dear @stevenhyden.bsky.social, This is a great book. Thank you for writing it. JB

There is a chasm of difference between an art critic who says, “This is what the art means,” and the critic who says, “This is what the art means to me. What does it mean to you?”

Jason Bateman acted his holy ass off in Black Rabbit. What a show!

“Strength grows in the moments when you think you can’t go on but keep going anyway.” – Unknown

I adored the Stranger Things finale. What a weird, wild, wonderful tale about the power of friendship to overcome personal and generational trauma. Killer soundtrack, too.

“The word is not the thing.” —Jiddu Krishnamurti

There is strong gatekeeping in the world of David Lynch film appreciation. Experts want to be onstage & want you in your seat listening, like good little children. But they are just movies. Anyone can watch them and have a reaction that turns into an opinion. F*** all gatekeepers.

What do John Irving’s novels and Star Wars share in common? They are largely concerned with the plight of orphans and the abandoned.

The American Anschluss has begun in South America.

Loved this by my pal JB. A great read, or listen.