“They can’t all be mega-hits” sounds like the most anodyne statement of fact you can imagine and fills some executives with puzzled rage.

Once I was working a tiny venue at TIFF and I had to tell Sam Neill he couldn’t go in because the movie had started already and TIFF has a strict no latecomers policy. He didn’t pull any “Do you know who I am” shit, he was incredibly polite and kind and asked for directions to a different venue.

The windmill I will tilt at forever is “box office” was invented by Hollywood to make it seem like investing in films is a slam dunk (it’s not). Many big films need 3-5x their production costs in BO to break even. (BO gets split with theatres and budget doesn’t cover marketing and release exp).

Happy to report @schweizercomics.bsky.social new comic OUTLAWS APPRENTICE is everything I’d hoped given the great process work Chris has been sharing (and, you know, the generally amazing work he does)! It’s now been running for a few weeks, so there’s a nice chunk to check out and get hooked!

Sitting in my kids Saturday piano lesson as she’s learning this iconic theme song…

Last I checked there are still Usenet posts out there going back to 1996 with some terribly wrong opinions about the Legion of Super-Heroes.

The day of Obama’s inauguration I was in Mexico, packed in a van with a bunch of absolutely jacked strangers. Everyone was whispering behind my back, and there was a weird tension - I started to wonder if I had been kidnapped. It turned out they were luchadores and thought I was a journalist.

@katiesandfox.bsky.social to think that little boy would grow up to win Traitors…

my take on the Criterion KPOP DEMON HUNTERS kerfuffle is that I had KPDH ranked #4 on my list of movies last year and it's the only one I wonder if I ranked too low

Stuff some in your pocket for SECRET EATING!!!

When I was 7, I was afraid my stuffed animals would feel left out if they didn’t each get a turn to sleep with me at night. But I was SEVEN.

I worked with Sir Michael on a movie in the 00s. Of the many famous people I’ve interacted with in my career - this was the one it took the most willpower to not just geek out and ask him for Muppet stories every time I needed to talk to him.

The bane of my existence working in film and tv production and development was people wanting to know how to sell their “ideas” for films like that was ever a bottleneck for anyone.

I watch “some” of hundreds of shorts a year. Éiru is one of a very small number where I’ve gone back to watch the whole thing.

Today in Phrases I Couldn’t Have Imagined Before We Had a Kid: “The writing is fine, but it had nowhere near the acting quality of The Big Show Show.”

This was the Letterman Top Ten list on October 25, 1993: "Top Ten Reasons Canada Keeps Beating Us In The World Series"

My favourite polite Toronto sports tradition ever.

Fair.

The modern version of which is “the projectionist didn’t try to ingest this until now…”

More on the end of Archie Comics Digests: After 50 years, Archie Comics Digests as we knew them will be no more, and newsstands will never be the same

I made this purely to amuse myself and maybe dozens of other Canadians

Want to be incredibly clear that any filmmaker who sends content through WeTransfer is now voluntarily giving up *all* their rights in the work to them forever. Not just for Ai training but for *public exhibition, and sub-licensing* “Free” file transfer services are never “free”.

I once burst into tears in a airplane at the part in SPEED where the bus jumps the gap in the overpass.

The White House has announced more details on their plans to tariff foreign movies entering the United States:

There was a rather charming trend in the 1910s to introduce the actor at the beginning of the film by showing them first in their street or evening clothes and then dissolving into the costume of their characters. Here we see recent stage import William S. Hart become a bandit in THE BARGAIN (1914).

Movie you’ve watched more than six times using gifs. (“Hard Mode”: no Star Wars, Star Trek, or LOTR)

A movie from the year you turned 30

The reason society has broken is kids are watching 'Mr. Beast' or 'Kai Cenat' and scrolling Tiktoks instead of sitting down to constantly watch endless TV reruns of Stephen Chow's SHAOLIN SOCCER.

Just once in these bombastic interviews about how "Canada should be 51st state" I'd love a US interviewer to actually ask a spokesgoblin what that would look like: - Oh so you would be okay with, effectively, a second California skewing the balance of the popular vote forever? (1/3)

Same here in the mid 90s YorkU dorm at Vanier and no one gave it a second thought.

Hat tip to whoever on the Rose Parade staff managed to sneak in “Wake me up” (when it’s all over) as the big opening dance number to kick off 2025.

Happy New Year to all and to all a good night!

Okay @warrocketajax.com - as someone weeks away from their 25th anniversary working in various feature film related jobs, I made it 35 minutes into this years Christmas special before rage quitting / PTSD flashbacks. Well done. 10/10 stars. No notes.

Love all of these. But it’s not the time Frank sucker-punched that polar bear at the zoo.

Give me a single image of a film that immediately makes you hear the song from the soundtrack in your head (woman at a microphone edition continues)

That cancelled TV show you’ll never stop thinking about?

Another great gift horse looked in the mouth eh but I felt better after I wrote this.

I worked with Norman Jewison for several years on what would be his last film "The Statement" in 2003. He was inquisitive, grandiose, cranky, and passionate all in equal measure. Knowing him was like getting to talk with "old Hollywood" as personified by one man.

Here’s a spin: I have met all the below (one is an awful lie) but also one I spent a whole day driving around hunting a video game (which I repeatedly told them wasn’t out yet): The Dalai Lama Tilda Swinton Kevin Bacon Shah Rukh Khan Sir Michael Cain William Shatner Colin Firth Brian De Palma