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17Jan

To tell the truth

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
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The internet is not the truth, but sometimes it exhibits a common grace. A sampling of websites and forums, for example, will teach a writer the proper form of address for a female superior officer. (If you don’t know, it’s ma’am.) If instead you relied on television writers, you would think sir was proper. I […]

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1Dec

Writer to Journalist – Best interview ever

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies
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I have worked as a journalist and a documentarian, and I can attest the worst thing either can do is to approach a story with an agendum*. I can also attest that this is exactly what the majority of journalists and documentarians do. Agenda have worked well for Barbara Kopple and Michael Moore, but journalists […]

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26Oct

Hypergraphics and the people who envy them

Posted by: mark Categories: In The Soup Moviemakers
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“Comparison is the thief of joy” – attributed to Theodore Roosevelt I’m writing a book. It started as a screenplay, but on draft three, I realized it bore a fundamental flaw that wrecked the entire story. So I started writing in prose form the thoughts and observations of the various characters in order to get […]

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6Apr

Father, Mother, Child: Four More Films

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies Uncategorized
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For the first five films, click here. The Son and The Child (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne) The Belgian Daredenne brothers, who made Kid with a Bike, also crafted these two movies with similar titles. The Son (Le Fils) is about a man (Olivier Gourmet in a masterful performance) who ends up tutoring the youth who murdered his young child years ago. Who […]

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4Apr

Father, Mother, Child: Five Films

Posted by: mark Categories: Moviemakers Movies Uncategorized
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I have written that many elements of The Judgment of Parrish derive from my own experience as a dad. I love my two sons, and I populated the character of Parrish with some of their quirks, sensitivities, and challenges. I also found it easy to “method-write” the father character of Paul, with all his impatience, self-importance, and, eventually, […]

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18Nov

Everyone is scared

Posted by: mark Categories: Uncategorized
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This is a film site, not a politics site. I have no intention of making it such. Nevertheless, I did not know where else to post this. I found myself gripped by anger while listening to news of the Paris attacks — more even than on 9/11, when shock and numbness ruled. But now, I […]

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25Aug

Fresh Starts

Posted by: mark Categories: Uncategorized
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I returned from vacation to find my hard drive has crashed. After a quick spin through the Kübler-Ross roundabout, I realized this wasn’t such a bad thing. In fact, I was surprised how quickly I moved from denial to acceptance, despite losing several years worth of notes and drafts. (Finished drafts reside comfortably on a cloud […]

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