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 […]



“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 […]


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 […]


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, […]


I want very much to succeed in the world with what I want to do… I am so discouraged about my work… Mediocrity is a hard word to apply to oneself; yet I see myself so equal with it that it is impossible not to throw it at myself . . . I have nothing […]
