Mark Harris

They will insist that this an overstatement, that this isn't the same as APPROVING conversion therapy, that it's "not what the case is about." But if you are an adult with a functioning moral core, you cannot divorce your actions from their consequences. This will kill kids, period, the end.

Supreme Court Live Updates: Justices Seem Set to Rule Against Colorado’s Ban on Conversion Therapy

This will be a vote to erase 50 years of medical and psychiatric knowledge and kill gay and trans kids, because MAGA Republicans feel that in a better world, fewer of them would exist. It is that simple. Democrats must make SCOTUS expansion part of the party platform. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...

I think the right move here is the same as the right move for any journalist working for a suspect new boss (which has happened to almost all of us): Do exactly what you would ordinarily do, exactly the way you would ordinarily do it, until you are told point-blank that you can't. Then ask why.

There has always been a small, noisy minority of gay people whose belief in gay rights boils down to "I shouldn't have to give up any of my prejudices because of who I am." And straight people in media have always fallen all over themselves to hire them.

One bad and unfortunately influential part of Kael's legacy is that she knew how to phrase assertions that do not hold up to two seconds of scrutiny so confidently that you could mistake them for wisdom. (This one was about The Arrangement, a movie you never have to think about again.)

I'd be so scared to wear this. I just don't look great in bulky sleeves.

okay, this made me laugh

...and I really do know how eager some of you are to reply "Not yet, anyway! It will be soon!" but there are ways in which that is not necessarily a perfect analogy, and one is that this is going to play out in daily ways that are publicly visible, among people who know how to leak. So...we'll see.

Also, I don't mean this as optimism (on Bluesky? God forbid) but taking a leadership job for which you're unqualified in a medium you haven't worked in with nothing but experienced journalists under you...is not necessarily going to go the way one thinks it might. CBS News is not a cabinet dept.>

I get tired of reading "Do not obey in advance" here over and over--endlessly repeating something like that can turn it into a form of self-soothing rather than a galvanizing call to action. But I hope every single CBS News employee is hearing it from someone important to them today.

So weird and smug. "I found a bunch of cliches in TV shows and AI couldn't be worse than that, so do whatever feels good, but, you know, human screenwriters are still important, I guess."

but I was promised the city was burning

I honestly get stuck at "I'm a screenwriter." Buddy, I'm sorry, you're not. You want to have a particular job without having to do it.

I’m a Screenwriter. Is It All Right if I Use A.I.?

This is a question from a screenwriter who wants to know if it's okay to have AI write entire scenes for him. My answer would be exactly two letters long, which I guess is why I am not an "ethicist."
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/04/m...

I am pretty sure younger me would not have listened to older me.

Thinking about all of the truly dire things that are happening in the world, and then I come here and the debate that's raging is apparently "Is it racist-adjacent to be mean to robots?"

J.

F.

C.

It's a good time to start thinking about what makes you happy, and not just what you're sure WOULD make you happy if you could only get it.

(Seriously, the original is a beautifully made and acted but wildly imbalanced movie that is very much a product of its moment. Read @michaelschulman.bsky.social's Her Again for a great account of how Meryl Streep took that famous courtroom scene in her teeth and dragged it into shape.)

If Kramer vs. Kramer were made today, Ted Kramer would have started and monetized a single-dad blog by the fourth day he had to take care of his kid and Joanna would have come back from Cal. to NYC for meetings with publishers who bid on her manuscript about emotional labor. I would watch.

"Has had such a good life in this country," yes, ever since she was granted the privilege of coming here from her birth nation, Brooklyn.

Also, just from a business standpoint--the film clip and music licensing on this is mind-blowing. They got EVERYTHING. That just never happens with documentaries about movies or moviemakers.

Hugo!

I will block anyone who says "Language evolves" in response to this.

The Bringing Out the Dead section is brief; the Gangs section is fantastic.

At times, I love New York movie audiences more than any audiences in the world, and one of those moments came today, when the first appearance of Thelma Schoonmaker in the documentary received a huge round of entrance applause from the crowd in Alice Tully Hall. These are my kind of people.

Just spent five and a half hours at the NYFF watching Rebecca Miller's Mr. Scorsese, a brilliant, definitive, revelatory portrait of the filmmaker that earned a roaring and well-deserved standing ovation. I truly didn't want it to end.* On Apple 10/17.

*Full disclosure: I am in it for 12 seconds.

If Trump dies in office before he can pardon all of the criminals in his administration...

I mean, obviously our thoughts will be with his family. But, you know, AFTER THAT.

Yes!

My ass definitely felt kicked after two hours. But in a good way.

Not *to* have kids