We're... back?!

Let's never be apart that for that long again, okay?

Welcome back to Formerly Dangerous.

I’m saying that to myself as much as to any of you reading this. I understand just how badly I fumbled the management of this newsletter these last few months. Right now, I’m taking a break from my new project whether I want to or not while my labor union beefs with management for a bit. I’m sure many words will be written about said labor action, but there’s nothing I can add that is going to affect anything. I hope it does not derail the thing I have been working on, but I will not have any way of knowing that until it either does or doesn’t, so here we go. I’m going to redirect my energy here and relearn a weekly routine so I don’t go insane.

So much is happening professionally and I still basically can’t say a word about any of it. I took my first vacation of any kind in about seven or eight years just a few weeks ago, and it was incredible. My sons have grown up listening to me tell stories about Austin, TX, and this is the last year of high school for Toshi. I figured it would be fun to do something for spring break and we decided to meet my 83-year-old parents in Austin to spend a week eating great food, catching up with them, and seeing this city I used to know so well. While I was gone, I didn’t open the new script one time. I did my very best not to even think about it. When I did finally get back to LA and open the file for the first time in almost ten days, it was like a totally different piece of work, and everything I’d been struggling with seemed to just drop into place. It’s amazing what a wee little bit of perspective can do.

I feel that way about the online film coverage world, too. When I look at it now, removed from my participation in it, everything about it feels crazy to me. Watching people fight over low-stakes “exclusives” like a production still or a film’s running time seems like a miserable waste of time and energy, and I’m not entirely sure I have it in me to wade back into the “discourse” around film reviewing. Seeing things removed from the hype cycle gives me room to have whatever reaction I’m going to have, and in some cases these days, I’m even seeing things after other members of my family.