Yes feel free to just walk in tonight! The more the merrier

This whole brand has become a swindle, a confidence trick, a hollow nothing based on the pitch that you’ll have FOMO about the alleged biggest event of the year unless you shell out to watch the old movie, the old movie w new footage, the stuff on D+. The less people care, the sweatier the con gets.

The Mask is Off: Major Anti-Abortion Group Calls for Arrest of Abortion Patients Students for Life says it should be "an easy vote"

It was only a matter of time: the powerful anti-abortion org Students for Life has endorsed legislation to imprison abortion patients.

The move marks the biggest shift in anti-abortion politics in decades. jessica.substack.com/p/the-mask-i...

In the same manifesto, Palantir's owners argued that we need a national military draft, that soft power is over, and that we were too hard on Germany and Japan after World War II. I don't think that company should be allowed to exist anymore.

“People get incredibly neurotic about pissing seven hundred bucks down the drain” yeah no shit mate

Thank you!

Thank you! 🙏🏼

Oh that’s so nice — those were some of my favourite writing experiences. And I’m lucky enough to have Brianna’s artwork of Vivien Leigh on my office wall now!

TONIGHT

Graphic for event on 20 April at 7pm at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, about The Last Kings of Hollywood

I’m really looking forward to being at @vromansbookstore.bsky.social this evening with @drewmcweeny.com to talk Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, and 70s American cinema. Free RSVP. Come support a legendary bookshop and have a good time in the process!

Great game of fine margins, this. Woodwork hit three times, a yellow that could have been a red, a goalkeeper mistake leading to a goal and one that didn’t. It’ll be 2-1 probably but it could have been 3-3 or 2-0 to either team. On such flips of a coin are titles won and lost.

At a time when mass surveillance and autonomous weapons companies like Palantir are openly announcing their plans for violent world domination, it is crucial that our attempts at “big tech reform” don’t actually give them more power—ie via government mandated age verification/identity software

The Palentir statement on its desired “Technological Republic” is one of the scariest things I have seen in a while. It is a call for a world dominated by an authoritarian U.S., generated by AI (both the statement and the world), run by tech-surveillance companies. Technofascism pure!

Extremely normal and fine for a company to put this in a public statement

This is why I keep saying over and over that Poland is one of the world’s most dangerous places for Jews right now. They are systematically erasing and rewriting history. This is just one of countless examples.

I'm not joking when I say mRNA technology is more important than "AI" and it's a tragedy we're throwing billions into one while our government is aggressively defunding the other.

this is like a miracle

Also you can hear Paul on the new episode of KCRW's The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell where they were nice enough to plug our event!
www.kcrw.com/shows/the-tr...

Left third: a picture of author Paul Fischer. Circular frame, inset below: a picture of writer & film critic Drew McWeeny. Center: cover of The Last Kings of Hollywood: Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg—and the Battle for the Soul of American Cinema. Right third, stacked text: Paul Fischer in conversation with Drew McWeeny April 20 Monday at 7pm Text bar, running across bottom: Vroman's Bookstore logo. Free RSVP. Vroman's Bookstore.

On Monday (4/20) @pfischer.bsky.social discusses with @drewmcweeny.com & signs THE LAST KINGS OF HOLLYWOOD: COPPOLA, LUCAS, SPIELBERG—AND THE BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF AMERICAN CINEMA.
Steven Soderbergh said "Riveting...Drop everything & read this straight through. I did"
RSVP here: bit.ly/PaulFischer

I'm hosting this event w/ @pfischer.bsky.social & @drewmcweeny.com on Monday! When I heard about Paul's book, I quickly reached out to the pub & luckily we figured out a date for the store. Then they said Drew was in & my 'stoked' level doubled.
So don't miss it!
This Monday at 7pm.
It's 4/20!

It’s such a great book, and I am a longtime admirer!

Cover of the excellent BOOM TO BUST, on sale at the Skylight Books tent of the LA Times Festival of Books

Spotted you here at the Skylight tent and looking great!

(Movie books less directly related to Hollywood machinations you should also read rn include @pamhutch.bsky.social’s THE CURSE OF QUEEN KELLY and anything @malloryomeara.bsky.social has ever put down between two covers)

I’ll be banging on about these two books and more all weekend, including on stage, and I can’t recommend them highly enough for anyone who loves movies, cultures, or just a great read.

The Extended Universe

I’m reading @vickyacab.bsky.social’s THE EXTENDED UNIVERSE, abt Disney’s fanatical commitment to franchiseable IP. It’s insightful, intelligent, and principled, and illuminating about one corporation’s manipulation of copyright for profit. And it’s a fun read!

www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2525-t...

Boom to Bust by Miranda Banks, Kate Fortmueller - Paper Scholarship is a powerful tool for changing how people think, plan, and govern. By giving voice to bright minds and bold ideas, we seek to foster understanding and drive progressive change.

BOOM TO BUST, by @mirandabanks.bsky.social & @kfortmueller.bsky.social, came out from @ucpress.bsky.social this week. This book is about the people who *are* the industry — the crew. An important and masterful study of Hollywood labour.

www.ucpress.edu/books/boom-t...

Graphic for the LA Times Festival of Books

LOS ANGELES! I’ll be at the @latimes Festival of Books tomorrow at USC, on a panel at 3pm, talking THE LAST KINGS OF HOLLYWOOD and titans of American cinema. It’s sadly an all-male panel, which the fest say they tried to remedy, so I want to also share, here and tmrw, relevant books by women out now

Mamdani: If the NYC apartment you keep solely for bi-yearly affairs with your mistress costs over 5 million dollars, you gotta pay more tax

NYPD officer who’s been on disability since 2006 because he stomped too hard on a lady during an arrest and fucked up his ankle: This is a travesty

Korean Cinema Legend Choi Eun-hee's Eighth Death Anniversary Korean Cinema Legend Choi Eun-hees Eighth Death Anniversary Remembering her films, North Korean abduction, and legacy in Korean cinema

Choi Eun-Hee died 8 years ago. When I first met her, she told me she hoped people would one day finally accept she and Shin Sang-Ok had been kidnapped to North Korea, instead of claiming they had defected and lied about it. It's good to see she didn't hope in vain.

www.chosun.com/english/kpop...

There is a profound, revolting sickness in so many of the people who sit at the top of our corporations and industries.