A Guide to the Guest Stars in Call My Agent! (Dix pour cent)

On twitter a while back, Erin Biba commented about how it would be nice if someone had a list of who the guest stars in Call My Agent are and what films we should watch. Erin is a great science journalist and spent college studying and learning useful valuable things, while I was watching a lot of movies and reading novels, so it’s that rare moment where I can actually offer something.

Well, I made a few suggestions for Cecile de France, who goes starred in the very first episode, and as it’s good idea and it gives me the chance to show off and tell people what foreign movies they should watch, I decided to give it a try.

Before we begin. Ground rules: there are none. I didn’t watch any movies in order to make this list and sound smart (I don’t have that kind of time). Also, if you take me up and decide to watch one of these films and hate it, I’m not responsible.

Season One

Episode 1: Cecile de France.

I love Cecile de France. She starred in the great character ensemble Avenue Montaigne, which is a delight. (writer-director Daniele Thompson is an underrated talent, in my book). She’s been in some great dramatic films like A Secret and Mesrine. She was also part of Cedric Klapisch’s great ensemble cast (with Audrey Tatou, Romain Duris, Kelly Reilly, Judith Godréche and others) in a series of films that began with L’Auberge Espagnole and continued in Russian Dolls and Chinese Puzzle, which starts in college and follows them afterwards as they grow and change in different and surprising ways.

Episode 2: Line Renaud and Françoise Fabian.

Renaud has acted, but to my knowledge she’s primarily been a singer. Fabian has been in some classic French films including Belle de Jour and the Eric Rohmer film My Night at Maud’s (she played Maud). More recently she was in François Ozon’s 5x2, and she played the mother in Daniele Thompson’s great dysfunctional family Christmas movie La Bûche. (I enjoy dysfunctional family holiday movies and that is imho one of the best).

Also worth mentioning that Renaud has been an AIDS activist for nearly four decades and Fabian was one of the 343!

Episode 3: Nathalie Baye, Laura Smet, Gilles Lellouche, Zinedine Soualem.

Baye is a cinematic icon. She was in The Return of Martin Guerre (which I would argue is one of the all time great films, and one of the iconic French films). If you haven’t seen it, well, you’ll see that it’s been ripped off a lot over the years, but I think it still holds up. She was also in the Truffaut classic Day for Night, and Tell No One, which is a great thriller I highly recommend to everyone. (For people who don’t know, the French love thrillers, have made some truly great ones, and I’ll put Tell No One on a list of notable recent ones)

Smet is Baye’s real life daughter (with Johnny Hallyday, who is kinda the French Elvis, which makes Smet European royalty in my book - I mean, really, what have the Hapsburgs done for anyone this century?). She’s been in a few very good films including The Bridesmaid (directed by Claude Chabrol based on the Ruth Rendell thriller), and 2014’s Eden by Mia Hansen-Løve, which I especially love.

Lellouche starred in My Piece of the Pie from director Cédric Klapisch, and he was a supporting character in a lot of great films including Tell No One, Paris, Mesrine, Little White Lies.

Soualem looked familiar but didn’t ring any bells, so I looked up his filmography, which is impressive. He’s a regular collaborator of Cedric Klapisch and has worked with Raoul Peck and Julian Schnabel, Costa-Gavras and Michel Gondry. So I feel a little bad for not recognizing him, though he seems like a character actor.

Episode 4: Audrey Fleurot.

Likely best known for the film The Intouchables, which was a massive sensation, and I’ll admit I’m lukewarm towards the film, but the actors make it a must see. Fleurot also starred in two good French TV series, Spiral, about lawyers and cops where she plays a cynical but brilliant lawyer, and Un village français (A French Village) about a town under German occupation during the Second World War.

Episode 5: Julie Gayet, Joeystarr, Zinedine Soualem.

The only film I know Gayet for is My Best Friend, which is a fine 2006 Patrice Leconte film.

Joeystarr I don’t know at all. Soualem, I mentioned in Episode 3.

Episode 6: François Berléand.

People might recognize him from his roles in The Transporter films, but he’s worked with a lot of great filmmakers including Louis Malle (May Fools, Au revoir les enfants), Claude Chabrol (Comedy of Power), and Catherine Breillat (Romance). He was in 2004’s The Chorus, which was fabulous, Tell No One, which I mentioned before. I don’t know if he can swim or not, which is what the episode hinges on, but he can do just about anything else.

Season Two

Episode 1: Virginie Efira, Ramzy Bedia

Efria is best known to me (and everyone, I think) for her role in Paul Verhoeven’s 2016 film Elle and for her collaborations with the talented French filmmaker Justine Triet (Sibyl, In Bed with Victoria).

Bedia I don’t know.

Episode 2: Fabrice Luchini and Christophe Lambert

Because I am a guy of a certain age, it is impossible for me not to think of Lambert as Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. (Yes, I can talk about the film and his performance for an embarrassingly long length of time…though I like to think I would be able to restrain myself if I ever met him in person). But besides Highlander and a vast number of other English language productions he’s also been in some great French films like Claire Denis’ White Material (with Isabelle Huppert) and Luc Besson’s Subway.

Luchini has been in films like Paris, a great ensemble film I loved, Moliere, a fictional film about the playwright. He also played Julius Caesar in one of the Asterix and Obelix films.

Episode 3: Julien Doré, Norman Thavaud, Aymeline Valade

Doré is mostly a musician. Thavaud is mostly a YouTuber. Valade is a model. I don’t know much of anything about any of them.

Episode 4: Isabelle Adjani and Julien Doré.

Isabelle Adjani has been in movies like Possession, Camille Claudel, The Story of Adele H, Quartet, Nosferatu. She was also in Queen Margot, a 1994 film based on the Dumas novel about the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, which was highly acclaimed (and won her the Cesar Award for Best Actress), but I found boring. She was also in Ishtar, which is in English I know, and it was loathed by many, but which I liked. (Though admittedly if I was casting a North African revolutionary in a film, she wouldn’t be on the list) So, no accounting for taste.

Episode 5: Guy Marchand

I know Marchand for his role in Diane Kurys’ film Entre Nous. I know that he also played Nestor Burma in a long running series adapting the detective novels of Leo Malet. I’ve never seen the show, but I like Burma, so it’s on my list if I can find it somewhere.

Episode 6: Juliette Binoche

Binoche is one of the world’s greatest living actors. She’s been in some iconic English language films (The English Patient, The Unbearable Lightness of Being). There are many French films that jump to mind. Summer Hours, which I think is genius and this small intimate and perfect movie about a family that is not a tragedy but just emotional and thoughtful. Paris, which is a great ensemble film. Flight of the Red Balloon. Camille Claudel 1915. Clouds of Sils Maria. Let the Sunshine In. Three Colors: Blue. The Horseman on the Roof. High Life. I know I’m forgetting so many films and so many good ones, but that’s a start.

Binoche also starred in the French comedy Telle mére, telle fills (Baby Bumps), with Call Your Agent star Camille Cottin. But I have not seen it.

Season Three

Episode 1: Jean Dujardin

People love The Artist. Well, people not me, at least. I do recommend his two OSS 117 films, which are entertaining spoofs of sixties spy movies. (Though if you hate old spy movies…)

Episode 2: Monica Bellucci

People know her for her English language films like The Matrix sequels and Spectre, and well, one of the most beautiful people in the world. But as far as foreign language films, there’s Malena, which is technically Italian, but it’s a Romance language. (You need subtitles to watch it! What do you care!) There’s Brotherhood of the Wolf if you want a crazy 17th century action adventure film. She played Cleopatra in one of the Asterix and Obelix films. There was Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible, which was honestly one of the most painfully depressing and bleak movies I’ve ever seen. So no shame if you never watch it. Le deuxiéme soufflé and A Burning Hot Summer is good, too.

Episode 3: Gérard Lanvin and Guy Marchand

Lanvin is best known for his award-winning performance in The Taste of Others.

Marchand I wrote about earlier in Season 2.

Episode 4: Isabelle Huppert

Huppert is one of the great living actors and one of those performers who can do almost anything. I still regret that I wasn’t able to see her on stage a few years ago. But in her film career she’s done a lot of intense powerful projects like Entre Nous, La Ceremonie, The Piano Teacher, Ma Mere, White Material, Things To Come, Elle. She’s just one of those actors who is always great but there isn’t a typical performance or style or approach that she seems to have. Just a wonder to watch her.

Episode 5: Béatrice Dalle

She’s been in films like Night on Earth, but as far as her French films, best start with Clean by Olivier Assayas. (Every Assayas film is worth watching). She’s collaborated with the great director Calire Denis a few times (I Can’t Sleep, Trouble Every Day, The Intruder). Also, Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf.

Episode 6: Claude Lelouch

There’s a an all star cast of guest stars in this episode, but except for one, they’ve been in previous episodes. Lelouch is a director, and I’ll admit that I’m not that familiar with him and didn’t know he was still alive (but he is! And he’s still working in his 80s!). But his 1966 film A Man and A Woman I remember making an impression on me years ago, as did his film Les Miserables, which is not an adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel. But it does start with the novel and someone reading it and, well it’s hard to explain, but I do recommend it.

Season Four

Episode 1: Charlotte Gainsbourg and Mimie Mathy

I mentioned earlier that I consider Laura Smet to be European royalty? I believe the same of actor and musician Charlotte Gainsbourg, who is the daughter of the late musician Serge Gainsbourg and actor/director/ handbag designer/all around icon Jane Birkin. A lot of people may know her for her English language films including the titular Jane Eyre in the 1996 Zeffrelli film opposite William Hurt as Rochester, 21 Grams, The Science of Sleep, I’m Not There, The City of Your Final Destination, and a series of collaborations with director Lars von Trier (Antichrist, Melancholia, Nymphomaniac). In France she’s been in films like La Buche (dysfunctional family Christmas movie). She’s worked with her partner Yvan Attal in films like My Wife is an Actress, Happily Ever After, Do Not Disturb, and The Jews.

Mathy, I’m forced to admit, I don’t know at all other than her appearance here.

Episode 2: Franck Dubosc

I don’t know Dubosc at all, I’m sorry to say.

Episode 3: José Garcia

He’s primarily a comedian and I can see that he does a lot of voice acting, but I don’t know any of his French films.

Episode 4: Sandrine Kiberlain

I know that Kiberlain has acted in many films but the only performance I know is that she played Simone de Beauvoir in the film Violette.

Episode 5: Sigourney Weaver

She’s an American who appeared on the British tv show Doc Martin. Has she done anything else? (I’m kidding)

Episode 6: Jean Reno

A regular collaborator with director Luc Besson, Reno starred in The Big Blue (my personal favorite Besson film) about a pair of free divers which is beautiful and poetic. The Crimson Rivers is a strange creepy thriller that is just great. I know there’s a sequel, but I have not seen it. I also recommend The Corsican File, which isn’t great but it’s entertaining and Reno and his presence are the star of the film.

What Happened to Sara Foster?

Watching The Big Bounce, I was reminded of Sara Foster, an actor I admittedly have not thought about in a while. There’s a reason for that. But in 2004, when The Big Bounce was released, Foster made a splash as the star of Angela Robinson’s film D.E.B.S. It’s not as though she hasn’t done anything since 2004 but that year and those films were her big shot and neither film did especially well. The Big Bounce failed and was, as I wrote, not great. And D.E.B.S. is a cult hit and beloved by many but unfortunately it wasn’t a huge hit.

The fact that she played two different characters - and managed to romance Owen Wilson and Jordana Brewster between the two films - is interesting enough. In The Big Bounce, Foster plays a femme fatale, essentially, though that’s not initially what she seems to be. That reveal and her complexity is built into the structure of the film. And she’s good. But then there are also these moments in the film between her and Wilson where one can see the texture of a different kind of film and a different kind of acting. The kind of casual charm and improvised feel that was so key to the relationship between her and Brewster in D.E.B.S.

Who knows how good she really is as an actor. But it’s the not knowing, the never getting the chance that must really drive actors crazy. I mean, we all want at shot at whatever we do. We want to get in the room. We want to have a real opportunity and if we fail, we’re going to spend our lives reliving it and it’s going to hang over everything else we do like the sword of Damocles. But at least you had a chance. Being an actor, that rarely happens. Auditioning is hard. And if you actually get a part, so many people will judge you on one role. They’ll say, I hate that character and find the character so grating and so therefore I hate the actor. (Or worse, getting typecast as an annoying grating character and then everyone only thinks of you as that character…which if it meant you were laughing all the way to the bank is one thing, but often that’s not how it works out). How many actors can say that they had a shot? That they had a good role in a good project, and no matter how it turned out, they had a legitimate shot. It’s not that we only get one shot in life. But you never know what’s your last shot. That chance to prove to yourself and others what you can do and what you’re capable of.

In other words, it sucks being an actor. It’s hard. I think about the most talented people I’ve known and how few chances they had and the work it took.

And so the title of this post is obvious. What happened to Sara Foster is what’s happened to so many young actors. If she were a man, she probably would have gotten a few more chances. (Which is a whole other topic) One can’t help but think about the number of actors who get a few roles and then disappear. Or the ones who never got those roles, never even got in the room for one reason or another that had nothing to do with talent.

But also, I’d watch a movie with Sara Foster as a forty year old bisexual mom who’s also a criminal mastermind.

Maybe one of these years…

Apples in February

December 21 is the darkest day of the year, and yet the days that follow are darker than the ones that preceded it. Which never makes sense, and yet we all know that January through March are winter, the dark brutal days we endure. Autumn in New England being what it is, one of the nature’s great joys, the bitter cold that follows is always hard. February is the longest month, gray and overcast, cold and windy. It is a period we endure. Maybe it’s because as we approach the end of December, there are lights everywhere to keep the darkness at bay. Afterwards, even as the darkness lifts, the lights are removed, leaving us with gray. Fall is behind us and spring is ahead of us, and in the meantime, we soldier on like the good puritans we are.

And in these long days, we eat the remaining apples. The good apples. The perfect apples have been picked and eaten months ago. The local orchards have made their calculations, setting aside fruit to make baked goods and sent to the cidery to be pressed. Those perfect apples that we hold in our minds – admittedly influenced by supermarket crap and artwork of all stripes – are long gone. Eaten months ago. Sure, there are apples in the market shipped in cold storage from half a world away which are, well, bland. But the supermarkets don’t stick them because they taste good. Such apples (and other fruits and vegetables) are grown and shipped from one end of the earth to the other because they don’t bruise easily and ship well. No, real apples come from nearby. Like the foliage it’s easy to take this for granted in New England but we have apples a plenty nearby. And great apples.

At this point in the calendar, though, the stock of apples is running thin. Now we’ve moved onto the fruit where the color isn’t uniform or perfect. The skin is bruised. Cut it open, and they still have flavor. Not what a fresh off the tree one did in October of course, but it tastes like an apple.

My personal preference is for tart, sweet apples. The easiest to find and most common is Granny Smith (which also happens to be a nice baking apple), but there are others like Stayman, Winesap, Braeburn, Cortland. I tend to bake more apple-related items after New Years because the quality drops. Not that I have many apple-related recipes, but a cake here and some scones or muffins there. Honestly until March and it warms up more, I tend not to work out as much or spend as much time outdoors. That plus the cold weather in general means I tend to stop and slow down and use the oven more.

Apples don’t have terroir the way that wine does, but regardless of the varietal, there’s something about local produce. It’s not just hippie-liberal nonsense, as has been suggested by some over the years. It means something. It’s spiritual and physical to eat food that is grown or that lived nearby. We are a part of this place and being nourished by it is not simply metaphor. It tethers us to the land.

A winter apple is something green (or rather, green-ish), something alive. Something to sustain us in the winter months when the ground is covered with snow. At a time when the cold air forces us to huddle in our homes, our dens, in the earth, under the ice, hibernating (or close to) it reminds us of what happened before, what will happen again.

Fruit as flawed as we are. Reminding us that this won’t last forever. And, pricking our finger as the knife slices into the flesh of one, a reminder that neither will we.

I do feel bad for Sarah Desssen (Though I probably shouldn’t…)

I won’t repeat what Sarah Dessen did or the controversy that went on for days afterwards. Or the fact that many of the writers who jumped to Dessen’s defense later were forced to issue apologies (even if most of the apologies were insincere and half-assed).

The truth is that Dessen’s comments were not the worst of the lot. Some of her friends were despicable. The fact that the comments came from people who make their living examining the world in an empathetic manner to help them understand people makes it more offensive.

The sad truth is that I saw myself in Dessen’s comments. (That’s NOT a compliment by the way. It should shake Dessen to the core). Because I read her tweet and some of her other posts around that time as a sign that she was depressed and anxious. I’m depressed a lot. And depressed people – like alcoholics or others – fairly or not, often see ourselves reflected in the actions and thinking of people around us. So there is some projection in this, and I apologize if anyone finds it offensive.

I was depressed at the time. The beginning of winter is always hard. Places starting to play Christmas music before Thanksgiving always grind me down. The cold weather means I spend less time outdoors and become sedentary, which means fewer endorphins. I had a birthday last week, which was depressing. In the past year we’ve buried my uncle and my grandfather, not to mention some friends. I spent time with my father cleaning out my uncle’s house in Kentucky. I now have two books that no agent (or anyone else) wants to read. I’m not sure I have the energy to try and write another one, or pitch more articles or look for a job. I could go on, but the point is that it’s a lot. It’s enough to make me forget that anything good has happened to me this past year – or even in my life.

I understand the performative nature of posting on social media. I don’t do it often. And when I do, I try to be subtle. (I am a New England wasp) But sometimes I post things on social media to get people to respond. To get a reaction. To get a sign from the universe that people care. It’s needy. It’s pathetic. I tend to think a little less of myself when I do.

We do it because it often helps a little.

I have an active google search for my name delivered to my inbox, and so I understand the temptation to come across one’s name and after reading the article to complain on social media, can you believe this? I’m having a hard time and then I come across this nastiness! Because one’s friends and readers will reply.

I mean, I wouldn’t do that. Not because I’m a better person. It’s because – and this is similar to why I never throw myself a birthday party – I don’t believe that people would reply with positive responses that would buoy my mood. But I understand the thought behind posting it.

There are many problems with this particular instance, of course. To single out one obvious point, the student who made this remark may have been an obnoxious, know-it-all college student (which is to say, a college student), but the committee she was on picked Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy over your book. If you don’t understand why some people feel that this is important, then I don’t know what to say.

And here’s where people will say in her defense that she’s not writing shallow pablum, but if you honestly would prefer that college students read your young adults novels to reading about race and the criminal justice system and having lectures and discussions about this, then I don’t know what to say.

I’ve written thousands of articles. I’ve gotten dozens upon dozens of rejections for my novels. Part of me has given up ever thinking I’ll get published. So that’s where I’m coming from. That’s part of where my depression is rooted, in the fact that I have accomplished nothing of any value. I’m not going to claim that having a novel published will solve all of my problems, but I will solve the problem of being an unpublished novelist. That’s one less problem. Then I’ll have the problem of critics and being ignored and all that, but you know what, it sounds preferable to spending my free time sitting at the kitchen table, alone and childless, wondering if I’m wasting my life because no one has ever cared, and there’s no reason to ever believe that someone might.

What I read in your statement was exhaustion and depression. You have a life that a lot of writers would envy. You have a written a shelf of published books (where most of us have an unpublished and rejected chunk of hard drive space), money (you’re not Bill Gates but you’re doing very well by writers standards), a partner, a child. Hell, your books may not chosen as required college reading, but you write award winning YA novels that get considered. Most people are lucky to get one of those things in life.

Despite all this, it does not bring you joy.

Maybe that’s temporary. I hope it’s temporary.

Because when you pull yourself out of this state, I hope that you will be able to see just how cruel and nasty and vicious you were. How much pain you caused. I think one of the great lessons of adulthood is how little other people think about us. As human beings, we tend to center ourselves in the world, but it’s rarely about us. Much of the pain we cause in the world is because we are careless, and much of the pain we receive is because other people were careless.

Depression is a state where we think that we are worthless, that devalues ourselves and our lives, but it also makes us the center of the universe. It cuts us off from so much because the universe becomes a closed system in which everything becomes an attack on us. I can say that with clarity and certainty because I’m not depressed right now. But I know that one of these days, I will go back to thinking otherwise.

The comment that you saw as so painfully wounding to you was about a college student who wanted her classmates and her school to face important serious urgent issues in our society and to use this opportunity for required reading to not spend the time on something easy, but to tackle something difficult.

To write for younger readers is to hope that they will remember the stories, that they will take something away from them as they move on to other books, other authors. That they will seek out ever more complex work. That the books will help them to grow as readers, but also as people. This young woman read your work, knew your work, and she wanted to challenge her classmates, she wanted something more. Unlike what some of your friends think, that doesn’t mean that she hates teenage girls and is a misogynist, but that she read you at a certain age and then when she got older, she wants to build a fairer, more just society.

That sounds admirable.

And even if she didn’t like your books, no one should be attacked for that. People are allowed to not like your books. Not liking your books doesn’t make someone a misogynist. Not reading YA books as an adult doesn’t make someone a misogynist. Not wanting YA books to be in a college curriculum doesn’t make someone a misogynist.

I hope that you get better, Sarah. It sounds like you’re going through a hard time, and I hope that you get help and find some peace. I mean that sincerely. I’m not just concluding this way because I worry you’ll read this and sic your friends on me to drive me to depression and suicide. (Which honestly struck me as a possibility when I started writing this, so I guess we’ll find out if you’re doing better).

A Missing Monday

On a typical Monday I try to mention and highlight some of the articles that were published the previous week. Last week, though, nothing was published. Like a lot of people, and I suspect like a lot of freelancers in general and writers more specifically, I judge myself based on my writing. A productive day writing means that I had a good day. I am what I create. I am my job. There’s a way in which I believe that this is a poisonous and negative mindset. This is not the standard by which we should judge our lives. This is not a standard that leads to good mental health. Thinking like this won’t make anyone - and won’t make me - happy. But I still think this way. I need to stay on top of my e-mails. I need to check in on social media. I need to pitch and apply and obsess. Even if I’m not being productive, not really, I need to be working. I need to keep moving. And that mindset is exhausting. More than exhausting, it’s toxic. Because I am more than the widgets I produce. I keep thinking about how when I was younger I worked many jobs which have many derogatory terms, but I worked customer service. I always thought that I was more than that job. I never let that job define me in my own mind. Of course customers thought that anyone who worked such a job was a braindead useless moron they could scream at, but as anyone who has worked such jobs know, those people exist, but we never let them define us. But now I let my job define me. It is perhaps the only thing that defines me. It would be flippant and inaccurate to say that I have nothing besides work in my life right now, but it does not feel untrue to say that. An so I consider the fact that last week nothing was published, that I was away and not working for much of that time, and there is an existential worry about this. Because what am I if I haven’t done anything? More to the point, I’m not happy with my life. I’m not happy in my life. And if I am both unable to change and unproductive, then what is the point? What am I living for?

Post-Oscar Thoughts

• The Green Book. Ugh. A white director who admits to inappropriate behavior in the past, a screenwriter who is a conspiracy mongering Islamophobe, a producer who sends obnoxious e-mails to people who write negative articles about the film, a story that the family of the African-American protagonist says is inaccurate and disrespectful. And looking at the stage when it won, and the almost all white cast and crew ...

• I love Alfonso Cuaron. I was not rooting for him to win, but I have no problem with him winning. Also, two Best Director wins for him in less than a decade, for two very different films, which is something.

• Rami Malek. It feels like it was only a few years ago he came out of nowhere to star in Mr. Robot and here he is, delivering an incredible performance that made that film and winning an Oscar. (Also, over the years Malik has made two films with Spike Lee, can we see these two Oscar winners team up on some amazing kickass new movie?)

• I don’t know how it is that Glenn Close still doesn’t have an Oscar. I just don’t get it.

• Olivia Colman though is amazing. And she gave a great speech. I keep thinking about all the things I’ve seen her in. On TV she was amazing in very different roles in a series of shows including Broadchurch, Flowers, Green Wing, The Night Manager, and Rev. On a show like Twenty Twelve which was light and honestly wasn’t that great, she had such presence and really stood out. On film there was The Lobster and Murder on the Orient Express recently, but she was amazing in Tyrannosaur. She’s taking over the lead in The Crown this year, so she may add an Emmy award this year to her mantle.

• Mahershala Ali is the only good thing about Green Book. But I still would have given the Oscar to either Richard E. Grant or Sam Elliott.

• Regina King! If Beale Street Could talk should have received more awards, but this is a good one. She’s had an amazing decade. On TV she went from Southland (where she played one of the best female cops in the history of television...prove me wrong!) to American Crime where she played three characters in each of the show’s three seasons to The Leftovers to Seven Seconds. Of course she was also the voices of Huey and Riley in The Boondocks. She was on 227 way back when. There was Boyz n the Hood and Poetic Justice and Higher Learning. There was Friday and Down to Earth and Jerry Maguire.

• Queen’s performance...eh.

• Swallow. Wow.

• I wanted Never Look Away to win Best Foreign Language film. I know that Roma won because it wasn’t going to win Best Picture, but I think Never Look Away is just a mindblowingly amazing work.

• I also wanted Never Look Away to win Best Cinematography for Caleb Deschanel. (Yes, Zooey’s dad). He’s never won an Oscar. This is the man who shot The Black Stallion and Being There, The Right Stuff and The Natural, Fly Away Home and Ask the Dust, and so many others. One of the best cinematographers alive today.

• Bao winning best animated short is so well deserved. There are feature length films that don’t have that level of artistry and emotion.

• Ruth E. Carter definitely deserved to win for Black Panther. Long overdue!

• Glad that BlacKkKlansman won for best adapted screenplay, which means that Spike Lee now has an Oscar. And he managed to be excited about winning, and also give a speech that was serious and solemn and heartfelt. His ability to do both, says a lot about why I continue to love Spike even if every film doesn’t always succeed.

• The Green Book won for best original screenplay and I just the lack words to describe my feelings about this. I find it hateful for many reasons, including the fact that Paul Schrader was nominated for an Oscar for the very first time this year for writing First Reformed.

  Schrader has won a lot of awards over the years but was never previously even nominated for an Oscar. This is the man who wrote Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, who adapted The Last Temptation of Christ and The Mosquito Coast. He made films like Blue Collar and Hardcore, Mishima and Affliction, American Gigolo and Cat People. And First Reformed isn’t simply an accident that this was his first nomination, but in a very long and acclaimed career, First Reformed is arguably his best work. And instead people chose...