“As I near my 40s, the most fundamental question I ask when my wife and I are deciding what movie to watch on an evening is not “Drama or Comedy?” Neither do I first ask, “New movie or old movie?” Rather, the first pebble we drop down the well of our souls is, “Something we have seen before or something new?” This is the metaphysical coup of film. The occasions when I want something new are always attended by flightier moods, not a spirit of adventure. When I have my gravity, when my faculties are strong, I want something I’ve seen a thousand times.”
-from Film As Metaphysical Coup, originally published in 2017, and now available for the first time online.
This article was so difficult to write, I wrote almost nothing for two months following its completion. Since I began writing at seventeen, I’d never produced so little.
There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. 