Author: Peter Hawley

All of the news around Don Imus and the remarks he made has me thinking about race in film. Race, which I feel is the single most important issue in American politics, defines America, so it should be no surprise

I am a big fan of the public radio show This American Life. Each week the program chooses a theme and shares a series of stories on that theme. Usually, I listen while driving and often find myself at my

Things are changing. Good, Fast, Cheap-pick two is becoming Good, Fast, Cheap- pick three, or worse Cheap and Fast- no good. It hasn’t changed in the week since my earlier pick two post, but it has been slowly coming for

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said there are no second acts in American lives. I disagree. I would say just the opposite, that American lives are almost fully made up of second acts. I don’t know if it is the times

Is film dead? That is the question. I had lunch the other day with a former student. And when he is not being a tennis official, he works often in the Chicago film business. He told me that in the

My cell phone died on Saturday. Actually it only half died. I can talk into and can be heard, but I can’t hear the person I am talking with. My last conversation went something like this, “Can you hear me?

I am happy to report that the student who asked me if I had any women in my class has written a nice script and will be shooting a short film in late summer. (She subscribes to the good, fast,

The enemy of good is better. It is worse when a “creative committee” is involved. More to the point, trying to make an already good thing better often ruins the original. See New Coke, Rocky II and Cher as examples.

“Good, fast, cheap pick two,” is our unofficial motto. (Our official motto is “It must be 5 o’clock somewhere, let’s have a drink.”) I am constantly surprised by how many people do not understand this simple concept. It is a