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now and our media O'Kelly. Ah, and look at that. It is
May the eighth, twenty twenty four, allegedly according to that thing we call
a calendar. I almost didn't have the date right in my mind. I
had to go double check the well, not double check, triple check,
because it's been one of those kind of weeks. To be honest with you,
anyway, Wednesday, Wodnesday, middle of the week, as I speak
to you live. Of course, most of you will catch this further on
down the stream via your final slab of choice, your applicable application, and
your podcatcher d joure. That's the way you'll usually hear this show. But
we are live at O'Kelly dot com and on your radio apps and all that
good stuff, so welcome to it no matter how you have come to us.
So Wednesday we have Albert Lanier back with us. Now. Usually I
bring mister lanieron to talk about journalism and us in a way. We're going
to talk about journalism again today, but it's not going to be exactly as
it has been, although we have touched upon the subject of film and entertainment
in the past. I find this interesting because mister Lanier's gonna launch a project,
or maybe he already has. He's gonna tell us about it in a
moment regarding something that he used to do. But when he used to do
it, it was a different time. What do I mean? Well,
Okay, film in general, the industry. We know, the industry has
changed, not because just the technology has changed, but also due to the
implementation of social media, the relativity and the ever changing landscape of how movies
and entertainment products are marketed, how they're distributed, how they're actually consumed by
the consumer streaming services. You can sit at home now and get a first
run movie that was the big boogeyman to Hollywood too long ago. Am I
going to focus on that? Maybe? Maybe not. There's a lot to
unpack here, because there used to be this thing called film critics as well.
Some of my friends, some of my good friends, John Barber,
who's been on this show, was a film critic many years. Whole book
about it, somebody just put it out. I tried to get John on
recently to talk about that book. He got busy. We'll get him on
soon. But he used to do it in La right in the prime spot
on TV and all that. And when I was a kid, I do
recall these guys, Ciskel and Ebert. Ciskel and Ebert were two guys.
They would give a thumbs up or thumbs down to movies and yeah, I
know, Grandpa, that's back in the days when you use something called TV.
And the thing weighed four hundred pounds and also was a piece of furniture.
Yes, yes, I know, children, calm down. But it
was interesting because we would see previews of movies, we would see ads for
movies on TV, on the radio, et cetera. These guys would get
to see them before us. Some people in your local newspapers would see him
before us. As a matter of fact, those two guys rose to prominence
and got that TV show because they were the biggest film critics in Chicago,
and somehow that translated into national audience TV show and they were the big deal.
What did Ciskel and Ebert say? In fact, movie ads would be
readjusted. They would come out, the movie would be out there as an
ad, and you know, they'd be talking about it and they would say,
well, look, you know this is a great film, blah blah
blah blah, and Ciskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs up or whatever.
If it was a positive review, there might be other places, sort of
like when a book comes out the New York Times, is it on the
bestseller list or not? That would tell you if it was successful, if
it was big. All of that's gone. Now things are instantaneous. They
know right away how many downloads it got. What are the ticket sales reported
immediately instantaneously. There's always been bookkeeping and other chicaner redone with the numbers there
in Hollywood, holly weird as it was. I'll tell you a strange thing.
Quarter billion tickets sold for Star Trek, the motion picture in nineteen seventy
nine, right, and the movie studio basically ran off at the mouth,
telling everybody would listen that they had a financial disaster on their hands with Star
Trek, even though they sold a quarter billion tickets for that movie and ever
after that movie made money, but they said they lost money. A lot
of movies that seemed to take in millions, and indeed, in today's dollars
billions seem to lose money, et cetera. Et cetera. Okay, so
the finance, the industry, the business, the idea of critiquing it.
Nowadays people have YouTube channels, Instagram, TikTok, whatever, and it's all
all all almost an alien world compared to what it was that we grew up
with many many years ago. Get off my loan, I know, but
I'm wondering how it is that a guy who is you don't no offense,
Lanier. You're a little older than me, I think, uh, and
you had a whole career that you se me retired from journalism, et cetera.
This this was part of your career as well. And you've always been
fascinated by things in entertainment. I can tell that just by talking to here.
But odd thing, right, you're like more of the old school guy
who recognizes every reference I just dropped regarding the way things used to be regarding
movies. But toyay, today there's a whole other landscape and you're looking to
re enter that that that odd world, that that that hollyweird, that other
entertainment. And it's not even necessarily I mean, I'm sitting in Georgia,
and believe it or not, we have a significant film and entertainment industry right
here in the state of Georgia. Absolutely things have changed. Georgia is one
of the major production hub states. A lot of TV shows, reality,
maybe some hour law, and certainly movies produced in Georgia. Georgia's come a
long way since Dukes of Hazard. I think they filmed the pilot in town
in Georgia. Yeah, and it wasn't Hazard County. Funny thing though,
is that Georgia not only makes live action TV shows. It was famously the
home of the Walking Dead and the Walking Dead universe for many years. But
let's be honest, there's a whole Mate in Georgia logo that you see at
the end of a lot of TV shows, tons of animation, Ted Turner's
Network and all of the things that shot off of that. Yeah, there's
a lot going on in Georgia. Am I here to talk about the you
know, the economic changes? No, because at one point there were parts
of Canada that it seemed like were more Hollywood than Hollywood. Things change over
time and different states make deals with the industry. But you know what,
that's not what we're here to talk about. Even I want to talk to
you about the strange change and what makes you want to jump back into an
unrecognizable ocean that you were once in. So, because I'm serious, it's
like, it's almost like I want to go back into doing something. I'm
going to go back in and get into the video game business. Well when
was the last time you were in the video game business, sir? Well,
you know pac Man was brand new. No, you are not looking
at the same universe, you know what I mean. So I want you
to talk to me about that, what has inspired this, and give us
an idea about the before and after. And now I'll shut up because I'm
just fascinated by your desire to dive into this, and I want you to
tell us all about it, so you know how you doing, first of
all, and secondly, please lay this out for us, mister Lanier.
Well, first of all, I really enjoyed that setup, especially the Star
Trek the motion picture, or as those of us who are trekkers sometimes call
it, the motionless picture. I call it two thousand and one a Star
Trek honysy. But that's that's an aside. But you were kind of delving
a little into creative accounting there, Hollywood creative accounting there, oh yes.
But as regards to my change, what's occurred is the fact that I have
returned to film writing. Basically, I've been on podcasts and talk shows and
radio shows since two thousand and nine, and I guess since I've been interviewed
on shows mostly it's been about a variety of other subjects. Very little of
it has been film oriented because basically in my twenty two year career as a
journalist and a writer, I spent about eight years being a film critic and
reviewer. This is from two thousand and two to twenty ten, and before
that, starting in nineteen ninety four, which is when I started being a
journalist and a writer and a freelance writer, I went and I covered my
first film festival as a reporter as a journalist, and after a couple of
years where I moved from Honolulu, which is my hometown where I covered my
first film festival, and moving to Seattle and LA and I then went to
film festivals there just as a regular filmgoer. So I went to the Seattle
Film Festival a couple of years, and then I went to AFI for one
one festival at the A five Festival. Okay, so how much is there
film institute festivals? How much of that? In nineteen ninety seven and I
covered the festival for newsapers for newsapers from about ninety seven to two thousand and
one. So my background has been covering film festivals, primarily in regards to
not only being a journalist but also being a later a film critic and reviewer,
which I was. From two thousand and two to ten, I wrote
for a film website called Eate It Cool News. I was a contributor to
that by now rather infamous film website. Okay, okay, well look it's
not as it's not as infamous as what mister skin or whatever, But yeah,
I got you. Yeah, I follow this stuff quick. I have
followed things, you know, and believe it or not. I wrote as
a reviewer, not so much for films. I did it mainly for music,
and I think it's a similar kind of situation where you attend live shows,
you know, you get the new albums, you try and get advanced
copies at certain points. Matter of fact, it's the only professional journalism that
I was ever paid for was was writing music articles. I've written JFK stuff
for free and only a few articles there and I'm not a big writer.
I started life thinking and I might be. I mean, you know,
if you go back to my high school and junior high school newspapers, you
can find at some point me doing reviews of music, and it's because I
was interested in music. So how much of this was part of your professional
life and how much of this was more or less I don't want to say,
a hobby, but more like a just a passionate aspect of your life
film the industry itself. And you also mentioned you're going back into being a
writer of films, which is different than being a journalist of films or being
a reviewer. So tell me about that a little bit the past for you.
Well, in regards to past, it's very interesting because I think when
I look back in terms of movies in my life, and I thought about
this recently because I'm basically I've launched a brand new substack called Final Cut,
which is a film substack. People can go to al Lanier dot substat dot
com to check that out, and I'll bring that up later on. But
basically, in talking about this and doing interviews about this and talking about films
again, it's brought back kind of memories from way back. Basically, my
interest in movies doesn't really stem from watching movies as it does for most people,
or kind of being a fan of movies. When I was a kid,
I wasn't really someone who was a pure fan of movie. I like
movies, but I like watching specific movies. I was interested in the movie
I was interested in, and I watch it and yeah, I like that
movie. But that was about it. When I was twelve or thirteen years
old, was back in the early eighties, I happened to see a class
for at my local library. It was literally called movie making course something along
that line, okay, and I signed up for it. And my interest
in film really stems from learning filmmaking. At the age of twelve and thirteen,
I took this course. It was from I think September of nineteen eighty
two to about spring of eighty three, and it was every Monday after school,
I guess about three pm or so to get there for my j junior
high and I was I learned all the basic shots you know, close up
in master shots, you know, wide shots, and various other shots.
And I learned various other components of filmmaking. For example, I storyboarded at
that age, you know it was working on storyboard. Well that was my
next My next question, my hang on, my question, Hang on a
second. My question is your goal with the classes that you were in and
what you were trying to do, is this. Were you interested in being
a script writer or a director or did you have another specific sort of area
of interest that you wanted to get involved with and get your hands on with.
I mean, you could be a set designer, you could be a
lot of different things. From these descriptions, were what was your ultimate goal?
We were you somebody who wanted to write scripts as a writer, That
would be the most logical thought. Well, good, well at that age,
I was like twelve. At thirteen years old, The reality was I
didn't have As I mentioned before, I didn't have an interest in films to
the extent that a lot of people that you've seen do. I didn't have
that kind of comprehensive, all embracing, really devoted interest in films. I
just like watching certain kinds of films or certain films I was interested in.
It was going to that class that made me interested in movies in general,
and eventually it was part of the journey. I hate to use that because
it's such a cliche that people us in regards to movies. It's a journey,
but it was a journey that led me to eventually become a film critic
because I learned all, like I said, the basic shots. I storyboarded.
In the class that I was in, everyone had their own project,
so and if you weren't working on a project, you were helping out somebody
on a project. So I had to shoot b roll. And because we
were doing it on video, I didn't learn on film. I learned on
I learned on video. Well that was a video in the eighties, was
I don't need to tell you. Well, it was cheaper. It was
cheaper. It was more accessible if you were going to go to community college
or you were going to go to some sort of you know, auxiliary class,
or even work because at that age you could you could work in high
school in the av or junior high school in the av well department. Again,
I was, I guess I was fairly Again, I was twelve thirteen
years old, right, So I was, I was. I was.
It wasn't like into high school if I ever had been in high school because
where I was in Hawaii, which is where I'm from. There weren't any
film schools. There really weren't any programs. So in a way, I
was fortunate that I took this class. It was taught by a guy who
owned a video store. It was in another neighborhood. I don't know why
he did it there, but he did it, and you know, it
was over a period of months, and I learned about, you know,
all the basics of filmmaking there and that's what prepared me, strangely enough to
be a film critic reviewer, to cover film festivals, to write about film
and that's what separates me from I think a lot of people. Okay,
so I learned account taking me nowadays with what you see, I don't know
that they have a film background. Some people do, but they don't because
I have a filmmaking background. That's what I never got to become a student
filmmaker, right, That's what I'm trying to do. Wasn't any outlet for
it, but yeah, that's what I'm trying to get to is that you
actually went and delved into the mechanics at that age a little bit how this
is done. But you still didn't have an aspiration really as far as being
on the creative side, and this led you more into combining it with your
Obviously you wanted to be a writer early on as well, so you combined
your two aspirations, your passion for learning the mechanics with Okay, I'm getting
the story. So let's move ahead in your age, because now you know
at some point you start your professional life. You went to school all that,
So how does this continue to develop as you get older? Well,
interestingly, when I was in high school, I have started writing film reviews
for my high school newsaper, and I also had you know, I was
still at that point interested in possibly being a filmmaker, but I didn't have
the outlets for it. I didn't have the reason, the ability because I
didn't have a film camera, I didn't have a video came, I didn't
have any means of making movies. So I was able to take that and
translated into film reviewing. And in high school I went and I was going
to film festivals. When I was fifteen, I went to a film festival,
so that was the first one, and I went to film festivals at
the time I was a junior because I missed one or my sophomore year.
My junior year yacht. By the time I was a senior until I graduated
college, i'd gone to my local hometown film festival, which was the Hawaii
International Film Festival. And I did that initially this as a regular filmgoer,
and then in nineteen ninety four, once I became a writer and a journalist,
once I became a freelance writer and journalists, I then covered the film
festival, as I mentioned before, And the reason I was able to do
that is because I had been going to film festivals, you know why,
for years, and so I was able to take that and pitch it to
the editor of a local newspaper that I was just starting to freelance for,
and so it was very convenient. So I would say my involvement in regards
to covering film festivals and eventually becoming a film reviewer a film critic was as
much about convenience and experience, the experience of having been the film festivals,
watching, going to screenings, seeing filmmakers, talking to some filmmakers, and
using that as a springboard to freelance work. Okay, so tell tell the
listeners, tell the experience. Yeah, yeah, well tell the listeners this.
Why would you bother going to film festivals as opposed to just going to
movie theaters or going to see premieres when you could catch them stuff like that.
Why would you bother going to the film festivals? Like, why is
that a big focus? Because you keep mentioning it. What is the difference
there for the film festival versus you know, just going to see what the
latest thing is that's in the commercial market or the odds, theed that might
be, you know, might have a thematic sort of thing where there's sort
of more art house kind of movies running in one place. See, I'm
not really you know, I'm used to the idea of New York where everything
is right right, and Jersey sort of had that too. So the thing
is in Hawaii, I'm not sure what it's like. Why the film festivals
as opposed to again, the regular you know, just general mill that's out
there that anybody can go to and like I said, you could catch the
premieres, early releases, et cetera. Why didn't you do that as opposed
to the you know, explain to me why the film festivals or the listeners
really well, for me, for one thing, the film festival that I
went to it used to be a free film festival, so that was part
of the reason that I went it. Initially it was a free film festival
for a number of years. I think the aspect it relates back to learning
about film. When I was a kid, I had taken the course the
library in a way that was like my film school, but let's call that
undergrad What film festivals represented was kind of like graduate school. You know,
you're getting to be in the immersive film environment. So when you're going to
a film festival, you're going to X amount of days of screens, of
seeing sometimes filmmakers introduce and then take Q and A, of sometimes getting to
meet filmmakers, of sometimes getting to meet film critics, as I did at
the festivals I attended and later covered. It's a completely inundated, marinated and
immersive experience in terms of filmgoing and in terms of cinema in general. So
you don't get that going to your local theater, because you go and see
a movie and then you're back in your life, right, You're back to
normal, houndra, mundane, you know, world. But when you're in
a film festival environment, you're in a different world for a certain amount of
time. That certainly was the case when I covered film festivals both as a
writer and as a journalist, and it was mostly the Hawaiian and ash the
Hawaiian Film Festival, but there were also smaller festivals. I went to Cinema
Paradise, this tiny like Postcard Festival, and a couple others. There used
to be a Spring Film Festival and they still have it. So well again,
it's that kind of immersive you know, so sort of completely you know,
completely complete experience. I get, I get it. So my next
question is this then, Uh, you know, sometimes they have seasonal stuff
where you have, like in October, there'll be like horror movie festivals.
Uh, you know, there are seasonal movie things that come up or whatever.
I don't know if Hawaii does that kind of thing or ends up with
those events, or ends up with the touring events like you know, even
back in the nineties, there would be sometimes these short like limited showings where
the filmmakers would travel with their film or even at the conventions. Look Star
Trek, I'll mention it again since you and I have that in common.
I mean, it was a great thing when people could go to the Star
Trek convention and there would be a film festival section of the convention where you
might get to see something that nobody's seen yet or you know. Roddenberry famously
ran around with some of the outtakes and stuff that was never meant to be
shown on TV and promoted Star Trek. I mean he did that early.
It went to something nice. He went to like a very early time of
the early days of Star Trek and brought some film from Star Trek. I
think initially he went to a sci fi convention that was just a general one,
I think, and was like, hey, I got Star Trek.
It's a new thing. And he showed the pilot that was going to go
on NBC. People loved it so much he pulled out the pilot they rejected
and put it on afterwards, and then took questions and was there to promote.
Did you go to stuff like that as well? I've been to Comic
Con. Yeah, so I've been to several conventions comic I've been to Comic
Con Honolulu, for example, the Comic Con here. I've been there about
two or three times. The first time I went to Comic Con Honolulu,
I actually was there as a panelist. I wasn't as there as a regular
participant. Okay, I was there. That's a whole other experience, but
I was there to talk about TV show. It was a sci fi show
called Sci Fi Channel show called Uika, which I'm a still bit of a
fan of, and so I had a kind of different experience. But you're
right about the cons they had that film component, and some of them may
still have that aspect, depending on the bigger conventions like San Diego Comic Con
and for example. But I would say, again, getting back to wrap
up, I now see that my experience again, I think it's in stages
for me in regards to movies, okay, because it's kind of woven in
the fabric of my life. But I've had that kind of balance it with
other things. So I took the fact that I got it was weird because
I took this education that I had, this basic grounding and filmmaking that I
had when I was a kid, was really young, fairly young, and
I didn't have outlets for it because I didn't have a camera. I didn't
have movie or film video camera. I didn't have other means of making a
film, not like today where you can just take a phone and start shooting
stuff, shooting video and editing it on the laptop. Well, indeed,
some people have made entire films off of their phones, which, by the
way, just for the listener, you do have a YouTube video up that
talks about the creation of this substack. And I'm going to include the link
to that YouTube video which is on your YouTube channel. And where's the title?
I had it in front of me a second ago, but it's actually
my channel. No, not the youth. Well yeah, tell them about
the YouTube channel. Go ahead, tell them about the YouTube channel, and
I will get to the special films. So here a brand new substanct outlet
to brand new substant called the Final Cut. It'll deal with movies and films,
so you'll get criticism, analysis, maybe some reviews will see go to
Alaneer dot substact dot com. There you go. Okay, I didn't meet
it playing, but I couldn't have said it better myself. In fact,
I did say it better myself. There you have it dramatically incorrect, but
myself said it exactly. So anyway, I'll give you guys the link to
that video as well. You just heard some of the audio from it.
But uh yeah, but please continue, tell us about, you know,
how this evolves in your professional life. Now you've gone on to be a
freelance journalist. Some years have gone by and you sort of got away from
this because you had other things to do, you had other things to focus
on. So tell us about that now you sort of fell away from it,
and then tell us about going back to it now, please, right,
So, like I mentioned before, I had kind of set up the
fact that from the time I had started as a journalist and as a freelance
writer, I had covered film festivals and I had been to them early on,
so it was convenient for me. It was using experience I had attending
screenings and going to them just as a regular filmgoer, and using this as
a freelance gig, and you know, you know, using it as a
consistent gig every year. And what happened, I think was that eventually,
as I mentioned, I became a film review, film critic, and reviewer
from about two thousand and two to twenty ten. Because I was covering film
festivals, I was a part time film reviewer, so I was only able
to really cover film festivals and review films. When I became a film critic
and reviewer at film festivals. I wasn't a general release film critic, nor
a full time film critic in a way part of me, you know,
years ago I reached a point where I would have liked to have focused just
on being a film critic full time and on doing entertainment, and that was
something I kind of wanted to do and just going on the festival circuit.
But living where I was in Hawaii, a very expensive state, and being
a freelancer financially just was impossible, and I think work wise it really was
impossible. I had to focus on getting assignments that would pay and working as
much as possible, grabbing as much work. When you're a local, regional
freelancer, you know, you got to work as much as you can.
And that's what I did, and I was glad to have the experience to
get to film festivals, to meet filmmakers, to interview actors, and which
I talk about actually in my new final cut sub Stack I do it.
I have an article there called My Favorite Years where I talk about covering film
festivals and in Hawaii and in general and some of the people that I met.
It was a great time. It was a wonderful time. And of
course I have a lot of stories about doing the film, the local film
festival circuit in Hawaii, and being a film critic and reviewer and the people
that I met. One guy I met was John Ritter, who, of
course is people who are fans of Three Company will know star of that sitcom,
and in my respect, I was on another show and I was talking
to someone who was a big John Ritter fan. I said, John should
have been a movie star. I don't know why he didn't, but somehow
I didn't translate. But I met John Ritter. I got to interview him.
So I've had some interesting experience. Briefly met Quentin Tarantino. He had
come to the festival one year. It was one of those situations where it
was kind of I was coming out of a restaurant, he was coming into
a restaurant. I said, hey, how how are you introduce myself?
We briefly chatted for I think a minute, and I had to move on
to a screening. One of the things I say about my background and covering
film festivals was the movie metaphor that I use is back to the future when
Martin mcfought Marty mcflies getting into the DeLorean and try to get back to nineteen
eighty five. That's what it felt like a lot of the time, just
hurried and busy and trying to put the pedal to the medal and get to
screenings and get to a hotel to interview someone. So Quentin Tarantino. I
briefly met Jeez Pat Marita Karate Kid. That was interesting. Happy. I
was at a party, Happy Days, Happy Days, and a whole other
career before he was at I don't know what the movie he was involved with,
but he was at a party. I was at some party and he
was there, and I had to go off to some screening. Again.
I was always going to some screening or added to an interview or added to
a party when I was covering film vessels. And I thought, I'll go
up to him and I'll meet him. And I did, and the guy
never made eye contact with me. He was like looking everywhere but in front
of me. Uh. It was really interesting, polite. He shook my
hand and I was great, but it was like, oh yeah, yeah,
I began to feel like Crease in that movie The Karate Kid. People
understand what I mean, but yeah, that was an interesting experience meeting bat
Marita. You know, let me see Tony Collette, and people are fans
of the movie Terry and some of the other movies she's done. I remember
meeting her years ago. I think she was a juror at the film Festival,
and I had seen her in a movie I think a couple of years
before called Muriel's Wedding. I think that was one of her first big movies,
and it was actually I think the first year that I covered the festival
in ninety four. I had gone to the screening and I liked the movie
a lot because I had seen some dogs, some terrible movies, and by
the time I got to that day, the morning screening for that, it
was like great. And that's how film festivals were. You get in the
morning, sometimes you have a bad screening, or get to the afternoon maybe
you have a better screening or better film. Interesting, but I spoke to
her. She was very pleasant lady to see. I met Roger Corman.
Roger Roger Corman was interesting. I remember we were at a nightclub and I
think he was there for a tribute at the festival. I think on a
neighbor island. He's going to go to Neabor Island. But we had a
conversation. I think I met Roger and his wife Julie, and I asked
him at one point, I said, how come the studios don't do what
you did, and that is like make cheaper movies and you know, make
leaner movies. And he said, well, that's because they don't want to
spend one hundred thousand dollars to make seven hundred thousand dollars. Probably right,
So, okay, there's a lot to the financial elements of this. There's
a lot to it. But anyway, so you mentioned about writing, though,
and it sounded to me like you were talking about actually getting involved in
content creation and not just being a film critic at the beginning. Did I
misunderstand you? No, yeah, you did. I'm not interested in being
a screenwriter. No. I lived in LA a couple times. I lived
in LA in the nineties and I lived in the late two thousands, first
decade of the two thousands, and in the nineties when I was in LA,
I would get bothered by the average individual. I don't think these were
people that worked in the industry, and like I'm sure they didn't. I
would get bothered by people who were who found out I was a writer,
and they say, well, do you write scripts? I would say no,
said well, you should be writing scripts. I'm like, no,
I don't really want to write scripts. I don't want to be a screenwriter.
And they would look at me like I was crazy or something. And
I was always bothered at times by people that'd be like, you should be
writing scripts. Why aren't you writing for TV? You know? So that
kind of drove me nuts. I liked living in La but I that part
of living in La So I've never wanted to be a screenwriter. I had
thought about being a filmmaker many years ago, but I never I don't want
to be a screenwriter. I mean, what I know about the industry and
what I've found out over the is I really don't want to. Especially after
this past writer strike. I'm like, nah, I'm fine. Yeah,
but if you're lucky enough to get you know, if you're lucky enough to
swim through the ocean, because I mean there's literally like millions of people trying
to be screenwriters. It seems like, you know, they're everywhere you go.
If you're in La certain parts of LA and all the surrounding cities.
Everyone. I mean, there are a lot of people that want to be
directors, producers, actors, actresses, you know, anything in that business.
And I was one of those people that came to LA to continue to
be a freelance writer and journalists. So I wasn't one of those people.
And it's hard to kind of for some people, it was hard for them
to understand that in La. Not anywhere else it's fine, but in LA,
I mean, Las are very different. I'll be rudely honest. People
don't really understand LA. If you haven't lived there, you don't get it.
I mean, what you see in movies about a Los Angeles and TV
shows is not It is a myth. It isn't the real La. I
mean it, and it's really kind of complicated to go into. But that's
one of the things I've noticed on social media in fact, and talking to
people who people who talk about like, I've lived in LA twice and it's
very rare to see a movie or a TV show deal with how California,
how Los Angeles really is. And one of the things I was confronted with
people bothering me a love writing the scripts when I was twenty six years old.
I just didn't care about it. I must have been unusual in la
and that I went, yeah, I don't want to be a screenwriter.
Yeah, because I'm you know, I needed to write articles that made me
money. I had to survive. What is writing a screenplay that's you know,
that's not going to make you any money hoping somebody options it. I
don't think so. But look, it never occurred to me. But it's
strange that its a very different place. It's like any other you know,
art okay, where you get into the especially in entertainment, but any sort
of artistic endeavor. Quite honestly, there's a certain point at which you're going
in there. You're gonna do this regardless of whether somebody buys it or not,
okay, and it's just something that you're gonna do. Now. You
got to survive in the meantime, which is why there's a you know,
like I said, a million stories of the waiter that tries to you know,
approach people with a script and this and that you can hear those stories
all the time, or like you know, they meet a film star and
say, oh, you know, i'd be great in your next movie because
they want to be an actor or whatever. Hey, listen, I direct
stuff. I'm a great director. I went to film school. You know.
I know I'm washing your car right now, but I went to film
school. I'd be good to work with you on your next show, et
cetera, et cetera. All kinds of people's totally alien to me. I
have to be honest that that's stuff I've seen in movies and TV shows,
but also on YouTube and other places. I was never any you know,
because I was just when I lived in LA. I was a freelance writer
and journalist. I wrote for a living. That's what I did. So
unless you experience that kind of aspect, it's totally alien and removed from me,
and it totally is. I mean, it's maybe that's why I don't
talk about living in LA that much, because I don't have those stories.
You know, Like I saw people that were actors. I didn't bother them.
I left them alone because I'm like, they want their privacy. I
want. The only time I met actors is really covering film festivals. I
didn't go out of my way to meet actors when I was in LA or
anybody, even if I saw them on the Streen. It was just they
they went their way. I went my way, right, you know.
But that's a whole theme. I could talk about la. That would be
a whole other episode. Getting back, I think to my experience in terms
of writing about films, and you know, I think it was interesting because
I wrote for this this website, eighty cool News, and it was interesting
to me being a film finally being a film critic. I wasn't looking to
be a film critical reviewer. I liked kind of covering film festivals because it
was easy for me. Initially, all I had to do was like write
a round up article for this local newspaper. You know. I'd go and
do ten or or whatever, eleven or twelve days and then write one article
and I was done. But once I went over to eighty Coole, I
was writing reviews, I was writing coverage. I was just exhausted. So
and that was kind of an interesting place. Eighty Cool. I was a
contributor, so I didn't know half the things that were going on at its
hub in Austin. Well, yeah, but there was controversy behind the scenes
with that, right, It wasn't necessarily the material that was going out on
the site or am I misremembering? Well it was? It was. You
know the thing about in okool ones. It was kind of a groundbreaking film
site. I think it started about ninety six or so. I didn't start
writing for it until two thousand and two. I didn't know anything about inocool
because I really didn't know anything about websites. I didn't I wasn't an internet
guy, right. I went online, but I didn't really go on a
lot of sites and so forth. I knew nothing about film site. I'm
trying to remember if Rotten Tomatoes was around. Oh yeah, well I in
the nineties. Today you have that, But there used to be what film
Threat magazine. A lot of magazines transferred or translated into websites at a certain
point because there used to be entertainment weekly in magazines like that, that were
the places people went for film reviews. What are they saying about the film
that's coming out? That's great? Right? You have Variety and Hollywood Reporter,
and i'd met I certainly have met people from Variety when I was covering
blon festivals, right, Doctor Chatman, and in New York and in New
York and in New York. If you wanted cutting edge stuff, you went
to the Village Voice, which you know, was cutting edge on a cultural
on a cultural scale all up and down the spectrum. But when it came
to you know, brand new films or lesser known films, or you know,
deep intellectual dives into things, you could go to the Village Boys get
their film reviews. And on top of it, there was also just the
newspapers, right each many newspapers had their own like many celebrities that it was
like, well, what are they saying about this film? Like I said,
Ciskel and Ebert were like the forerunners for that, and they were just
big and famous coming out of Chicago. But New York had their version of
Cisco and Ebert, La had their versions. You know Texas like Dallas and
every big city pretty much had a big film reviewer. Yes, that's right.
I think that's essentially correct. And I actually knew Roger Ebert. I
had met Roger Ebert when I was actually seventeen years old, and it was
at a screening of Citizen Kane at the Hawaii Theater in downtown Honolulu. It's
the first time I met Roger Ebert because he was doing one of his patented
scene by seeing laser disc analyzes of Citizen Kane at the University of Hawaii at
Manoa, which I went to, and that was when I first met him
and I got to talk to Roger. Over the years, Roger would come
to the festival. He loved the Hawaii Film Festival, and I see him
at the press conference that he would always he always had time for me to
interview him. And that's one of the memories that I have of Roger.
You know, there are people online, you know Rogers past. He died
of cancer, of course, but you know people who don't like Roger Ebert
or they don't agree with his views of a number of movies, and I'm
biased. I got to talk to Roger and got you know, I knew
him a little and he you know, it's a little hard for me to
talk now about it because I haven't thought about this in a while, but
you know, for me, he was such not only not only was a
very good writer, an excellent writer, a good news saperman, but I
thought he was a thoughtful critic and he was always good to me personally as
another journalist and as a writer. So I have very fond memories of Roger
Ebert, and you know that could be a whole other show talking about Roger
Ebert. Yeah, absolutely, his impact on the movies. So let's let's
let's get back to the meat of this here, okay, because okay,
now we've heard a lot about your background, your passion, what you've been
into, hints about your your career, and your experiences in the past with
this. So now you have this substack. Tell us. I mean,
look, I hate to say this because it's gonna don't take this the wrong
way, but I swear to God, I'm getting inundated. Everybody and their
mother's got a substack right now, and they all have different reasons for it,
and they all have different reasons for why they're special. Now, I
pay attention to certain people. I pay attention to your writing because it's good
writing, okay, and I pay attention to subjects I care about. Tell
me what is the purpose? What is special about Albert Lamier's film Substack?
The final cut it's called the final cut or just final cut. It's final
cut, final cut. Basically, final cut is for me a return to
film writing. I left film criticism and reviewing in twenty ten. In my
article my favorite years. I talk a little about why that happened. I
had to write another article during a film festival one year, and I was
so exhausted with coming home after midnight of covering a festival and having to transcribe
an interview and all that, I got tired. So I took a break
in twenty ten, twenty ten with my last film festivals, I took a
break not only from film festivals but also from reviewing and being a critic.
And so it is a return to film writing for me. And it's a
return that I think has kind of been in stages, much like going to
film festivals and eventually becoming a journalist covering film festivals and then a film critic.
Was I made the decision to actually try to return to film writing and
movies and entertainment in twenty nineteen. And what happened was that I sort of
weighted in. At the time, I was writing a blog, I know,
you know, my blog that used to be on medium dot com,
which was about media and current events, and so I consider doing a film
blog, but I didn't really want to. And then so what I did
was start to slowly get back in to the grid. So to speak into
the world of film. I was on a show called Crooked Table the podcast,
the Film Podcast, where I analyzed Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. And
from that point on, I've become a film analyst, not a film critic,
not a reviewer, which I've already done, but an analyst. So
what I've done over the years is I take older movies and I assess them,
I analyze them, I dissect them, and I've done that on shows.
I've done it on this show. I did an episode where I had
dissected about four movies dealing with journalism. I think one of them was Killed
the Messenger. In fact, I think another was All the President's Men.
So I've been doing that since twenty nineteen, but that hasn't been like a
full commitment. I haven't really been able to do so. Strangely enough,
it was watching like three horror movies in a row. I don't know why
it was horror movies. It was three horror movies in a row. One
was Humanoid to the Deep, another was David Cronenberg's Rabbit. Another was a
movie called Chopping Mall by Jim Way Norrison, and I saw, Yeah,
I saw these films, and I kept thinking about them because I didn't normally
think about movies after I saw them, and I thought, you know what,
I think it's time, So well are you going to have made the
decision to set up final cut? And I have about four, I guess
about four pieces of content and it's all film content, but different kinds of
film content. So my first essay is my first piece is an essay on
Quentin Tarantino's of Our Dogs called Dishonor Among Thieves. The second is My Favorite
Years, which is a personal essay about covering film festivals. The second is
a footo album that shows me at film festivals with actors in some celebrities.
And the last one is more recent. I did an interview with an actress
based in Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada called Ali b. So I'm looking
to get back. I know that I have a piece I want to write
about William Freakin's to Live and Die in La I want to get to So
for me, it's been a long time coming. You know, it's finally
been able to do this. I just I think I've had other things that
I've done and I haven't really just been able to do it. Part of
it is I've been retired from journalism since twenty seventeen, and when I was
a journalist, I had the multitask. When I was a freelance writer,
I had to get things done all the time, otherwise nothing would get done.
And now that I've been retired, I can just focus on a project
or on something, and so that slows things down because I'm not in a
hurry. I'm not in a rush right now. I think that's been a
great deal of it. Well, let me ask you this. Are you
gonna do all classic content? Are we going to go with a lot of
throwbacks, a lot of movies from the past, or are you going to
get into some brand new releases or are you gonna mix it up? What's
the direction of this going to be In the future For Final Cut, I'm
looking to do possibly a retro review. I'm looking maybe because I recently took
some time off, about a week off, and I was watching stuff on
streaming. I caught up to some films I hadn't seen before. So I'm
thinking of possibly reviewing doing like an old just like I analyzed movies, maybe
possibly like a retro review. I'm thinking about it. Most of what I'm
doing is continuing what I'm doing now, which is analyzing movies, doing analytical
essays. Maybe I'll do a interview here and there. We'll see. But
in terms of new movies, I don't know if I if I decided to
come out of retirement and become a journalist again, I'm interested in possibly writing
for film magazines or entertainment magazines, so I might do that in terms of
new content or new films. I don't want to call it content new films,
but maybe for publications. I don't know if I'll do it for You
don't know if you'll do it for this. Okay, well you think you'll
write about TV shows or just you know, films, you know, motion
picture? What do they even call it? At this point, it's it's
just films. I don't do TV. No TV, Okay, I'm not
a TV credit well, you know, but there's a bit of a blurry
line right where you got like made for TV movies too, right, which
is it's a movie, but it really wasn't made to be, you know.
So and even with retro stuff, you might have full length things that
are films, but they weren't made for the theater. You're looking to go
at things that were made for the theater that are full on films only,
and it's going to be I'm looking at to look at movies and films,
whether it's on streaming released for you know, like Netflix or whatever. If
I were to write for publications, if I write for magazines, and I
don't know about newspapers, I don't know how many newspapers around anymore. But
if I were to write for publications again, that's what I would be doing.
I'd be doing the newer stuff cut I would be doing if I review
for Final Cut, I'm looking at retro review like doing older stuff. So
you're doing retro reviews for you. You're open to the idea you'll take a
job doing the newer stuff, but generally speak if I'm offered it. You
know, if there are no magazines or publications out there I'm looking at,
you know, I would. I would co matter of retirement and I would
do it. You know, I'll state my email right now. My email
is at imperious reader at gmail dot com, so if they want to contact
me, they can contact me there. There you can know if anybody from
a film, magazine or or a film website or whatever listening to this,
but you never know, they can you never never know. Do me a
favorite and and send me send me your email address, because I won't remember
it from the way you just put it out there. Send it to me,
uh in our message. We'll do that after this, after this,
after the show, right obviously, but send it to me there so I
can make sure to include it with the podcast. And I'm also going to
include a link to the substack. I'm gonna include a link to the to
the YouTube video that you did explaining about this a bit, the one that
I played a clip from just a few minutes or some minutes ago whatever now,
but either way, final cut, And it's at Albert Lanier substack dot
com, right, and actually it's aller is another substack, so it's alanear
dot substack dot com. Well, I'll have the correct link, exactly.
I'll have the correct link. People going to my other substack, which is
Albert Lemier dot substant God at the articles there too. Yeah, no,
obeah, you know, you know I have to say this again. It's
kind of like in a sense in regards to the film world, it's like
Rip van Winkle, like I've woken up and it's you were saying earlier.
It's a brand new film world. And I think the points that you made
I think were interesting points, because I I when I left it was twenty
ten, it was a whole different kind of world, you know, being
a film critic and reviewer, I think meant something, and I don't want
to say it means nothing, but I think a lot has been lost,
even about ten fourteen years, nearly fourteen years, it's a very different environment.
And I think part of this is the Internet environment. And I think
the problem that I see is that what you have or are a lot of
film pretenders and not film reviewers. I think the problem with the Internet and
not so much social media. Social media is okay, but it's the YouTube
and TikTok. Because I had heard about movie Talk I was on another show
and having a discussion about it. I mean, what little I've been able
to see since last year, I have to say I'm not impressed. There
are some people that are doing good work on YouTube, and there are a
couple of YouTube channels that I go to, you know that I look at.
Be Time Rewind is one you have. Oliver Parker's retrospective reviews. If
that's a good one. James Whale bakes sale. So I want to note
these because I think they're important ones. But you have a lot of these
other unfortun What you have is this right and kind of right wing wacko conspiratorial
clowns that are really they really hate movies. That's the weird part. These
right wingers hate movies, and they hate these Marvel movies in DC and these
other pieces of entertainment and resent strong female characters. It's bizarre to me.
Well, you know what I like some of the world. Yeah, you
know, I mean, just think about it. Is this a lot of
these people on YouTube and TikTok they need to get the hell off. Well
they're not qualified, see, but here you go. They need to get
off. They need to get off. But here we go. We have
an open world right where it's still available to everybody personally. You know what
I like is some of the some of the specialists out there that stick to
one genre and they just talk about that one thing, and you know,
some of them are very good at it and others are not so good.
But I mean, even some of the comedic ones, like one of my
favorite ones dealing with films is cinema of sins and cinema sins. Yeah,
I've heard of it. Yeah, I mean, but that's a comedy thing.
They're making fun of the movies. They actually write they like movies,
but they're also making fun of it, and they make light of a lot
of stuff, and they make, you know, light of the fact that
they're repeated tropes and there are mistakes in the movies and silly things. And
I love that because they're having fun with it. And to be honest with
you, I've actually been motivated to see some movies that they made fun of
on there after the jokes because I wanted to see the whole thing. So,
believe it or not, it actually, even though you know they're taking
ten minutes to you know, bust the movies chops, they're actually motivating me
to want to see the thing. And I that is kind of a part
of it. But here's just to kind of, you know, sort of
bring in a couple aspects. One the online aspect and also the state of
the industry. The problem that I see in the time that I've been away
and that I'm now coming back to somewhat is that you have have a lot.
It's a DIY kind of world because of YouTube, because of TikTok,
because of online platforms, not websites per se, but a lot of video
sharing platforms. You have people like critical Drinker and Asthma Gold. I think
his name is a neurotic, I mean critical jerker. I looked at a
video from this guy. I didn't know anything about him. This guy knows
nothing about movies. I mean, this man is essentially a political ideologue.
He's and that's fine. A lot of these right wing conservative types should be
talking about politics and not movies because they hate movies. They rail against superhero
movies and comic book movies and other types of movies. And my response to
that is, why are you making these videos? To be a film reviewer,
and to be a film critic, as I was, means a love
of movies. To like movies, you may hate bad movies. I'll give
you an example. I got to finally see a movie called The Seduction with
Morgan Fairchild and Andrew Steemens. I wanted to see it for years. It's
a terrible movie, but I don't hate the company that released it. And
I'm a Morgan Fairchild fan. So I love Morgan Fairchild. I think she
should have been a movie star. Frankly, I think Andrew Stevens, Okay,
poor guy was typecast. But I don't even though I hate that movie
or I think it's a terrible movie, I don't really hate it, but
I think it's a terrible movie. I don't load and despise movies and people
like critical Drinker, or if I like to call him critical stinker, he
did a video. The only video I've seen of this guy is his railing
against themes in movies. And I'm going let me get this straight. You're
against scenes in movies. That's like being angry at opera, of being angry
at different kinds of opera because singers hit high notes. This is ridiculous.
Well, the problem is that you have a world of film amateurs, not
film professionals. And when I was working as a film critic, you have
to understand I had a bachelor's degree. At a bachelor's degree, I'd studied
literature, I'd studied English, and I had come having an education in film,
a practical education, having this class when I was a kid, learning
about learning about different shots, all the technical aspects of movies. I come
to movies with not only the technical side, but also kind of the literary
side as a writer and also as a journalist. And what I find is
you don't find that with these people. You don't find that what you find
is not eloquence and excellence but excrement. What they're interesting and you know what
the point is. And this speaks for a lot of the content in general
that's being put out there across the board, is that it's very opinion focused.
So what happens is they see points being made and they see the films
and TV shows or whatever. Music doesn't matter. These things are now just
vehicles for political agendas that they absolutely despise, so they feel obligated to respond
as if they're defending no. Films should just be about having fun. I
don't want to see your political agenda. Now, they don't mind it if
it's their political agenda, but they don't want to see your political agenda.
That freaks them out, you know, And honestly, you know, it
does get a little sometimes things are too preachy and come on, you know,
ease back, let me enjoy the movie and stop preaching to me.
Sometimes or let me, enjoy the TV show. Stop preaching to me,
sometimes, I gotta say, but I do that from all angles. I
don't care which angle you're coming from. I'm not here to get preached at,
you know. I'm here to see the interesting movie. And I get
that to a degree. But some of these guys, You're right, they
dedicate their lives to it where it's like, nope, they just created this
female character because they want to destroy the American family, you know. And
I'm like, all right, you know, is the movie any good?
A lot of course. I mean, I'm just gonna call the mouth for
what they are. A lot of these people are misogynistic races. They hate
diversity, they hate strong female characters, and they're basically political ideologues political extremists.
My view is, talk about politics. I have no problem with your
political point of view if you deal with politics, But trying to graft the
political point of view onto superhero and comic book movies and four quadrant blockbustered or
a teaement is narrow and reductionist and idiotic. And again, these people really
just do not have the eloquence and the excellence to be film critics and reviewers.
Again, what a film critic is. Anyone can be a film reviewer
these days, unfortunately, but they're not film critics. Since the film critic
is a intellectual. It is someone who has the ability to not only deal
with the construct that is a movie, but also be able to explain it.
I define being a film critic when I was a film critic as a
combination of being a judge and being an engineer. What you're doing as an
engineer is you're taking a film apart. You're reverse engineering it in order to
explain it to people, to examine it, to be able to tell people
this is what this film, how this film functions, and this is how
this film works. These are these plot points. I mean, maybe you
don't go to that extent, depending on if you're just doing a basic review,
newspaper review or magazine review as opposed to doing extensive magazine reviews film magazine
reviews, which can happen fo that's the difference. Whereas the reviewer provides a
point of view and a judgment, so does a film critic. Oh,
that's it, it's a judge. But to provide a judgment, yes,
I think that's why people have been uncomfortable with film critics. That's how I
explained it. Well, a lot of these people just don't I'm you know,
I find myself, Yeah, I find myself looking at a world that
is totally utterly alien to me at this point. I mean, like,
I'll give you an example. These people really are are nothing more than guys
with jobs who should not be talking about movies. Do I sound like a
snob? Yes I do. I don't care. Well, I'm somebody who
was a professional, professional journalist and writer who covered film festivals, who spoke
to filmmakers, who interviewed actors, who went into screenings, And what we
see are a bunch of ignorant, ignorant missus, their total mattering nabobs of
negativity. Yeah, but that's the thing when people are just you know,
no, just look, we're gonna we're gonna close it out now because we're
we're over an hour. But the thing is that when people are motivated just
by wanting to make sure they get their opinion out there, they're not trying
to deconstruct anything or explain anything, or identify what it is that they're even
complaining about. They identify their complaint, not what it's based on. Not
where it came from. Not you know, they're not gonna tell you about
plot structure, the character development, exactly what the narrative goes through. Is
this filmed? Well? You know, is the lighting any good? You
know? Is this a believable story? What kind of a job do the
actors do? They don't care about any of that. It's just about I
have an opinion. I need to spit it out, and that's pretty much
everything anymore. But again, alar allanear as dot substack dot com. Is
that the address alanear substack dot com dot substack dot com. I know at
the end I come off as the kind of male Pauline tale here, and
I know that it may come off as nasty or tough. I don't mind.
Maybe it's try to get tough with a lot of these people. Hey
look, actually I'm not sorry. They can exactly. They can speak their
mind and you can speak yours. It's fine that, you know. It's
just that, uh, we're basically done. So I want people to go
check out your work. Like I said, there'll be links in the description
here on the podcast, not only to the YouTube video, but also to
the sub stack itself. Maybe I'll throw in some other links to Albert Lanier's
work elsewhere. Of course you've heard him on the show before, so there
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