THB #502: Objects & Desire

A friend of mine said to me, many years ago, in the heyday of Movie City News, “So, what are you going to do after this?”

I don’t think she was asking for the next iteration of my business model. As I understood her, she wanted to know what I was going to do with my skills, knowledge, and history that was more significant than pushing out a daily perspective on the movie business and all that jazz. That there had to be a higher ambition.

I think of what she said at least a few times every week, along with the Anthony Breznican classic, “You can tell who a person is by what they do with their shopping cart after loading their groceries in the car” and the great (not late, just not being a publicist anymore) Mitch Kreindel, who once told me of a rising starlet, “I can tell you the year, month, and day when she will turn.”

And I especially think of that first piece of perspective at this time of year… as Oscars are handed out and “the season” comes to a close.

There was a time when I was ve…