Eric McDonough

Husband, father, classic movie lover tweets about movies & culture. Trying to see the humor in things. Latter-day Saint. Co-host of The Movie Shelf podcast.

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

The Obama library is clearly interacting with the history of its 1893 World’s Fair site.

Where the Women’s Bldg was, there is a Women’s Garden.

Where the Horticulture Bldg was, there is a fruit & vegetable garden.

His museum is on the site of the Children’s Bldg 🤔

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

The use of gargoyles in Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame:

Much maligned, but pretty significant that to the righteous, they’re friends & protectors. To the unworthy, specters of destruction.

[Justin Hart @justin_hart]

One of the most beautiful places on earth with the most beautiful people in the world. — touring the San Diego temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

GODWIN is a Latter-day Saint artist worth following.

I foresee a future in which movies like Excalibur become highly influential to LDS artists/filmmakers.

[GODWIN 🪔 @libraryofgodwin]

I can now confirm that it's not just the hype edits, this movie is a great watch.

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

@libraryofgodwin Best movie of the 80s.

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

@greilsarriskirk I agree on both counts: that we don’t have one, but that Ford is as serious an answer as any.

[Gareth Harney @OptimoPrincipi]

Russell Crowe on Gladiator 2:

‘They failed, and they failed because they didn’t understand what made the first film so successful: it had a moral core. Here’s the thing, most people want that. On the surface, they might go for entertainment, but if they’re going to love something and keep it with them forever, like that movie? …The love for that thing is because of its moral core. All guys want to be that man who can stay that strong, and all women want a man who can love them in that way.’

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

@EWErickson Did the earliest first-century Christians believe in the consubstantial Trinity? The historical answer appears to be no, right?

So a church that claims to be restorationist would have a good case for not believing in the doctrine as later developed.

[🇻🇦 Fr Victor Feltes @StuffForSisters]

For simplicity and to avoid further disputes, the Pentagon's latest faith codes list religious groups by "SAVED" or "UNSAVED."

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

@Nero Wow. Milo having an ignorant and bigoted view of others? What new thing is this?

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

AI during the storyboarding phase makes sense.

[J. Respectful Clark @JReubenCIark]

This is the actual 250th birthday concert. All the stuff in DC is a distraction.

[Amanda Milius @AmandaMilius]

On this note, the reason I’ll never really like “conservative first” content or art slop is bc I came from someone and was myself someone who grew up “craft first” w politics as the undercurrent. While most of these ppl were doing their assigned social studies classes or reading the Federalist Papers for the 800th time, and have never taken a visual arts class in their life, my Dad forced himself to perfect the craft of writing in a high school for maladjusted students who got thrown out of prep school and then went to the best film school in the world. And I spent my formative years in art school, working at an art house video store, and then also went to the best film school in the world. That actually is worth something.

The problem w the right is there’s a lot of people in charge of $ and media who haven’t spent a min working on an artistic craft and CANNOT tell good from bad at even the most basic level.

The “Intro to Lighting” class for example would be really beneficial to every RW movie I’ve ever seen.

Competing w the best films students alive (and winning) and working for a premiere photographer for ten years and building my own pro book was fairly useful when it came time to tell a political story that didn’t look like absolute trash. You can tell a political story that is visually unique and beautiful it’s not illegal.

Anyway this is why my Dad deserves all the praise he gets bc he’s not just “one of the conservatives in Hollywood” but because he’s an artist and the best writer alive and a great *distinctive* director.

Guys on here will literally wake up and be like huh I think we should make movies that are good about US history but I’m going to dismiss the best movies made about US history bc it’s been a while and I want it to sort of be like Game of Thrones bc I have the film background of a 12 yr old.

[Thomas Banuelos @ReelTommyB]

Leave it to a Milius to (rightly!) discern that ideology does NOT counteract ideology. Genuine art transcends!!

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

me to the kids when I get home from work

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

@athirdtiger Agreed. Ideal. It feels right.

Bryant is almost unheard of these days. It’s crazy. You’re onto something about not teaching non-narrative poetry. No one made movies of his stuff, like his contemporaries Irving and Cooper.

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

Reading The Odyssey again—this time I chose American poet William Cullen Bryant’s 1871 blank verse translation.

It’s now my favorite version and the one I’ll recommend. Can’t believe how little I hear about it.

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

@BookstoreThor It’s 2026 and we’re still switching discs in the middle of a movie. This is a beautiful thing.

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

Never knew Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was a two-taper. Something funny about that. A true epic.

[Adam @AKaun6899]

When the movie was so long it had to be split into two tapes

[James Lucas @JamesLucasIT]

We grew up watching hand drawn Disney and now it's gone. We don't talk about this enough.

[Thomas Banuelos @ReelTommyB]

There's *no* distinction between engaging an audience & imparting "meaning" through "internal craft" or "form". Cinema is a sensory (rather than shallowly intellectual) AND popular art form that *visceralizes* profundity. So-called 'art movies' are just another genre category.