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]

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.

[James Woods @RealJamesWoods]

Not “nearly,” but absolutely every time Hades appears in any iteration, I do his voice. I was in the studio just a few weeks ago in fact. I love this character, and the creative team at Disney never fail to do top notch work.

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

@athirdtiger But I’ve read multiple translations and this feels like a sweet spot. A confident blank verse done by a true poet (an American legend, no less), with accuracy being one of his stated goals, without sacrificing good poetry. There’s a simplicity to it.

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

@athirdtiger It seems like his Homer translations did quite well up through the turn of the century, when Houghton-Mifflin did a Student Edition to be used in schools. But then they seem to drop out after that.

[James L. Neibaur @JimLNeibaur]

One of the best westerns of the 1950s, and arguably the best from director Anthony Mann and James Stewart, has been released by Kino Lorber in a restoration the improves upon previous releases. Here is my review:
https://t.co/zuRmwKW5W5
@KinoLorber @KLStudioClassic #westerns

[Eric McDonough @confilmbuff]

🤦‍♂️

[DiscussingFilm @DiscussingFilm]

Christopher Nolan instructed Ludwig Göransson not to use an orchestra for ‘THE ODYSSEY’ score.

“It’s not like the orchestra existed back then. It was a challenge and also an opening to try to make something unique.”

(Source: https://t.co/sETFoGm4KF)

[Ramesh Ponnuru @RameshPonnuru]

American nationhood includes the creed but cannot be reduced to it.

[Dead Wrong History @deadwronghist]

Groucho Marx visited T.S. Eliot's house for dinner. He wanted to talk about King Lear. Eliot only wanted to talk about Animal Crackers. Eliot later wrote: 'you have no idea what this has done for me socially.'