In rough order, all categories: 2017 RELEASES GOOD TIME MOLLY’S GAME LOGAN LUCKY STRONGER THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (New and Collected) OKJA TO THE BONE PHANTOM THREAD MUDBOUND BRAD’S STATUS NORMAN THE UNKNOWN GIRL NOVITIATE WONDER A WOMAN’S LIFE AFTER THE STORM GRADUATION LOVELESS MY JOURNEY THROUGH FRENCH CINEMA THE TRIP TO SPAIN THEIR FINEST BEFORE […]
The following conversation was recorded on a November 2017 plane flight from Los Angeles to Newark. TOM: Movies have melodramas. TV has soaps. A Summer Place versus This is Us. Trouble is, I’ve only seen the pilot for This Is Us. CAROL: You liked the pilot. TOM: It was very ingenious. CAROL: The show’s very […]
(This conversation was recorded over dinner.) CAROL: When I was a VP at Lorimar, I was asked to take James Toback to lunch and make him my new best friend. He had a development deal at Lorimar. At lunch he put away more than a bottle of wine. He flirted, but didn’t do anything inappropriate—just […]
TOM: Were you ever in a room with Harvey? CAROL: Nope. Never. TOM: You were in rooms alone with a boss who was a known womanizer. CAROL: I was in elevators with him when he was inappropriate. TOM: Did he ever hit on you? CAROL: He’d flirt. He’d touch your hair. But none of us […]
Tom returned from a play workshop to find that Carol had been checking out Robert Osborne’s interview with Kim Novak on YouTube. TB: I didn’t know you were that much of a fan. CB: Are you kidding—“Picnic”? TB: Well of course “Picnic.” CB: That movie spoke to me—my alienated, misunderstood teenage self. TB: That amazing […]
The thing most people remember from the 2013 Golden Globes (if they remember anything) was Jodie Foster coming out when she received that year’s Cecil B. DeMille award. The thing I remember is that the montage of Jodie Foster clips included two scenes from “Carny,” a movie I wrote in the 70s—a quick shot of […]
The following conversation was recorded at Matteo’s Restaurant in Los Angeles. The waiter has just brought the martinis. TOM BAUM: Cheers. CAROL BAUM: Cheers. TB: We have the restaurant to ourselves. CB: Because of Rosh Hashanah. He was happy to see us. TB: He’s used to seeing us on Date Night. CB: How many Date […]
TOM BAUM: Did you get the right cashews? CAROL BAUM: Which are the right cashews? Both bags are the same TB: No, the ones labeled “supreme” are yours. You said the others tasted funny. CB: These taste all right. TB: OK, then we can save some money next time. So…do we have an all-time favorite […]
“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” So begins Ford Maddox Ford’s masterpiece, The Good Soldier. Every screenwriter has at least one sob story. This is mine. Back in the early 70s, before I got my first screenplay credit, I wrote a spec script, “Almost Grown,” about a high school kid, Burdick (no […]
(The following conversation was recorded at home over drinks, while waiting for the oven-fried potatoes to cook.) CAROL BAUM: Are the potatoes in? TOM BAUM: Yeah. Another 15 minutes, then I’ll turn them. So these types you have to deal with on a daily basis— C: Some of them are definitely pathological. T: Remember that […]