Hello subscribers, welcome to my third AMA. I’ve been writing a lot of stuff here recently that only has a specific audience (Always Sunny fans or paying subscribers), and I felt bad about that, so I thought I’d drum up something that can involve and maybe be of interest to everyone. I did my last AMA a little over a year ago, in which I apologized for not writing enough recently and promised to put out more content soon (lol). Thanks very much to everyone who sent me questions this time around — I decided 10 would be a good number to respond to.
I’d also like to let all subscribers know that if you have any feedback for me about the direction this Substack is taking and/or the content I’m putting out and its frequency, I welcome comments and suggestions below, or emailing me (briannaszigler@gmail.com). I will not kowtow to all demands but your input is appreciated and could be very useful. Running this thing can be a little overwhelming, and I’m grateful to all who have stuck around! Your thoughts are taken into consideration.
Note for my paying subscribers — new Brianna’s Digest will come out sometime this weekend. Next week I’m off. I’m out of office at my day job, I’m not taking any writing work, and I’m going to the beach. If I have to write even one single word for anything, I will kill myself.
If you had to choose, what would be your favorite year in movies?
Man lol that’s a really tough question. If I had to choose, like there was a gun to my head, my gut choice would be 2007, probably because for whatever reason that’s the only year I’ve ever specifically noticed as a year where a lot of my favorite movies came out. There Will Be Blood, Om Shanti Om, Superbad, No Country for Old Men, Zodiac, Hot Fuzz, Death Proof, Hot Rod, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Stardust, The Darjeeling Limited, Ratatouille, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Halloween, Smiley Face, Eastern Promises, Dead Silence, Funny Games, Trick ‘r’ Treat…. I could literally keep going. 2007 went kinda crazy.
I want more Always Sunny content — what are your top 5 episodes ever?
Fantastic question, thank you. A question I could not be more thrilled to answer even though it’s incredibly difficult. I know for a fact that my favorite episode is “Mac & Dennis Move to the Suburbs,” closely followed by “The Gang Dines Out,” and then things get a little murky after that. For now, I’m gonna say the last three spots will be taken by “High School Reunion pts. 1 & 2” (counting as one episode — I actually think the guys consider that one episode, too), “Mac Day,” and, of course, “The Nightman Cometh.” But it’s so hard, and there are so many other episodes that could interchangeably be added, like “Who Pooped the Bed?” and “Chardee MacDennis: The Game of Games.”
Honestly I would be down to write more Sunny-related content eventually, if people were into that. I had some positive feedback from my Season 16 reviews but I don’t think they were particularly popular overall, so I wouldn’t do anything else for a while (I welcome more feedback on this topic, though. Would people like more Sunny writing from me?). But if the SAG strike and AMPTP don’t impede my Sunny Podcast live show in September (God fucking willing) then I might write up a little something about the experience.
You've been given a blank check to produce a movie, and you call all the shots. You can pick any and all creative talent and make any decisions about the script you want. However, your movie MUST be a remake of a film that originally came out before 2000. What movie do you choose to remake? Why? How do you approach the creative talent or changes to the script?
This is such an intense question to ask someone with barely any screenwriting experience and no filmmaking or set experience beyond holding a boom mic on one film in college, and also no plans to ever make or write a film yet haha. Ok, I think I’ve been asked something similar before and I think my answer was basically no answer because I just never think about any films in terms of whether they should be remade or not, like it’s just not a thought that ever enters my mind, so I didn’t really know how to answer. However, I just had a thought like literally just this moment — I’m gonna disavow your rule about “before 2000” and I’m gonna say I’d remake Ghost Ship (2002), which is such a dogshit movie that wastes a fantastic premise and opening sequence that it pisses me off. I think I would be able to do it better because I see exactly what they did wrong.
Gonna skip over your stipulation about creative talent because I have no idea who I would cast — I’m not a casting director, I can’t make these decisions. I’d probably just pick a really good casting director to sort that out. Anyway, as for the script, off the top of my head here are some changes I’d do: I’d make it so that the salvage crew of the ghost ship is tormented by the ghosts of the bisected and decapitated passengers from the opening sequence, and you would see those mutilated ghosts; I would make the little ghost girl fucked up and creepy, but she’d get way less screen time; I would spend enough time with the crew to make you care about them but not as much as they spend in the original film, because the film ends up being mostly their stupid boring conversations.
As for the final reveal, that the passengers of the ghost ship were killed by “the demonic spirit of a deceased sinner tasked with provoking people to sin” (per Wikipedia), we’ll keep that, I like that — it’s creepy and goofy and you could do something cool with it. My goal for a Ghost Ship remake would be to strike a balance between goofy scary and scary scary; not self-serious but not Evil Dead slapstick, but it would be very grotesque. Think Event Horizon (especially with all of Paul W.S. Anderson’s original stuff, which we’ll never get to see! Ever ever ever!!!)
What is your least favorite movie of the past ten years?
I’m gonna be honest it’s definitely Cocaine Bear. I felt a really distinct, awful feeling after watching that movie that I had never felt before… this mix of bewilderment and revulsion, but even then I don’t think either of those words can accurately describe how I felt. I just know that I felt like I had watched what was probably the worst movie I had ever or will ever seen.
Have you any interest in reviewing any of Seth MacFarlane’s oeuvre? Just saw the posted question for producing a remake... have you screenwriting skills or interests?
I’m not sure what you mean about “the posted question for producing a remake,” but unfortunately I’m not interested in digging into any of Seth MacFarlane’s work to write on for this Substack. I like Family Guy well enough but I already rewatched all the good seasons last year and, I dunno, just doesn’t interest me as something to write about. If you’re interested in content that does get into MacFarlane territory, however, I can recommend you my friends’ podcast, “Those Good Old-Fashioned Values.” They don’t do much MacFarlane reviews anymore but there’s still some of that in there, and they did used to be exclusively reviewing Family Guy, and American Dad as well, I believe (I was on an American Dad-related episode).
As for screenwriting skills/interests…. maybe someday. The last screenplay I wrote was for college and I haven’t come close to attempting anything since. I’d definitely like to write a story, be it a screenplay or book or short story, at least once before I die, but I am the most idea-deficient person on the planet when it comes to narrative stuff so who knows.
Have you ever had your thoughts on a movie or TV show substantially change after publishing a piece on it?
Absolutely, in fact, I would say that happens with festival films, specifically, about 90% of the time for me. If we’re being honest I really don’t even like doing festival reviews anymore, and it’s because I hate being forced to spit out a take on something within a few hours of seeing it. I haven’t had any time to really sit with the film and process my thoughts, and before I’m able to I have to watch another film that I’m also reviewing. And that’s why I feel no critics’ reviews can really be trusted during a festival — especially one like Cannes where there’s so much overstimulation. This definitely doesn’t account for all my festivals reviews, though; there are certainly quite a few that I think reflected my feelings accurately. But most of them? No. And there’s not much that can be done about that for the future, but I’m just less interested in doing festivals now.
As for non-festival stuff, actually not as much. I think it’s more that I’ll write something and realize I disagree with what past me wrote more-so than I disagree with my past feelings on the film. Like, I wrote this piece for Paste about Annette and anti-comedy and I think it was sort of misguided; I wrote a series of articles for Film School Rejects about comedy and existentialism and I don’t even know anything about existentialism. So, I look back on stuff I wrote and I’m like “what the fuck were you thinking?” But yeah, definitely more of a frequent occurrence with festival film reviews which are based on snap judgment, less so with non-fest stuff that I have more time to understand if I like or dislike it but I may end up disagreeing with my analysis or approach later on.
What is a film you want to write on that you haven't had a piece on yet?
I’ve hit a lot of my major milestones in that regard but there are some that either don’t have a convenient timely angle so it’s difficult to find a reason to pitch them (which, I could always just throw those on here I guess), or the market is so saturated with takes on them that it’s difficult to think up a unique angle — i.e., anything from David Lynch or Wes Anderson. I did write a review of The French Dispatch and I’ve written a couple of Wes Anderson-related lists, and I wrote a piece on a needle drop in Lost Highway, but with both directors I still haven’t gotten to write about something really meaty which is the ultimate goal.
Do you have a favorite cinematographer?
Not really, I wouldn’t feel confident saying any one cinematographer is my favorite. I feel like I’m not keyed into that side of filmmaking enough yet to feel like I can really have a personal preference in that area. Like, I obviously notice cinematography but I’m not specialized in it — I don’t really think I know what I’m talking about if I say “Oh, Roger Deakins or Darius Khonji is my favorite cinematographer.” Still much to learn!
What country's film history interests you the most (outside of the US)?
Probably India, which I can largely attribute to my wonderful and loving boyfriend who got me interested in Bollywood films. A while ago he was also reading a book on the history and emergence of Bollywood and what he told me sounded really interesting so I’d be keen to explore that myself.
What is your most unique moviegoing experience (positive or negative, or both)? What are some of the most impactful experiences you’ve had in a movie theater?
These are two separate questions I got from two different people, but I’m realizing they’re similar enough to basically be the same question. To answer them, I don’t really think I’ve ever had any “impactful” theatergoing experiences in the way that I feel the latter half of this question is being asked — like, particularly game-changing or overwhelmingly meaningful.
I’ve had unique theatergoing experiences in the sense that when I saw Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man I watched the entire far-right section of the theater that was taken up by like 30-40 rowdy teenagers chaperoned by two apathetic adults get kicked out; when I saw Blue Velvet rep screening at the Philadelphia Film Festival in 2019 I was too stoned and I freaked out when Rian Johnson started introducing the film; Sky Ferreira walked by me when I was waiting outside the New Bev to see a double feature of Rio Bravo and Assault on Precinct 13; seeing La La Land was the first and only time I ever saw a movie where I knew about two minutes in that I was going to hate the whole thing; my high school ex and I snuck into a screening of Black Swan just to make out during it. A lot of experiences being too high at a movie and thinking that I was going to die.
I’ve gone to see movies so much, and I know there are more weird things that have happened that I’ve forgotten, good things and bad things. I just go to the movies too often and it all starts to blur together. Besides: the act itself of going to a theater is meaningful to me whether or not anything particularly interesting happens during or after my time there. But maybe these answers are actually what you guys were looking for anyway.