Q:...Last week, I went to a screening for an independent movie. The director was there, and right afterward, he cornered a few of us to see what we thought. He was really aggressive. I thought the film was pretty weak and predictable and said something vague about the costumes and production design. He glared at me. What do you say to a director if you see his movie and think it's lame? Should I have been more positive and lied? --M.F., Hollywood Hills
Dear M.F., Lied? We don't call it that here in Hollywood. We prefer the term "stunt talk." And if you simply can't muster up the grace to gild your adjectives, you should pack up your earnestness and move back to Idaho. Hollywood is no place for a person whose sincerity can't roll over and play dead once in a while.
Directors are as touchy as new moms with postpartum depression. After making a film, they are needy, exhausted and slightly deranged from being in labor for almost two years....
What would you do if you leaned into a baby carriage and saw an infant shaped like a cantaloupe with no discernible chin?
"You say, 'Wow! That child is so alert!'" says one studio exec, who declined to go on the record for this column....
--Monica Corcoran as The Mannerist, manners column in the Los Angeles Times, 2 December 2007
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