Writing film columns (& more) at The Laker - Ken Burns & The American Revolution

Earlier this year, I began writing articles on random subjects for a group of free local publications in New Hampshire, and in July this transitioned into a regular column for The Laker, titled "Granite State Scene & Heard". The subjects usually, if not always, are related to the state (accompanied by listings of retro screenings for upcoming weeks). Each month on Lost in the Movies, I'll share a round-up of cross-posts to the digital versions of these issues, including the page numbers where the columns can be found.

First up, in July - just in time for the quarter-millennial anniversary of the Declaration of Independence - I wrote about Ken Burns, who has worked out of Walpole, New Hampshire for forty years. In particular, I focused on his most recent documentary The American Revolution which I was in the midst of watching at the time; I've since finished it and moved on to re-watching The Civil War (one of my favorite films of all time - and also discussed in this column). Part of what fascinates me in these two projects, and Burns' work in general, is the different approach depending on what firsthand material the given historical period does or doesn't offer to the filmmakers. Incidentally, among the most eye-catching illustrations Burns deploys are those from the William Blake-esque memoirs of Sergeant Roger Lamb, which I'm using above and below in this cross-post.

Ken Burns: New Hampshire Filmmaker

The Laker on July 27 - page 20

w/ a blurb on Parasite as the highlight of the listings

Prior to this first "Scene & Heard" column, I wrote the following non-film-related articles: "Building Community, One Brick at a Time: The Lakes Region's Growing LEGO Scene" (p. 30 of The Laker's July 6 issue); "Twilight Baseball with The Sunset League" (p. 34 of The Laker's June 29 issue); "Gluten-Free at the Pattee Hill Farm Stand: A Conversation with Courtley Gomez Terrasi" (p. 20 of The Laker's June 22 issue); "Laconia Motorcycle Week Spans a Century" (p. 3 of The Laker's June 8 issue); and "Conserving Water Inside and Outside Your Home" (p. 27 of Home's Spring issue).

Mirrors of Kane continues w/ "Raymond" chapter (video)

Watch Mirrors of Kane Chapter 6 on YouTube:

Raymond the butler's flashback is brief and to the point, a single scene offering a key to Kane's dying words. Nonetheless, the sequence contains riches worth exploring in this chapter devoted to the final narrator, contrasting with earlier Thatcher and Susan material and suggesting a Xanadu similar to the "human zoo" in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Raymond's constant obsession with what everything is worth pays off in the end when he casually and cluelessly orders the destruction of the clue to the mystery he and everyone else have been pondering.

This chapter is also available on Vimeo:

Watch the trailer and earlier chapters: Meeting Kane, Thatcher, Bernstein, Leland, and Susan. The whole series is available all together in a YouTube playlist (the series is based on this essay).

Mirrors of Kane continues w/ "Susan" chapter (video)

Watch Mirrors of Kane Chapter 5 on YouTube:

My summer of Kane continues with the only female narrator of Kane's story - although at one point in pre-production, the screenwriters considered having his first wife share her perspective before deciding to kill her off earlier in life. Susan was in many ways the closest person to Kane, yet she also feels among the furthest away: very much his victim and too busy struggling for survival in his shadow to remember him as much else than a fairy tale monster keeping her locked up. (Though these details don't make it into the video, when we approach the Rosebud sled atop a pile of possessions in the film's finale, a nearby box contains a toy monkey holding tightly to the doll we already saw in Susan's room; indeed, when Kane seems most like Kong terrorizing Fay Wray - during the tropical picnic before Susan decides to leave him - the background "jungle" projection happens to include footage from fellow RKO feature Son of Kong, complete with pterodactyls.)

This chapter is also available on Vimeo:

Watch the trailer and earlier chapters: Meeting Kane, Thatcher, Bernstein, and Leland (the series is based on this essay). The whole series is available all together in a YouTube playlist.

Summer 2026 Project Update: Journey Through Twin Peaks "Americana" chapter & Lost in Twin Peaks Season 2 Premiere episode complete

Every turn-of-the-season (this one is publishing at the exact minute of the summer solstice), I'm offering readers of this website an update on my three major unfinished projects: the Journey Through Twin Peaks video series (begun in 2014), the written TWIN PEAKS Character Series (begun in 2016), and the Lost in Twin Peaks podcast (begun in 2018). Work on a fourth project, the Mirrors of Kane video series (begun in 2016 but based on an essay written in 2011), concluded this past winter and release is currently underway.

Since pausing my exclusive Patreon content in December, I've been focusing my personal online work time almost entirely on my long-term projects. There was, however, an interruption in June when I shared a round-up of the late critic Allan Fish's reviews for Wonders in the Dark. I'm also looking forward to a conversation on Twin Peaks and The Shining with Cameron Cloutier and John Thorne, hopefully in the near future. Other than responding to guest invitations like these, any public work I share in the coming year and a half or so should be limited to the publication of these four projects.

This past season (following my previous update on the first day of spring), I finished a chapter of Journey Through Twin Peaks that I'd begun during the winter. Then I moved onto Lost in Twin Peaks, completing one episode recently before shifting my approach to re-editing that podcast. More details on that, and each project, follow below - along with reminders of what's been published or finished behind-the-scenes (more specific daily progress can be tracked on this constantly updated page):

Beyond the Countdowns: Allan Fish's Film & TV Reviews

For the tenth annual Allan Fish Online Film Festival, where I am cross-posting this round-up, I couldn't think of a better way to pay tribute to the late critic than to lead you right back to his own writing. Having already gathered his decades countdowns in two directories (one text, the other purely image) I'm combining those approaches for this round-up of all his other film and TV reviews published on this site. Since he was as fond of chronology as I am, I've organized them from earliest to latest release. If you have a favorite era, scroll down fast (or control-F a year) and you'll reach it in a moment - but I'd encourage a more leisurely perusal, in order to soak in the full sweep of this cultural history.

Some titles were entries in the multiauthor genre countdown series, some were part of his own exclusive endeavors like "the Fish Obscuro" (which led me to many wonderful cinematic experiences I never would have discovered otherwise). Many were entries in a "Top 100 British TV" countdown entirely authored by him, the only such exercise after his decades countdowns concluded. And almost all of these selections were part of his ongoing process, cultivated for an eventual book: simple, straightforward but deeply evocative prose limited to one page but containing volumes.

Rest in peace, Allan; your legacy lives on.

Mirrors of Kane continues w/ "Leland" chapter (video)

Watch Mirrors of Kane Chapter 4 on YouTube:

Jedediah Leland is Kane's close friend and eventually his bitter enemy. Writing about the narrators of Kane's life in an essay fifteen years ago, I had a very jaundiced view of Leland's own jaundiced view; at this point, for whatever reason, I am a bit more sympathetic even as I still think his sense of betrayal says as much about him as Kane. Leland's section of the movie is one of the most unusual and fascinating. These flashbacks, which hardly feature Leland at all, contain much of the most essential material, extend far longer than other flashbacks, and offer an ambivalent view of the protagonist in which the narrator's own open hostility in his spoken dialogue contrasts with a surprisingly nuanced portrait of the subject onscreen.

This chapter is also available on Vimeo:

Watch the trailer and earlier chapters: Meeting Kane, Thatcher, and Bernstein (the series is based on this essay). The whole series is available all together in a YouTube playlist.

Citizen Kane at 85 (video): Returning to conclude Mirrors of Kane this summer, beginning w/ "Bernstein" chapter (+ announcements on YouTube & podcasts including Lost in Twin Peaks)

Ten years ago - exactly, to the day - I celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary of Citizen Kane by announcing a video essay series on the movie, focused around the five narrators of Charles Foster Kane's story. I did not expect a decade to pass before I finally wrapped this project up, but here we are. After releasing a first chapter in 2016 and a second chapter in 2021, I spent much of the past winter editing the remaining chapters so that they're all ready to share this summer. I'll publish one a month starting with a chapter devoted to Bernstein, Kane's loyal business manager who presents a rosier picture of the young man than others will offer of Kane at different stages of his life.

Watch Mirrors of Kane Chapter 3 on YouTube:

This chapter is also available on Vimeo:

Additionally, I've published an update on my mostly-dormant Lost in the Movies podcast feed promoting this series:

And last week I offered a YouTube announcement of this series which included some other updates on my work:

Watch the trailer and earlier chapters: Meeting Kane and Thatcher. The whole series is available all together in a YouTube playlist (the series is based on this essay).

Finally, although unrelated, this is the first opportunity to share an announcement I published on the Lost in Twin Peaks podcast feed about resuming work on that project:

Spring 2026 Project Update: Mirrors of Kane complete, Journey Through Twin Peaks "Americana" chapter underway (+ new Patreon welcome video)

Every turn-of-the-season (this one is publishing at the exact minute of the vernal equinox), I'm offering readers of this website an update on my four major unfinished projects: the Journey Through Twin Peaks video series (begun in 2014), the written TWIN PEAKS Character Series (begun in 2016), the Lost in Twin Peaks podcast (begun in 2018), and the Mirrors of Kane video series (begun in 2016 but based on an essay written in 2011). In December, I stopped offering exclusive podcasts and reviews on Patreon so that I could focus as much attention as possible as these long-term goals, and I'm pleased to announce that progress has been made. I've entirely concluded my work on the Mirrors of Kane series; new chapters will be published on YouTube and Vimeo on Citizen Kane's eighty-fifth anniversary, May 1. I'm also chipping away at a particularly complex Journey Through Twin Peaks chapter on Twin Peaks' connections to American history and iconography. This should be finished within a week or two.

After that, I will focus on completing the public presentation of Lost in Twin Peaks' second season, followed by the top nine entries (based on screentime) for the TWIN PEAKS Character Series. I hope to wait until after those two projects are complete to focus exclusively on Journey Through Twin Peaks, but depending how bogged down I get on Lost in Twin Peaks this summer I may pause that work to research, outline, and write the narration for remaining Journey chapters. We'll see how it goes.

Here is a status update with more details, as well as a reminder of what's been published or finished behind-the-scenes, for each project (more specific daily progress can be tracked on this constantly updated page):

December 2025 Patreon round-up: 2025 American Generations Reflections + Advanced Script for Mirrors of Kane narration & Twin Peaks Conversations podcast

Following last year's tradition, even though there is a bonus $5/month tier reward I could have featured in the top image, I'm going instead with the $1/month advance - in this case, a screenshot of Susan Alexander Kane overwhelmed by the opera house lights, linked to the narration script for an upcoming video about her. As for the higher tier, in addition to the Twin Peaks Conversations episode on Jane Austen and David Lynch (covered in a separate cross-post earlier this month), I did write a reflection on various generations in the year 2025 (following responses to 2023 and 2024), which was published this morning. Perhaps at some point in upcoming years I will highlight an image associated with that recurring essay project but for now I'll stick with the world of fictional New Yorker Charles Foster Kane rather than real, contemporary New Yorkers Zohran Mamdani and Donald Trump (who is, like Kane, both a New Yorker and a Floridian - he also once cited Kane as his favorite film in this bizarre analysis).

This month wraps up my exclusive rewards on the $5/month tier - from now on, I will offer advances on both tiers. Cross-posts will appear on this site less frequently than before (probably alongside project updates at the end of each season), usually to highlight written pieces like a TWIN PEAKS Character Series entry or script for another video essay narration. In 2026, my entire focus will be on wrapping up four projects: Mirrors of Kane, Lost in Twin Peaks, the TWIN PEAKS Character Series, and Journey Through Twin Peaks.

What are the December rewards?

TWIN PEAKS CONVERSATIONS bonus podcast premieres tonight on Jane Austen's 250th birthday w/ Manners & Madness hosts Maya Adkins & Christian Cabrera (YouTube & extended PATREON)

An eccentric pairing has recently gained uncanny relevance for me - as well as for others. When I first heard of the Jane Austen/David Lynch podcast Manners & Madness, I found it to be a delightful conceit but did not rush to listen because I hadn't yet read any of Austen's novels nor even seen a movie based on one of those novels. However, once my girlfriend introduced me to Austen via Pride and Prejudice (the novel as well as the nineties BBC and zeroes cinematic adaptations), at the same time that I was initiating her into the Lynchverse, this odd combination of disparate artists suddenly piqued my interest. And, for reasons both salutary and sorrowful, the union of Lynch and Austen has now become more au courant than ever; both of them, one for her birth and the other for his death, are "having a moment" in 2025 pop culture. With Austen turning a ripe quarter-millennium today, this felt like the right time to chat with Maya Adkins and Christian Cabrera, the hosts of Manners & Madness for the past six years. There was so much to dig into with the filmmaker and novelist: the connections between the most famous characters in their works; the difference between Maya's longtime experience with Lynch and Austen vs. Christian's fresh-faced exploration of both; the distinctions between various Austen adaptations; the ways in which Lynch challengers viewers (and Austen challenges readers); and the favorite Lynch films, Austen novels, Austen adaptations, and Twin Peaks sections of both hosts - some of this explored, alongside deep dives into the recent miniseries Miss Austen and my first foray into Northanger Abbey, in the longer back section of the podcast on Patreon's $5/month tier.

PART 1 on YouTube premieres at 8pm EST

Listen to...

PART 2 on Patreon

(also premieres at 8pm EST)

November 2025 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - Films in Focus podcast #12: The Damned + Advanced Script for Mirrors of Kane narration (w/ Majority Report call-in opposing Chris Pappas)

First suggested by a patron following my episode on The Zone of Interest last year, Luchino Visconti's 1969 melodrama The Damned - set during the rise of dictatorship in thirties Germany - provides a suitably apocalyptic conclusion (for now, at least) to my two-year $5/month tier Films in Focus podcast. Based on patron polls conducted every couple months, I recorded a dozen episodes on films which often followed troubled protagonists trying to figure out themselves, and the world, against a backdrop of socially fraught circumstances (call this "the Fire Walk With Me effect"). Of course, to label Martin von Essenbeck (Helmut Berger) a "protagonist" stretches may associations with that term. He certainly is no hero; aside a few key exceptions like the put-upon anti-Nazi couple of Herbert (Umberto Orsi) and Elizabeth Thallmann (Charlotte Rampling), the film is almost entirely stocked with schemers, cowards, and outright fascists, and yet Martin still emerges as perhaps the worst of them all. Nor does he fit our usual conception of an active central figure; although his illicit desires and self-indulgent actions drive the narrative, it is other characters who manipulate him into or out of the place that they want him. Having inherited his grandfather Joachim's (Albrecht Schoenhals') shares of the family's steelworks following a staged assassination, Martin finds himself in a three-way tug of war. This involves his conniving mother Sophie (Ingrid Thulin) and her lover Friedrich Bruckmann (Dirk Bogarde) who want Martin to serve as an impotent figurehead for their ambitions; his cousin once removed Konstantin (Reinhard Kolldehorf), prominent in the SA paramilitary division of the Nazi Party, who wants to retain his executive control by sidelining Martin completely; and his other cousin once removed, the SS officer Aschenbach (Helmut Griem), who maneuvers various actors in a game of thrones which could tighten the Party's grip on this important industrial firm while also offering Martin a source of ego-stroking pride as well as an outlet for feverish, fetishistic revenge.

This is the plot of The Damned; however, the impression it creates has as much to do with the saturated, operatic quality of its visual flourishes and the darkness of its sexual psychology as with the intricacy of its narrative mechanics. This is especially true during the film's idiosyncratic dramatic centerpiece, a re-creation of "The Night of Long Knives" in which the once-central SA stormtroopers were betrayed by Hitler and slaughtered en masse by the SS and Gestapo amidst a drunken orgy at a country resort. Around here, the film's second half tips into a more intense, brooding, hot-blooded, and exaggerated pitch reminiscent of other Visconti films of the time. Indeed, this discussion encouraged me to dip back into my own Visconti mini-retrospective of sixteen years ago, when I reviewed The Leopard, Rocco and His Brothers, and Ludwig after big-screen viewings in Boston - The Damned very much incorporates elements of all three from its vision of a patriarch presiding over a dying world to its dysfunctional family portrait driven by jealous rivalry to its vision of decadent depravity in the midst of a ruling class' decline.

I'm also re-visiting past work - while setting up a future project - for the sake of the $1/month reward, offering another narration script for the upcoming Mirrors of Kane video series in a continuation of last month's trend. After next month's Twin Peaks Conversations episode, exclusives will be put aside in favor of advances for both tiers, while I work on finally finishing the four big projects behind the scenes in 2026: Mirrors of Kane, and Lost in Twin Peaks, the TWIN PEAKS Character Series, and Journey Through Twin Peaks.

What are the November rewards?

belated October 2025 Patreon round-up: EXCLUSIVE - Conversation on Andor w/ Riley MacDonald + Advanced Script for Mirrors of Kane narration

Due to other Patreon commitments and the length of time this took to transcribe, my discussion with Riley MacDonald about the Disney Plus Star Wars series Andor (whose second season ended in May) has been a long time coming. It took nearly six months to slot in as a $5/month tier reward. Nonetheless, Andor is also the most recent film or television project that I've covered online, and the only one from this current year. While very much a TV show - at least within the widespread understanding that streaming services fall into the same broad category as the old networks and cable stations - Andor's roots are firmly cinematic. Not only does the series and its world exist in the once-exclusively-movie-based Star Wars universe created by George Lucas in 1977, Andor also leads even more directly into the events of the 2016 Rogue One, itself a prequel to the first Star Wars. Directed by Gareth Edwards and written by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy (from a story by John Knoll and Gary Whitta), Rogue One is a stew emerging from different collaborators. That said, Michael Clayton writer/director Gilroy receives particular acclaim for polishing the film's script to sharpen its plot and characters. Ironically, given the history of both mediums, Gilroy emerges as a more singular auteur on Andor, as a showrunner supervising every detail and providing the overall organization despite not directing any particular episode. Choosing a character who was not even the central lead of Rogue One as its protagonist, Andor was not as highly anticipated as other Star Wars shows when it debuted in 2022 but quickly earned astonished and rapturous praise for its gritty realism - not a term anyone would usually associate with the space opera franchise. Essentially a spy thriller grounded in a thoughtful study of how revolutions have often developed throughout (Earthly) history, Andor became particularly popular on an American left adrift after Bernie Sanders' failed presidential campaigns. With its second season arriving mere months after the inauguration of Donald Trump's second, and already far more radically authoritarian, administration, this aspect of the show's popularity only grew.

Introducing us to Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) as a scrappy criminal on the proudly communitarian and industrial planet Ferrix, Andor charts Cassian's journey across two seasons within the orbit of merciless, dedicated spymaster Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård), alongside fellow Rebels like Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona), Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau), and Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay). Their stories are cross-cut with the double life of Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly), the growing isolation of the fervent Saw Guerrera (Forest Whitaker), and the efforts of Imperial intelligence officer Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) and the fellow-traveling bureaucrat Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) to track them all down. The highlight of the first season may be an extended foray onto the prison planet Narkina-5, which crystallizes Cassian's political awakening and galvanizes a movement. In the second season, the show's formerly loose three-episode arc organization becomes ironclad, with each trio representing a different year in the approach toward Rogue One's (and the first Star Wars') drama. Familiar characters like the Death Star's supervisor Orson Krennick (Ben Mendelsohn) merge with Andor's ensemble as we become re-acquainted with familiar worlds like Yavin as it develops from untamed wilderness to bustling Rebel base. The centerpiece of this season is probably the ruthlessly planned and executed Ghorman Massacre, in which a once-venerated people are targeted for genocide on the pretext of terrorism, but actually because their resources are needed to complete a superweapon.

Joining me to discuss Andor for the first time since he appeared on my podcast covering The Lighthouse is my cousin Riley MacDonald. In this case, I've transcribed and edited our sprawling, initially four-hour dialogue into text form (as I did with an earlier MacDonald conversation, in this case with his brother Tyler to discuss Killers of the Flower Moon). Riley's astute political insight and unique experiences feed into his analysis of Andor as not only a work of art and entertainment but also an acute exploration of political struggle with constants across time and (literal) space, even when located in a galaxy far, far away. If you want to check out many other pieces devoted to that galaxy, all of my Star Wars-labeled posts including this one are gathered here (and also listed at the end of the link below).

Meanwhile, for all tiers, I'm also previewing text of my narration for an upcoming video essay - the first chapter since 2021 in my long-dormant Mirrors of Kane video series. I intend to finally finish this project, hopefully alongside several others, next year for Citizen Kane's eighty-fifth birthday...a decade after I offered the first chapter on its seventy-fifth. The Andor conversation isn't the only thing I've been working on that takes some time to put together...

What are the exclusive October rewards?