When Clint Eastwood heard Spike Lee’s complaint about the racial make-up of Clint’s war movie “Flags of Our Fathers,” Clint was exasperated. After explaining to a interviewer that his film was true to history, he remarked about Spike Lee, “A guy like him should shut his face.”

I’ve said that line in my head, over and over, and I love it. It is poetry.

When Abel Ferrara heard that Werner Herzog had cast Nick Cage in his remake of Ferrara’s film The Bad Lieutenant, Ferrara told an L.A. Times reporter, “I wish these people would all die in hell. I hope they’re all in the same street car and it blows up.”

Herzog came back with, “I have no idea who Abel Ferrara is. Is he Italian?”

Why can’t everyone follow the lead of these guys and say what they mean? In the arts, in politics, wouldn’t that be refreshing? Anywhere but in the home, of course.

On another note, I can’t wait to see “Mongol“, an epic film about Ghenghis Kahn. It was filmed in China, Mongolia and Kasakhstan. It looks like a visually stunning drama, filled with spectacular violence, and beautiful rugged Aisan men with long flowing hair.