WEAPONS + STEALING IDEAS

Reunion Newsletter [8.8.25]

Aug 08, 2025

∙ Paid

Long long long read on Weapons at bottom bottom to avoid spoilers. I recommend everyone see for themselves. Lotsa thoughts though.

Before that, a few overdue pieces I keep pushing back. Complaints about James Cameron’s not-‘king of the world’ behavior, and the new Chelsea NYC “Metro Cinema” thing that is not Ira Deutchman’s Upper West Side “Metro Theater.”

I was wondering if / when Ben Brewer was going to say something about Together, so I didn’t want to unless he decided to pull that cord. It was confusing when the lawsuit came about over the screenplay for Together, while I immediately thought it was a rip off of Ben Brewer’s 2023 A Folded Ocean, which premiered at the same Sundance Film Festival two years prior. So it’s a double rip-off. Cool.

I wrote about this movie but intentionally pushed back the piece because I didn’t want to identify it, but more the practices around the movie. I think movies like this winning are generally good for the ecosystem, so I want it to succeed. I hate the rip-off narratives too. I wish these could be settled in constructive ways. It’s a tiny artist community shrinking daily. Stuff like this hurts everyone. A big Neon purchase at Sundance featuring a new filmmaker and some actual movie stars is amazing. I wish we could be just fully happy about it. I’m going to push back that piece about it to separate from this criticism because I really don’t want to call out the specific movie, but more the practices. I want these people all to keep making movies, keep succeeding, just hone the craft more and don’t steal ideas.

IG videos won’t directly link here but Ben posted a comparison worth watching: https://www.instagram.com/brewerfilms/

Here is our podcast episode where we talked about it prior to Reunion screening in 2023.

Here is the movie, which I like infinitely more than Together.

And the comparisons:

Lil Tay x Romy Mars rivalry dropping in same week? No reason to think this is a thing, to be clear. I just think it would be the most 2025 thing that could happen. Like the most opposing forces that could possibly exist, dropping music in same week.