I’ve met Mel Brooks three times, and he’s been kind, warm-hearted, and funny all three times. Almost 20 years ago, I attended Buster Keaton’s 100th birthday party at Silent Movie. (Buster, being dead, wasn’t there.) Before the screening, I got into a nice conversation with my seat mate — Eleanor Keaton — and then afterward did the same with three other fans who turned out: Mel Brooks, Ann Bancroft, and Dom DeLuise. Mel was especially effusive about Buster, and I had the advantage of having seen not only all of Buster’s silents, but also “Silent Movie,” so I had a lot to contribute to the conversation.

This terrific interview with Mel Brooks, which I just found online today, shows just how great an influence Keaton was on him. I think Mel is absolutely right about Keaton:  that he was an astonishing performer, and that even if he were starting out today, he’d be a sensation.

In which Christopher Walken reads — and interprets! — “Where the Wild Things Are” for us. Just another wonderful thing found on the Internet that completely validates the existence of humankind.

Of all the news coverage that The Car Plays has received in its various productions around southern California since 2006, I think this local PBS reporting from San Diego gives the clearest picture of the experience.

That said, the focus in this piece is on actors. I understand that: The actors are right there in the play. If they think it’s a challenge acting in a car (and it is; they’re right), that’s matched by the challenge of writing a 10-minute play that takes place in a car — and is still captivating, requires being staged in a car, has a beginning middle and end, has a motivation for the actors to get into the car, and includes a way to get them out of the car (what dramatists call a “button”). These are fun, tricky little plays to run, and the success of the series is a testament to the process Paul Stein established for figuring out what works in cars, to the producers and the reading team, and to all the playwrights involved.

Just a reminder: It’s been extended through next weekend.

I’m pleased to report that “The Cowboys” still works as it did 40 years ago, for boys at least.

I was thrilled beyond measure when, after John Wayne’s character Wil Andersen is shot five times by Bruce Dern’s evil cattle rustler,  my son Dietrich said, “He’s not dead.”

I hit pause on the DVR and asked him, “Why do you say that?”

“He can’t be. He’s just faking it so the boys don’t get hurt.”

This was exactly my reading of the movie 40 years ago when I was his age. Somehow, this restored my hope that somehow today’s kids are not utterly jaded. When it was over and I asked Dietrich what he thought of the movie, he told me how much he’d enjoyed it, and that his favorite part was when the boys all had their revenge on the bad guys who killed Mr. Andersen. Of course — as intended.

The movie is compelling filmmaking for 9-year-olds; for the rest of us, from the beginning scene showing what’s clearly a stunt double for a fat old John Wayne taming a breaking a wild horse, to the triumphant scene where 10 kids, mostly preteen, outwit and outshoot a gang of 11 grown men, it’s science fiction. I’m sure I never noticed any of that when I was a kid. Here’s something else that’s changed in my perception:  Now it’s a movie populated by people I’ve known, which makes it harder to focus on purely as a work of fiction. I hadn’t realized that Mark Rydell was the director and producer; some years ago, I co-taught a class with Mark Rydell (although we met in person only once). Now I wish I’d told him what an impact this movie made on me as a child. Lonny Chapman, whom I knew a bit through the Group Repertory Theatre (which is now named the Lonny Chapman Group Repertory Theatre), has a small role as the father of one of the boys. And now whenever I see Bruce Dern in something, where I used to think fondly of the early environmentalist science fiction movie “Silent Running,” now I think of speaking with him a couple of times in recent years, including at his wife’s art opening. (Along similar lines:  I was telling a friend last week that whenever I think of Scott Bakula, all I remember is being surprised seeing him in the audience at my tiny little theatre once when he was in the prime of his career. Whenever something like that happens, it’s like:  “Audience, audience, audience, major TV star, audience, audience….”)

The other thing that I now notice about “The Cowboys,” something that is so transparent to an adult, is that it’s a movie about fathers and sons. Both of Wil Andersen’s boys died before reaching their prime; now he has a chance to serve as a father figure in what will be a life-transforming experience for these boys. There’s a scene where two of them are tempted by prostitutes — my son had no idea what this was about, and I’m sure I didn’t either at his age — and in another scene, Roscoe Lee Browne’s character tells Wes that with these boys he has another chance at fatherhood. I can see why the film resonated then, and now, with boys of a certain age.

1. Watch “The Cowboys” with my 9-year-old son. I was that age when my father (and mother) took me to see it. In the movie, John Wayne plays a rancher who is forced to hire a bunch of kids who work for him as real cowboys. Near the end of the movie, John Wayne’s character is killed off and the boys have to complete the cattle drive without him. This was astonishing to me, and I kept waiting for the trick ending, showing that he was actually alive and had been secretly watching over the boys the entire time like a guardian angel. But nope, he was actually dead, and I couldn’t get over it. I’m curious to see what this generation will make of that. Prediction:  nothing. They’re inured to everything now.
2. Stay up really late (or, well, early) writing.
3. Interrupt extended bout of writing with blog posts.We’ll see.

I’ve got to admit, I’m a sucker for the Shat, whose one-man show comes to Los Angeles in one mere month. Will the show be tongue-in-cheek? Will it be straight-up? Campy? Vainglorious? Exhilarating and a complete bomb? All of the above and at the same time, of course, just like everything about him. I’m checking out tickets now.

I’ve seen I don’t know how many films now with my friend Richard. He hasn’t liked any of them. (Not even “Snakes on a Plane”!)

I think I have finally found something with unarguable artistic merit.

Here it is.

Or is it the two actors I’ve worked with who turn up in this video tribute?

Coincidentally, I just found out that the OFFICIAL video to this song (the Lionel Richie version) prominently features my friend Brendan Broms. (He’s the young guy in the scarf.) Brendan and I have been doing theatre together for 15 years now. (And we’re now trying to get a new play up — if I can just write the damn thing.) Here’s that version, with Brendan, but in the meantime, I’m wondering how many other friends are in other versions of “Hello.”

In my circle of friends (and with readers of this blog), my antipathy for “The Descendants” is well-known. So, of course, I got an email from a sympathizer aghast that “The Descendants” won a Golden Globe tonight for “Best Picture.”

Here’s what I think:

It’s good to bear in mind that “Citizen Kane” lost the Oscar to “How Green Was My Valley” (a film now more obscure than Charles Foster Kane’s sled).

And it’s also good to know that one year, the Nobel committee was tied between giving the prize for Literature to Beckett or Ionesco — until finally one guy just switched his vote to Beckett so they could go home.

I once won an award for a play that I wasn’t sure was the best in the festival; the following year, in the same festival, I lost, when I know I had the best play.

Awards:  meaningless.

Except as marketing.

And “The Descendants” still stinks.

What did the Los Angeles Film Critics Association name the Best Picture of the year? You guessed right:  “The Descendants.” (Had there been no other movies released this year, I still wouldn’t have voted for it.)

By the way, the association also placed a lot of praise on  “Tree of Life.” Those friends I trust didn’t like that one either.

I just checked — and three of the association’s member critics are friends, and two more are former students of mine.