After, uh (checks calendar), a few very long months, Paul Schrader is “out of FB jail.” Schrader says he was asked to stay off of Facebook by A24, the distribution company behind the filmmaker’s acclaimed drama First Reformed, which racked up a handful of nominations this past awards season. The request came after Schrader posted a comment on Facebook–where he behaves like your favorite, slightly inebriated and highly-opinionated uncle–in which he expressed a desire to work with Kevin Spacey despite the numerous allegations of sexual misconduct against the actor.
In his first update since taking a forced sabbatical, Schrader got everyone up to date on what he’s been up to in recent months–including spending a lovely Christmas with Glenn Close and their families whilst wearing Christmas costumes (can you even imagine):
Schrader went on to name-drop several of the famous friends he hung out with during his gilded incarceration, like Spike Lee and Bo Burnham. The filmmaker was forced to sit and think about what he’d done for several hours in a giant auditorium surrounded by other famous people during a little awards show called the Oscars. There, his true punishment was meted out, as his film lost Best Original Screenplay to Green Book. But at least Spike Lee was there to commiserate when BlacKkKlansman lost Best Picture to the same Driving Miss Daisy nonsense that defeated him almost 20 years ago.
As Schrader says, his time in FB jail taught him a valuable lesson: “to never underestimate the power of mediocrity.”