The director William Friedkin, who died in August of this year, was not one to mince words. He was volatile, sometimes crude, always controversial and extremely refreshing in a bracing sort of way. For time and space reasons I won’t go into his many quotable comments but I urge you to click here for his IMDB comments page and enjoy the ride. Today, of course, being Halloween is a perfect day to watch ‘The Exorcist’ (1973) which is precisely what will be happening at the Directors Guild theater on West 57th Street in a few hours. I’m delivering the opening remarks which I haven’t written yet. Hence the tone of panic and hurry in this little entry. Above see the trailer for a doc on Friedkin called ‘Friedkin Uncut’ which looks more than a little interesting. He certainly couldn’t be characterized as ‘lovable’…but he didn’t seem to care how you characterized him, which is a rather noble trait. Don’t you think? By the way, is it funny that his name is ‘fried kin?’ I kind of thought so for a minute but then saw the last sentence in print and changed my mind.