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Call of the Wild 3D
Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love
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Dead Snow
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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
June 26
Cheri
Fireflies in the Garden
July 1
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
July 3
The Girl from Monaco
I Hate Valentine's Day
July 10
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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
July 17
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All Good Things
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In the Loop
July 29
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The Cove
August 7
When in Rome
August 14
A Perfect Getaway
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The Goods: The Don Ready Story
Ponyo
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Spread
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August 21
Five Minutes of Heaven
Goose on the Loose!
It Might Get Loud
World's Greatest Dad
August 28
The Boat that Rocked
September 4
Amreeka
Carriers
Citizen Game
Shanghai
September 9
September 11
The Red Canvas
Tyler Perrys: I Can Do It All Myself
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The Burning Plain
September 18
Brand New Day
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Jennifer's Body
Splice
September 25
October 2
A Serious Man
Toy Story/Toy Story 2
Saturday, December 31, 2005
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I don't like the trailer
I don't like the trailer for The DaVinci Code at all. Does anyone? Ron Howard's thriller (due 5.16.06 from Columbia) might be a clas- sic, but the trailer makes it seem like shameless formulaic dreck. That shot of an alarmed Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou running together and holding hands...is there a more detestable action- thriller cliche in the book? I still say Hanks looks too old and too big for Tatou -- she's this little French Tinkerbell and he's this tall, hulking guy with crow's feet. And that naked bald guy lying dead on the floor of the Louvre,...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:34 AM on Saturday, December 31, 2005
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I'm now using Dada Mail
I'm now using Dada Mail to send out the column, and some who've asked to be unsubscribed are going to have to tell me again... sorry. I couldn't figure how to cherry-pick their names and remove them.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:25 AM on Saturday, December 31, 2005
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November and early-December tracking figures
November and early-December tracking figures indicated The Family Stone wouldn't do terribly well, but that hasn't been the case. The campaign was clumsy but the word-of-mouth saved it. The Thomas Bezucha-Michael London film will be up to $45 million (it did $2.747 yesterday, up 16%) by weekend's end and will probably end up with $60 million at the end of the run. The only unfortunate factor is that Stone distrib 20th Century Fox is opening Grandma's Boy on Friday, 1.6, which will likely result in Stone losing 500 or so theatres. Fox should have opened it in November, as originally planned. They could...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:41 AM on Saturday, December 31, 2005
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Yesterday's figures (Friday, 12.30) show
Yesterday's figures (Friday, 12.30) show that most films are enjoying holiday increases this weekend. The Chronicles of Narnia was up 22% from last Friday for a $9.6 million haul and a projected 4-day weekend tally of $36 million. King Kong, up 12%, did around $8.7 or or 8.8 million and a projected $30 million for the weekend, which will put it up to $173 million and a likely $225 to $250 million when all is said and done. Fun With Dick and Jane's $6 million (up 17%) indicates $22 million for the 4-day weekend. ("It'll do okay but they won't hit $100 million,"...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:53 AM on Saturday, December 31, 2005
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No question about it: Orlando
No question about it: Orlando Bloom was looking like a very hot package a year ago with his leading-man performances in the upcoming Kingdom of Heaven and Elizabethtown yet to be seen but everyone thinking nonetheless, "Yeah, he's really the guy... teenage girls love him, and how can he miss in major films by Ridley Scott and Cameron Crowe?" But both films tanked and Bloom didn't do well by the critics in either one, and now he's really in Shit City because New York Times reporter Sharon Waxman has written an obituary (in Sunday's 1.1.06 edition)...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:17 AM on Saturday, December 31, 2005
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It's snowing in New York
It's snowing in New York City now...faintly. I tried taking a picture of what I was seeing out my kitchen window, but the snowflakes wouldn't reigster.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:08 AM on Saturday, December 31, 2005
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I can't tell if the
I can't tell if the 190-minute "Extended Cut" version of Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven opened at the Laemmle Fairfax on Friday 12.23 or three days ago (Wednesday, 12.28), but it's playing there now...and I wish New Yorkers could see it also. Why didn't they book this version into a smallish Manhattan theatre, or, better yet, why didn't Fox Home Video release it as a year-end DVD attraction? (The 145 minute theatrical version came out on 10.11.) David Poland, who lives two and a half blocks from the Laemmle Fairfax, says the extended cut "is night and day from the original." It makes...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:06 AM on Saturday, December 31, 2005
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Wells postscript: Big studios have
Wells postscript: Big studios have knowingly and deliberately gutted great (or very good) films in the editing room and turned them into merely good or passable theatrical cuts before...Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America and Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (far better as the "Untitled" version on DVD) are the two best-known examples. If Poland's take on Kingdom of Heaven's "Extended Cut" becomes generally accepted, this will be another big example of this syndrome. What are some other films that went through this? (And don't mention Robert Wise's longer Star Trek: The Motion Picture...that's not allowed).
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:05 AM on Saturday, December 31, 2005
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A certain critic says that
A certain critic says that 2005 "was a fairly crappy year at the movies" and "while every year I seem to come up with more than 30 movies that I really cherish...this year 20 seemed like a bit of a reach." That seems gruff and unduly dismissive to me. I came up with 41 films -- 15 creme de la creme and 26 that were pretty damn okay. In any event, 2005 ends at midnight Paris time (6 pm in Manhattan, 3 pm in Los Angeles) and here they are again: Creme de la Creme: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, The Constant Gardener, A History...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:44 AM on Saturday, December 31, 2005
Friday, December 30, 2005
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Newsday's John Anderson has decided
Newsday's John Anderson has decided Munich star Eric Bana deserves an A...for effort, talent and general coolness of character. Being a selective Bana fan myself (having really liked him in Chopper, Black Hawk Down), I have no beef with this. Here's hoping Bana's performance in Curtis Hanson's Lucky You will be the charm.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:18 PM on Friday, December 30, 2005
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"I thought you'd enjoy what
"I thought you'd enjoy what I consider to be the ultimate proof that Brokeback Mountain is a crossover hit," Toronto Star critic Peter Howell wrote today. "This afternoon, my 16 year-old son Jake and his same-age pal Connell went off to see BBM at the local bijou. They were curious about all the hoopla. Jake saw it as No. 2 on my Top Ten list, right after A History of Violence, and he wanted to check it out. (Although he didn't show a similar interest in the Cronenberg.) These two guys normally won't see anything that doesn't involve an explosion, a laser beam...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:18 PM on Friday, December 30, 2005
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Richard Eyre, the director of
Richard Eyre, the director of the London's West End musical of Mary Poppins that's based on the 1964 Julie Andrews-Dick Van Dyke Disney flick, has told the Independent's Louise Jury that he's been in talks with Steven Spielberg over a new film version. The story doesn't say Spielberg wants to direct this, so let's hold off for now. But if Spielberg does intend to direct a Mary Poppins musical, that's it...his getting-older, wants-to-make-more-meaningful- movies cred is out the window.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:14 PM on Friday, December 30, 2005
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"If this was a political
"If this was a political campaign and this happened to a Presidential candidate, they be out...they'd be down in the polls and gone," Pete Hammond told Kim Masters on her 12.30 NPR show. He was speaking of Munich, of course. I feel differently. If Munich was a middle-aged Presidential contender, he would still be in the race...but his aides would be telling him to think seriously about preparing a press conference in order to announce his withdrawal.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:04 AM on Friday, December 30, 2005
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Here's an unsurprising but very
Here's an unsurprising but very concise National Public Radio discussion led by Hollywood analyst and chronicler Kim Masters about which films are the leaders for Best Picture, with commen- tary by Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein and Maxim critic Pete Hammond. The piece was recorded about two weeks ago, which is a long time in terms of the twists and surges that can manifest in an Oscar race... but it's worth a listen. Will Good Night, and Good Luck do as well as Hammond claims? I wonder.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:45 AM on Friday, December 30, 2005
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"Who's afraid of a couple
"Who's afraid of a couple of gay cowboys? Not moviegoers, who helped Brokeback Mountain post the highest per-screen average over the film-flush holiday weekend, reports Newsday's Sandy Cohen. "The Ang Lee film, which follows the 20-year forbidden romance between two roughneck ranch hands, earned $13,599 per theater, compared with $9,305 for weekend winner King Kong and $8,225 for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." If only Cohen didn't quote box-office interpreter Paul Dergarabedian so much. What's wrong with that? To explain I have to move on to another item...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:33 AM on Friday, December 30, 2005
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I wrote a column piece
I wrote a column piece nearly three years ago that lamented the persistent presence of the soul-stifling industry stooge Paul Der- garabedian, the Exhibitor Relations spokesperson who's always quoted in box-office stories. My January '03 piece, called "The Man Who Would Be Dull", described Dergarabedian as "a nice, depend- able guy who always has the numbers at hand and is always ready to discuss them on Sunday afternoons, when box-office stories are usually written. And yet I feel he's giving the art of Hollywood box-office analysis an unfortunate taint of roteness and tedium. His pronouncements are almost oppressively mundane. I...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:59 AM on Friday, December 30, 2005
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In his well-written distributor-by-distributor summation
In his well-written distributor-by-distributor summation of the great DVD year that was 2005, New York Times columnist Dave Kehr includes a very curious judgment. He calls Daryl F. Zanuck and Nunnally Johnson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, the 1956 Gregory Peck-Jennifer Jones drama that Fox Home Video recently released as a "Studio Classics" DVD, "nearly unwatchable" and then double-slams it by equating it with Song of Bernadette. Please...this film is entirely watchable for various reasons (an intriguing 1950s time-machine aura, sturdy performances, handsome photography, solid dialogue) and more than respectable if you accept it for what it is: a...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:32 AM on Friday, December 30, 2005
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Here's a comprehensive, perceptive and
Here's a comprehensive, perceptive and well researched piece about the Chinese film market ("Crouching U.S. Studios, Hidden Chinese Market") by L.A. Times staffer Bruce Wallace. It's especially concise in explaining the downsides. "The skeptics have a long list of reasons why you can't do movie business in China," Wallace writes. "The deplorable condition of Chinese movie theatres, a quota that limits foreign films to 20 a year and one of the worst revenue-sharing deals (just 13% of the ticket take) that Hollywood has negotiated anywhere. Then there are strict guidelines on content. No sex. No religion. Nothing to do with the...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:08 AM on Friday, December 30, 2005
Thursday, December 29, 2005
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A Canadian exhibition guy named
A Canadian exhibition guy named Robert Wales says the reason Match Point sounded so shitty at the Leows Lincoln Square on Wednesday night is because Woody Allen is an old fart when it comes to state-of-the-art sound recording. "Are you aware that Allen has never made a film in stereo?," Wales begins. "There are going to be differences comparing a big film with a full 5-channel mix to one of Allen's dialogue-driven pieces. I work for a major theatre chain, and every Allen film inevitably brings us customer complaints about presentation that are almost always related to the fact that they feel they...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:30 PM on Thursday, December 29, 2005
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I love the term "Fandango
I love the term "Fandango paranoia" because I know what it is...I've been there myself. It's defined by New York Times reporter Ben Sisario in a 12.30 story as "[Fandango ticket] purchases made far ahead in the expectation of others chasing after the same limited pool of tickets." There's also "Fandango depression," which results when a given show doesn't sell out and thus the Fandango purchaser has paid an unnecessary surcharge. "I always feel ripped off when I pay the surcharge and then there are empty seats," Sisario is told by a gay (i.e., has a "partner") legal research guy.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:19 PM on Thursday, December 29, 2005
399 comments
From Lajos Koltai's Fateless (and not what it seems to be)
Oh-Six Starters
Oh-Six Starters
There are four January releases that definitely cut the mustard in my pantry, and two or three with one or two problems but are recommended regardless. So things are starting off reasonably well. For a month known for so-so product, I mean.
The absolute must-see's are Lajos Koltai's Fateless (Thinkfilm, 1.6), Eugene Jarecki's Why We Fight (Sony Pictures Classics, 1.20), Steven Soderbergh's Bubble (Magnolia, 1.27) and Michael Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (Picturehouse, 1.27).
From Lajos Koltai's Fateless (and not what it seems to be)
The not-bad-with-reservations in order of preference are...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:16 PM on Thursday, December 29, 2005
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Here are two bona fide
Here are two bona fide Terrence Malick quotes -- reported only today and uttered only last Monday -- about his direction of The New World and thoughts about his future filmmaking plans. Quote #1: ’ÄúI knew [The New World] would have a slow, rolling pace. Just get into it; let it roll over you. It's more of an experience film. I leave you to fend for yourself, figure things out yourself.’Äù Quote #2: "There's a good many pictures I'd like to make...we'll see how many I'll be allowed to make." The quotes are significant because Malick never talks to the press. They come...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:56 PM on Thursday, December 29, 2005
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Screenwriter Josh Friedman (David Koepp
Screenwriter Josh Friedman (David Koepp nemesis and co- scripter of War of the Worlds, The Black Dahlia) almost worked on Snakes on a Plane and might have...well, who knows what he might have added to the damn thing?...but he really wanted to polish the sucker, but he didn't see eye-to-eye with some Machiavellian ass-head New Line production executive who is almost certain to shoot himself in the mouth before the year 2010 and the idea went south. Friedman has a blog and here's his story about what happened.....Snakes on a Plane!...Snakes on a Motherfucking Plane!
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:26 PM on Thursday, December 29, 2005
66 comments
From Lajos Koltai's Fateless (and not what it seems to be)
Oh-Six Starters
Oh-Six Starters
There are four January releases that definitely cut the mustard in my pantry, and two or three with one or two problems but are recommended regardless. So things are starting off reasonably well. For a month known for so-so product, I mean.
The absolute must-see's are Lajos Koltai's Fateless (Thinkfilm, 1.6), Eugene Jarecki's Why We Fight (Sony Pictures Classics, 1.20), Steven Soderbergh's Bubble (Magnolia, 1.27) and Michael Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (Picturehouse, 1.27).
From Lajos Koltai's Fateless (and not what it seems to be)
The not-bad-with-reservations in order of preference are...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:16 PM on Thursday, December 29, 2005
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You can always tell how
You can always tell how a film is doing (or how much confidence it has among exhibitors) by the size of the theatres it's playing in. I was in Loew's Lincoln Square last night, located in Manhattan's heavily Jewish Upper West Side, and Munich was playing in one of biggest auditoriums and to a heavily packed house . I went inside and watched for a bit -- large, crisply projected widescreen image, and the sound was strong and sharply defined. But Woody Allen's Match Point, which was having its opening day, was showing in one of the two smallest, turdiest little theatres in...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:55 AM on Thursday, December 29, 2005
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"Some of my critics are
"Some of my critics are asking how [Steven] Spielberg, this Hollywood liberal who makes dinosaur movies, can say anything serious about this subject that baffles so many smart people," the 59 year-old filmmaker said to Roger Ebert during a phone interview on 12.22. "What they're basically saying is, 'You disagree with us in a big public way, and we want you to shut up, and we want this movie to go back in the can.' That's a nefarious attempt to make people plug up their ears. That's not Jewish, it's not democratic, and it's bad for everyone -- especially in a...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:50 AM on Thursday, December 29, 2005
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
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That "uppity nigger" line from
That "uppity nigger" line from a draft of Stephen Gaghan's Syriana script was revealed on Boing-Boing earlier today (12.28), and then a link appeared on Defamer. Tim Blake Nelson doesn't blurt this term out to Jeffrey Wright in the film (certain people probably would've freaked) but I'm sorry Gaghan didn't just let it rip anyway. The rumpus would have been fun.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:37 PM on Wednesday, December 28, 2005
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Two or three times Adam
Two or three times Adam Curtis's The Power of Nightmares is listed as one of the 2005's best in the Village Voice's 7th Annual Film Critics Poll. I knelt down to pray in front of this film when I first saw it a year ago and spewed my praise in a column piece that ran on 12.17.04...which is why I didn't think to include The Power of Nightmares in my Best of 2005 column, even though it was shown at the Santa Barbara Film Festival earlier this year and then at the '05 Cannes Film Festival. (It later enjoyed...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:07 PM on Wednesday, December 28, 2005
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I was so taken with
I was so taken with Norman Lloyd's short penetrating cameo performance in In Her Shoes -- he nails it like a champ in one five- or six-minute scene -- that the least I could do was write a tribute piece about him last September. Now there's another actor who's delivered another one of those rock-solid, feet-planted, holy-shit performances. I'm speaking of Roberta Maxwell, whose acting as Jake Gyllenhaal's mom in Brokeback Mountain's second-to-last scene (i.e., when Heath Ledger pays a visit) totally slays. It's obvious that Maxwell and her scowling homophobic husband (the great Peter McRobbie) know what kind of relationship...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:23 PM on Wednesday, December 28, 2005
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As long as we're on
As long as we're on a Maxwell jag, here's a 12.21 profile of this New York-based actress by the Toronto Star's admiring Martin Knelman. He starts it off by saying, "If there were an Oscar for best performance by an actor with only one scene, surely the winner would be Roberta Maxwell as the repressed mother in Brokeback Mountain."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:22 PM on Wednesday, December 28, 2005
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A friend says, "I agree
A friend says, "I agree on your take about the downturn of King Kong's ticket sales. But look everywhere else also -- all the Oscar contenders are petering out at the box office. Brokeback is stalling and so is Munich. Geisha is a bomb. It's not just Kong...it's everything except, I guess, Walk the Line."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:18 AM on Wednesday, December 28, 2005
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The first time it hit
The first time it hit me that the public was starting to really rebel against allusive or metaphorical broad-brush movie titles was when it was decided in 1984 that Taylor Hackford's remake of Jacques Tourneur's 1947 film noir Out of the Past...a title with an obviously haunting quality...would be retitled as the dumbly-macho and aggressive-sounding Against All Odds. That was 21 years ago, and now things have downshifted to the next level of primitivism with New Line's upcoming Snakes on a Plane (currently slated for August '06). The fact that Samuel L. Jackson (a once-cool actor whose willingness to bend over for anything...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:30 AM on Wednesday, December 28, 2005
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Variety has recently let some
Variety has recently let some folks go, they're cutting back at the L.A. Times, some Time bureau chiefs have received pink slips, etc. The reasons are varied, but all of this is tracable in part to diminishing ad revenues on the print side. And not just in the movie-ad realm. This shouldn't figure as far as Variety's ad revenues are concerned, but ad buyers are realizing more and more how little impact print ads are having on younger viewers (my sons never buy a newspaper or even a classy monthly glossy like Vanity Fair), and they're acting accordingly.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:38 AM on Wednesday, December 28, 2005
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There's something missing in this
There's something missing in this AP story about the King Kong shortfall. It says that Peter Jackson's film "eked out" a box-office win last weekend but "has little so far to be thumping its chest about" because it's "falling well short of blowout blockbuster status like that earned by such box-office gorillas as the Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises." And it has the relentlessly bland Paul Dergarabedian saying one reason is the 187-minute length: "They can't show it as many times during the day, so that may have lessened its box office strength," blah, blah. But...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:06 AM on Wednesday, December 28, 2005
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I'm just doodling here and
I'm just doodling here and the man on the street will shed no tears, but could the situation at Paramount right now be analogous to the reign of terror in France (1793 to '94) that led to many impassioned people feeling the kiss of steel? Distribution chief Wayne Lewellen...whacked. DreamWorks' TV distribution honcho Hal Richardson moving in and the Paramount exec now handing this...soon to be whacked. As Slate's Edward Jay Epstein wrote a little more than a week ago, Paramount Pictures chief Brad Grey bought DreamWorks in large part in order to make up for a lack of Paramount-generated...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:27 AM on Wednesday, December 28, 2005
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Reader Sean McDonald feels there's
Reader Sean McDonald feels there's a valid analogy between sex scenes directed by Steven Spielberg and Paul Herhoeven. Spielberg "has no idea how to end this mess" -- i.e., Munich -- "so he chooses to do it half a dozen times, each time less engaging than the last, only to push me over the edge with the most ridiculous sex scene ever put on film. My friends and I could only come up with the flopping-goldfish pool scene in Showgirls as more ridiculous." This warrants a list...the dopiest (i.e., most excessive) boot-knocking scenes of all time. Suggestions?
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:15 AM on Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
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I was puzzled by some
I was puzzled by some of Slate critic David Edelstein's choices for best films of the year, but no matter. Point is that he hit the bulls-eye when he said that Rodrigo Garcia's Nine Lives, released earlier this year, "boasts the best performance of the year, by Robin Wright Penn as a very pregnant woman who bumps into her old flame in a supermarket. As she circles the store with her grocery cart, her face alternately flushed and ashen, it's as if we're looking directly into her soul."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:02 PM on Tuesday, December 27, 2005
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Woody Allen's Match Point "is
Woody Allen's Match Point "is a champagne cocktail laced with strychnine," observes New York Times critic A.O. Scott. "You would have to go back to the heady, amoral heyday of Ernst Lubitsch or Billy Wilder to find cynicism so deftly turned into superior entertainment. Mr. Allen's accomplishment here is to fool his audience, or at least to misdirect us, with a tale whose gilded surface disguises the darkness beneath. Comparisons to Crimes and Misdemeanors are inevitable, since the themes and some elements of plot are similar, but the philosophical baggage in Match Point is more tightly and discreetly packed. It...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:49 PM on Tuesday, December 27, 2005
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Legend has it there's a
Legend has it there's a significant clue at the very end of Michael Haneke's Cache (Sony Pictures Classics, 1.11.06)...some kind of visual tipoff about who's behind the stealth videotaping of Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche's home, lives, histories, etc. Esquire film writer Mike D'Angelo mentions the clue in a current piece. The clue has something to do with the son of a certain ill-fated Algerian character seen talking to a guy named Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky). Or maybe something to do with a black car driving by three times, or a blue station wagon...I'm a little hazy on the details. Anyone who's...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:39 PM on Tuesday, December 27, 2005
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A whole lotta noteworthy critics
A whole lotta noteworthy critics have submitted their Top Ten films of '05 lists to Movie City News, and Capote is third-ranked with 242 points, only 8 and 1/2 points behind the second-ranked A History of Violence with 255.5 points. (Top-ranked Brokeback Mountain is way in front with 299.5 points.) Good Night, and Good Luck (212 points) and King Kong (191.5 points) are fourth and fifth-ranked. But if you look at Rotten Tomatoes, which posts another critical ranking system, Capote has the 2nd highest general rating among these five (92%) and the only unani- mous creme de...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:33 AM on Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Monday, December 26, 2005
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Can we talk? Munich's 532-theatre
Can we talk? Munich's 532-theatre release starting last Friday (12.23) resulted in $5.7 million and a $7,706 average....not fantastic but not bad. But this doesn't portend an ecstatic reception when it plays Boobville in the hinterlands. This Steven Spielberg thriller has been booked into urban uptown theatres where it was expected to do very well...and it didn't. It played pretty well, and if they couldn't do seriously vigorous business in these theatres, it's going to start slowing down and then bombing out when it plays the rube territories. Some of you are thinking I'm so anti-Munich I can't see or think straight, but... Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:34 PM on Monday, December 26, 2005
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King Kong's weekend tallies suffered
King Kong's weekend tallies suffered a sobering 58% drop from last weekend, which is a pretty strong indication that people are not exactly over-the-moon about it, and yet Peter Jackson's monkey movie edged out The Chronicles of Narnia for the four-day holiday weekend (12.23 through 12.26) with a $31.4 million haul vs. Narnia's $30.1 million. Narnia opened on 12.9 (five days ahead of Kong's 12.14 debut) and has earned a total of $163.5 million to Kong's $118.7 million cume. Variety's Ben Fritz has written that "one of the few things that can safely be said is that Narnia has momentum on its side"...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:08 AM on Monday, December 26, 2005
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Still haven't found the right
Still haven't found the right Sundance accomodation. If anyone knows of any last-minute shares, please get in touch. Maybe I just won't go this year...I can roll with that. But habits die hard.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:57 AM on Monday, December 26, 2005
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Forget that Variety's Lisa Nesselson
Forget that Variety's Lisa Nesselson is calling it "a sort of It's an Adequate Life with token bad guys...as if the color-coded gangsters in Reservoir Dogs decided to get together and form a rainbow." And that Screen Daily's Benny Crick is calling it "a modest directorial comeback." All I care about Angel-A, which opened in Paris five days ago (on 12.21), is that it's (a) a new Luc Besson film, his first since '99's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, (b) it was shot in Paris last summer in the depopulated wee hours in anamorphic...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:21 AM on Monday, December 26, 2005
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Christian critics feel that Ang
Christian critics feel that Ang Lee's telling of the sad saga of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist may be affecting, but is also influencing social norms in the wrong (i.e., contrary to Christian rightist views) way. What are ya gonna do with these people? But speaking from an anti-right Blue State perspective I wonder if there's any such thing as going sexually-emotionally too far afield in terms of movie subjects? Like the story of Harold G. Hart of Neillsville, Wisconsin, for instance. What if the activity described in this story was the most profound,...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:16 AM on Monday, December 26, 2005
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Here's a graph by New
Here's a graph by New York Times arts and cultural editor Edward Rothstein in a 12.26 piece that's critical of Munich, and it's worth quoting: "If terrorism is solely the result of injustice, then without the injustice there would be no terrorism. So the best response is to work for justice. Threats, vengeance, security strictures -- anything other than the addressing of legitimate grievances is ultimately futile. In particular, since killing terrorists does nothing to alter injustice, it will do nothing to alter terror. Instead, it only leads to more injustice, turning the victims of terrorism into mirror images...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:54 AM on Monday, December 26, 2005
Sunday, December 25, 2005
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Nathan Lane and four chorus-line
Nathan Lane and four chorus-line guys performed a funny spoof, about Brokeback Mountain a la "Oklahoma" on Late Night with David Letterman last week. Funny like skits on the "Carol Burnett Show" used to be in the '70s. Funny if you just sit back and give in to the lame-itude for the sake of seeming like a good sport. But if you think about where Lane is coming from for more than two or three seconds...no, don't! Then it won't be funny. And nobody wants to be a sourpuss and not laugh at a venerated funny guy and Tin Pan...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:34 PM on Sunday, December 25, 2005
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My best Christmas moment so
My best Christmas moment so far was coming upon those carolers on East 3rd Street a few days ago, but my second best moment (and I'm a little ashamed to admit this) was walking around a Wild Oats store in Norwalk, Connecticut, on Saturday afternoon and hearing this impossibly dippy Paul McCartney song playing and starting to quietly hum along. I'm sorry but those McCartney hooks get me, and I always feel like a sap when I cop to this. I also feel Christmassy when this old Beatles chestnut plays...jeez.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:13 PM on Sunday, December 25, 2005
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In his King Kong review,
In his King Kong review, New York press critic Matt Zoller Seitz says that the film's "unwelcome intrusion of refrigerator logic" recalls a moment from the 1998 crime thriller Phoenix, in which Ray Liotta "poses a question the original Kong never gave us a chance to ask: If the natives built that wall to keep Kong out, why'd they make doors big enough for him to get through?" In fact, that observation was first delivered by the late film scholar and archivst Ron Haver on the 1985 Criterion Collection King Kong laser disc, which contained one of...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:38 PM on Sunday, December 25, 2005
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The typeface is screwed up
The typeface is screwed up (i.e., all italic) but sufferin' suckotash, New York Press critic Armond White has found an angle or two to admire in The Family Stone. I don't know if the support of Manhattan's most ardently contrarian wack-jobber means Thomas Bezucha's home-for-the-holidays dramedy is doomed or has a new lease on life. Oh, and Armond? When Sarah Jessica Parker says "I dont care what you think about me," the "grinning Stone" (i.e., Rachel McAdams) coolly replies, "Oh...of course you do"....NOT "Yes, you do."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:12 PM on Sunday, December 25, 2005
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It's not the purgatory of
It's not the purgatory of "Christmas" that I mind so much...I've dealt with the myriad oppressions of this wretched holiday for years...but all the stores being shuttered. The greatest thing is the day after when everything starts up again. There is no greater sound or vibe than the hustle-and-bustle of commerce.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:23 AM on Sunday, December 25, 2005
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I've had it with slow-to-react
I've had it with slow-to-react protagonists wearing those dull, stunned looks. I've seen them in heavy drama after heavy drama...younger lead characters who go through all kinds of hell and all they seem to do is suffer and take it and look blown away. No more of these! If your life is threatened you don't shut down, dammit...you snap to attention. Your senses and state of alertnesses become far more acute than usual, and all you have...all you can think of or improvise is irrefutably about what to do in order to avoid getting hit again or killed. Nobody but nobody just stands...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:00 AM on Sunday, December 25, 2005
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I've seen my first near-great
I've seen my first near-great film of '06...shot in '04 and shown at several film festivals (including Telluride, Toronto and Karlovy Vary) in '05, and apparently due for release by ThinkFilm before long. "Near-great" because the exquisite wide-screen framing and destaurated color and note-perfect editing make it, to my eyes, the most visually immaculate Holocaust death-camp drama ever made. (As well as one of the most realistic seeming and subtly-rendered in terms of story). It's called Fateless, and it's no surprise that director is Lajos Koltai, one of the great all-time directors of photography (Max, Being Julia, Wrestling Ernest Hemingway). Based on Imre...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:29 AM on Sunday, December 25, 2005
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In between my Munich postings,
In between my Munich postings, which have been precise and exacting but have struck some as obsessive, I've been suppressing a fear that I may sound like (and may be perceived as) George Grizzard's Senator Fred Van Ackerman character in Otto Preminger's Advise and Consent (1962). If that were so I think I'd need to jump off a bridge as an act of atonement.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:19 AM on Sunday, December 25, 2005
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New York Times critic Manohla
New York Times critic Manohla Dargis has explained better than anyone else why Brokeback Mountain and Heath Ledger's hurtin' cowboy are connecting all over: "It's partly because [Ledger's] character in Ang Lee's romantic tragedy, Ennis Del Mar, represents a kind of impacted masculinity that a lot of us recognize: I don't know a single straight woman who hasn't been involved with a man as emotionally thwarted as Ennis, the man who can't tell you how he feels because he may not honestly know. And because the film is, in many respects, about how difficult it is to live in a culture...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:04 AM on Sunday, December 25, 2005
Saturday, December 24, 2005
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Werner Herzog during chat at L.A.'s Director's Guild theatre -- Friday, 12.16.05, 12:25 pm
Toasting Herzog
Toasting Herzog
Time's Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel are both smart and crafty film critics, but I've never regarded them as providers of radiant cinematic wisdom...until today.
They've both chosen a Werner Herzog documentary as their favorite film of '05 -- Corliss going for The White Diamond and Schickel for Grizzly Man -- and the passion behind these choices seems especially right and gives me a sublime pre-holiday feeling.
Werner Herzog during chat at L.A.'s Director's Guild theatre -- Friday, 12.16.05, 12:25 pm
In part because I had an especially good conversation...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:48 AM on Saturday, December 24, 2005
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Here's a Reuters story by
Here's a Reuters story by Dan Williams detailing a list of complaints made about Munich "by those with direct knowledge of the Israeli reprisal campaign." Their beefs? Golda Meir wasn't involved in the recruting of the team, the "hits" were more professionally coordinated and executed than depicted in the film, and nobody was on that much of a guilt trip. "Look, we all did mandatory military service, we all had combat experience, and we all accepted the necessity of hitting out at our enemies [because] Israel is a country at war," says a former Israeli special forces officer who took part...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:00 AM on Saturday, December 24, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
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King Kong nudged ahead of
King Kong nudged ahead of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on Friday, $8.4 million to $8.2 million. And yet on Wednesday Narnia was slightly ahead, $5 million to Kong's $4.9 million. Are we talking further monkey shortfalls or is Narnia merely deriving a holiday boost from out-of-school kids? Kong was "a gentle giant" and "strong but disappointing" after the first five days, but more vigorous earnings were expected to kick in once the holiday vacation commenced.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:34 PM on Friday, December 23, 2005
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Capote director Bennett Miller -- 12.22.05, 5:20 pm
Miller's Crossing
Miller's Crossing
On Thursday afternoon I hitched across the Williamsburg Bridge (the trains didn't start running again until Friday morning) and then walked up to East Soho to pay a visit to Capote director Bennett Miller.
The idea was mainly to say hello (we've been talking since last summer on the phone) and to take stock of the year-end situation, I suppose. Only we didn't get down to the latter, in part because I got sidetracked by some very cool Dick-and- Perry photos.
Capote director Bennett Miller -- 12.22.05, 5:20 pm
And so I didn't get into...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:41 PM on Friday, December 23, 2005
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By what circuitous aesthetic strategy
By what circuitous aesthetic strategy is Slate's David Edelstein's claiming that Munich "is the most potent, the most vital, the best movie of the year"? It's not that I disagree as much as Edelstein has made a decision to climb out to the tip of the the mainmast for the sake of climbing out to the tip of the mainmast. And yet there's a graph halfway through his review that's quite persuasive: "Is Munich an apology for Palestinian terrorists -- for men and women who barbarously murder civilians? I don't consider a movie that assigns motives more complicated than pure evil...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:58 AM on Friday, December 23, 2005
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MSNBC critic-commentator Erik Lundegaard is
MSNBC critic-commentator Erik Lundegaard is on the Kevin- Costner-is-back train...yes!...following my similar riff about eight or nine days ago. "Costner's best work has an element of the rascal in it," Lundegaard concludes. "[And] his roles this year -- Denny Davies in The Upside of Anger and Beau Burroughs in Rumor Has It... -- help underscore the point. In both he plays nice guy/rascals comfortably surrounded by women; in both he plays his age. But in the end Beau is a little dull because he's too much nice guy and not enough rascal, while Denny is classic Costner: the not-smart...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:28 AM on Friday, December 23, 2005
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Terrence Malick's The New World
Terrence Malick's The New World (New Line, 12.25) is almost in theatres but enveloped in a deafening silence. I mean, except for the put-down quotes in the Rotten Tomatoes selection of reviews. Salon's Stephanie Zacaharek says Malick "may not care much for people, but he never met a tree he didn't like." (Somebody previously said this when The Thin Red Line came out, only they used "leaf" instead of "tree.") She calls it "so much atmospheric tootle...his idea of using actors in a movie is straight out of 'Where's Waldo?'" The L.A. Weekly's Scott Foundas calls it "suffocating...a movie...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:47 AM on Friday, December 23, 2005
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Manohla Dargis's New York Times
Manohla Dargis's New York Times review of The New World is probably the most sponge-like and respectful. She tries to fully absorb and relate what this generally fascinating (though finally unsatisfying) film does to you...not just its intentions and accom- plishments, but the dewy organic atmosphere of it. As well as pay oblique tribute to the legend of its shadowed, hidden-from-plain- sight creator, Terrence Malick. It's a funny review because although she says admiring things about it, you're not convinced she's 100% on the boat. And yet she's tried harder than most to really convey what this World feels, tastes and...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:31 AM on Friday, December 23, 2005
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Opening day and Munich's creme
Opening day and Munich's creme de la creme Rotten Tomatoes rating is still in the 50s....58%, to be exact. Which means that among the big guns it's pretty much a split vote. Does this mean the Academy will respond more or less the same way? Wait a minute...why am I even asking this question? The current p.c. attitude is "poor Munich"...prematurely bashed, unfairly tarnished, etc., so why can't I just get with the program? I really do agree with this view. Forget the big guns...forget all that crap. Just see it and don't let that third-act sex scene mixed with a Munich-airport-massacre...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:07 AM on Friday, December 23, 2005
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Here's a very thorough point-by-point
Here's a very thorough point-by-point piece by USA Today's Scott Bowles on Oscar likelies, tendency tips and possible wind-shif- tings...but I don't know. Too much in the way of intelligent rational assessment has a way of sapping passion and draining color. Does Bowles loathe or cherish anyone or anything in this year's race? Let's hear a little of that "kill the umpire!" Bleacher Bum spirit. USA Today reporters can't express their personal passions directly, of course, but the way for any reporter to get around this is to find smart-ass sources who echo his/her own views. Sorry, Scott....you're a...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:33 AM on Friday, December 23, 2005
Thursday, December 22, 2005
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Reader/listener alert: I don't think
Reader/listener alert: I don't think I can manage a fresh "Elsewhere Live" broadcast today. Tech problems, no speaker phone, continuing transit strike, stranded in Brooklyn, etc. It's insane. I was going to talk about this and that but mainly run my interview with the great Werner Herzog so here it is. I'll put up the MP3 file as a stand-alone link in Elsewhere Live either late tonight or tomorrow morning. (I may also run a portion of the q & a in transcript form.) Herzog's Grizzly Man comes out on DVD on 12.26 via Lion's Gate, and he has...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:40 AM on Thursday, December 22, 2005
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I believe what I believe
I believe what I believe about Munich's worthiness as a Best Picture contender, but I'm at least flexible enough to realize that the "poor Munich" thing has kicked in, and I'm adaptable enough to go with it. It has been beaten up by right-wing political types, and does deserve sympathy and understanding in the wake of this.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:37 AM on Thursday, December 22, 2005
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From late August to roughly
From late August to roughly mid-November, Capote's Phillip Seymour Hoffman was the far-ahead front-runner to take the Best Actor Oscar. But Heath Ledger has surged over the last two or three weeks, and it seems right now as if Ledger is ahead on points...sadness points, empathy points. Ennis del Mar feels like a sadder, more tragic figure than Truman Capote because he isn't in the least bit brilliant, and enjoys far fewer opportunities and is overcome by "this thing" that he can't quite make himself deal with. Capote is overcome also...by ambition, by a curiously deep love for Perry Smith, by his...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:18 AM on Thursday, December 22, 2005
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I should have mentioned this
I should have mentioned this earlier, but kudos to the Pheonix Film Critics for announcing an original independent thought by giving its Best Picure award to Ron Howard's Cinderella Man...and also by naming George Clooney as Best Director for his helming of Good Night, and Good Luck.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:07 AM on Thursday, December 22, 2005
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Finally got around to reading
Finally got around to reading the piece by Salon's Michelle Gold- berg about the political attacks against Munich (all by the pro- Israeli right), and I agree -- it's a very thorough and perceptive analysis. And the sympathy surge for this Steven Spielberg film continues...and that's fine.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:50 AM on Thursday, December 22, 2005
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Looks like the transit strike
Looks like the transit strike will be over by tomorrow (i.e., Friday) or thefreabouts. Perhaps only one more exercise day remaining! Hollywood Elsewhere is planning another 140-block visit in Man- hattan later today. A visit with Capote director Bennett Miller, stopping by to pick up a script of Mike Binder's Reign Over Me, visiting the AMC plex on 42nd Street, etc.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:35 AM on Thursday, December 22, 2005
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Fun With Dick and Jane...what
Fun With Dick and Jane...what is that? A movie? The title is on the marquees, the cans of film are in the booths, but to paraphrase Richard Burton's line in Peter Glenville's Becket, "In me there is only...a void."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:25 AM on Thursday, December 22, 2005
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
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How is Munich faring so
How is Munich faring so far with the critics? The big weigh-in happens on Friday, 12.23, with the limited opening...but right now it's got an overall 70% favorable Rotten Tomatoes rating (not bad but not wonderful), and a 55% favorable with cream-of- the-crop critics. The thumbs-up crowd includes Entertainment Weekly's highly respected Owen Gleiberman, Ebert and Roeper's Richard Roeper, Rolling Stone's Peter Travers (renowned for being an easy lay), the New York Post's Lou Lumenick, the Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt and Reelview's James Berardinelli. The thumbs-down contingent includes The New Yorker critic Anthony Lane, Variety's Todd McCarthy, New York Observer critics...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:32 PM on Wednesday, December 21, 2005
47 comments
Kong Badness
Kong Badness
I don't want to start off on the wrong foot here. I'm a fan of Peter Jackson's King Kong...after the 70-minute mark. A modified fan, I should say, because I'm not over-the-moon about it. I liked the rousing CG stuff and the emotional stirrings during the scenes between Kong (i.e., Andy Serkis) and Naomi Watts...but let's not get carried away.
The point is that this 187-minute movie is full of bits that drive me up the wall, and now that Kong has run into a slowdown at the box-office and I've gotten my Jack- son mea culpa out of the way,...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:14 PM on Wednesday, December 21, 2005
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I'm the last guy to
I'm the last guy to run this but yeah, I see it...a subliminal flash-frame of bearded Apocalypto director Mel Gibson on the just-up preview trailer for the film on Apple's movie trailer site. The movie looks intriguing....very high-end spooky stuff. But it's wacko Mel's appearance that's getting all the media attention. Pause the trailer about 3/4 of the way through and start pushing along bit by bit, and suddenly there's Mel, standing next to a couple of extras covered in white body paint and looking like a mad prophet from the outback on Ecstasy. Nutso smile, lit cigarette, eyes a-poppin',...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:40 AM on Wednesday, December 21, 2005
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I actually agree with the
I actually agree with the Broadcast Film Critic's Association's decision to give special Distinguished Achievement in Performing Arts Award to ape impersonator Andy Serkis and the King Kong special effects gang on 1.9.06 at the 11th annual Critics' Choice Awards gala. The group is creating the award to recognize "the singular achievement in creating this character, representing a revolutionary leap forward in synthesizing visual effects with an actor's performance," said BFCA president Joey Berlin . The award will be accepted by Serkis and Kong animation guys Christian Rivers and Joe Letteri.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:31 AM on Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
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Reader Tom Van watched the
Reader Tom Van watched the Brokeback Mountain discussion on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" last night and didn't think it amounted to much. "The main push of this piece was Bill's assertion that the left-wing media constantly pushes films on people that support the liberal political agenda, and in the case of Brokeback the gay movement and gay marriage," Van reports. "O'Reilly said that a paper like the New York Times does it all the time through 'stealth' methods and yet the at same time he said it's constantly 'in your face.' Conservative film critic Michael Medved agreed, of course, and...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:07 AM on Tuesday, December 20, 2005
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Munich supporters will probably curse
Munich supporters will probably curse me for saying this, but I think it's entirely fair to observe that after today's "Big Picture" Patrick Goldstein column in the L.A. Times about the media's pre-release bashing of Munich that the game is all but over. Munich was hurting already but this is the crashing left hook to the jaw. Munich has not fallen to the canvas, but -- quickly pop in a DVD of Raging Bull and chapter-search to the final fight between Jake La Motta and Sugar Ray Robinson -- this pretty good movie that has won the admiration of...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:45 AM on Tuesday, December 20, 2005
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Carmike Cinemas Inc. has pledged
Carmike Cinemas Inc. has pledged to install 2300 digital projection systems in its 37-state theatre chain by October 2007....good. Carmike is the first U.S. exhibitor to step up to the plate, dig deep and start rolling with this. The investment will cost them about $150 million. There are currently only about 100 screens in the entire country capable of showing digitally-projected movies. There are roughly 36,000 movie screens in the U.S., so this is only a small first step.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:44 AM on Tuesday, December 20, 2005
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Words about Steven Spielberg's Munich
Words about Steven Spielberg's Munich from a Manhattan- dwelling Academy member: "I have not seen it but I know several people who have and they are unanimous -- it is too long, it is repetitive, it is pretentious, and they all wondered if anyone would have the guts to say that. I mean, Jeffrey...I have not heard more negative responses on what is supposed to be a quality film this year."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:17 AM on Tuesday, December 20, 2005
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That mention by my Manhattan
That mention by my Manhattan friend about whether people will "have the guts" to critique or give a general thumbs-down to Munich is indicative of a lingering notion that Spielberg is a dispenser of great tribal power, and to say anything against him or one of his films could conceivably result in a negative reaction down the road. You have to at least consider that this psychology was part of the reportedly positive reactions to Munich at the Beverly Hills Academy screening last Sunday night. Take it with a grain of salt, but that's what The Envelope's Steve Pond reported yesterday.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:16 AM on Tuesday, December 20, 2005
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And I love, by the
And I love, by the way, that boldfaced photo caption that ran with Pond's piece: "Munich" was definitely not a bomb with the academy audience. It reminds me of that very-first-reac- tion to 1995's Waterworld that got around after the first junket screening: "It doesn't suck."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:12 AM on Tuesday, December 20, 2005
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The NYC transit strike began
The NYC transit strike began this morning, but this will not interfere with Hollywood Elsewhere's plans to see Terry Zwigoff's Art School Confidential, which is screening this evening at 6 pm at Sony headquarters on Madison and 55th. That's right -- I'm prepared to leg it both ways because I doubt I'll be able to get a cab. From my Brooklyn apartment, which is near the corner of Montrose and Bushwick, I'll have to walk a mile and a half west to the Williamsburg Bridge and then hump across the damn thing (which will not be pleasant due to the extreme windy...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:58 AM on Tuesday, December 20, 2005
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I don't mind the transit
I don't mind the transit strike. Walking is good for your mind, body and soul. Hardship is always a good thing when it comes to friendliness and community relations and people actually treating each other with caring and good cheer. Manhattanites are famous for coming alive when things are really tough. I wonder if anyone will be hitchhiking? So today's forthcoming four-and-a-half-hour walk isn't just about seeing the Zwigoff film. If nothing else, it'll be about (hopefully) taking some good pictures.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:49 AM on Tuesday, December 20, 2005
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The San Diego Film Critics
The San Diego Film Critics made some bright interesting calls with their 2005 Awards. Capote's Bennett Miller as Best Director and Phillip Seymour Hoffman for Best Actor, The Upside of Anger's Joan Allen for Best Actress, Broken Flowers' Jeffrey Wright for Best Supporting Actor, The Constant Gardener's Rachel Weisz for Best Supporting Actress, Best Documentary Award to Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man and a Best Screenplay Award to Shane Black's Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Thought- ful independent-minded choices, all...and then the group went and gave their Best Picture award to King Kong. C'mon! Even its admirers admit Kong is only...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:27 AM on Tuesday, December 20, 2005
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I am comfortable with a
I am comfortable with a certain lack of consistency in myself. Life is duty, beauty and criteria, but it's also a series of moods and passages from one thing to another...highs and detours and occasional levitations and floatings. All to say I don't what the hell happened when I ran my Best 14 Movies of 2005 list in the column a while back and omitted James Mangold's Walk The Line. It's #4 on my MCN Gurus of Gold list and I also submitted it as #6 in a Year's Ten Best list based in my own personal criteria. Obviously on some level I...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:08 AM on Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Monday, December 19, 2005
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Slate's Edward Jay Epstein has
Slate's Edward Jay Epstein has written a blunt down-to-it piece about why Paramount honcho Brad Grey really bought DreamWorks, "according to people at Viacom, Paramount's corporate owner." When he took over in early '05, Grey, who'd been handed a mandate by Viacom's Sumner Redstone "to totally revamp moviemaking at Paramount," got rid of just about every holdover project from the Sherry Lansing-Jonathan Dolgen (like that Secret Life of Walter Mitty film with Owen Wilson) along with the execs who had nurtured them. And yet Grey so vigorously swept the decks that Paramount, as of last summer, was looking at very little...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:12 PM on Monday, December 19, 2005
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I haven't heard anything about
I haven't heard anything about the Munich Academy screening at Wilshire and La Peer last night (sorry...I'm in New York now and running around) but I'm waiting with bated breath and will probably have something to report later on.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:30 PM on Monday, December 19, 2005
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King Kong and Titanic both
King Kong and Titanic both run over three hours and both have experienced an unspectacular first week at the box-office...fine. But take no notice of anyone trying to draw further further analogies.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:11 PM on Monday, December 19, 2005
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Slate's Seth Stevenson has a
Slate's Seth Stevenson has a riff about Spike Jonze's "Pardon Our Dust" Gap ad. As noted in this column a while back, there are two versions of this ad -- the much cooler Jonze-approved version that never played on TV or anywhere else, and the totally malignant, deballed-by-Gap-marketing-execs version (linked on the Stevenson column page), which uses a musical cut called "Don't Stand Still" instead of Edvard Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King," a Stanley Kubrick-like scoring that Jonze used. A Gap spokesperson told Stevenson that the company "tried several variations" of the ad, blah, blad. The...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:16 PM on Monday, December 19, 2005
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The Producers star Nathan Lane
The Producers star Nathan Lane had some fun with Brokeback Mountain on the Today show last Friday morning, as reported in Lloyd Grove's "Lowdown" in the N.Y. Daily News. "It's really when [Heath Ledger] says, 'This thing gets hold of us the wrong time, the wrong place, we're dead,'" Lane quipped in front of a reportedly giggling Katie Couric. "I thought, 'What do you mean, like the A&P? You're in the middle of nowhere! Get a ranch with the guy! Stop torturing these two poor women and get a room! What's the problem?'" Gee...none, I guess. The more I think about...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:08 PM on Monday, December 19, 2005
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Reader Patrick Cassano thinks I'm
Reader Patrick Cassano thinks I'm "dead-on about women turning Brokeback Mountain into a financial hit. My married friend and I go to the movies all the time, and his wife usually stays at home with the kids. She burned out on going to the movies with us long ago after the bloody trifecta of True Romance, Pulp Fiction and Natural Born Killers. She hasn't been to a non-kid movie in 9 years. But the other day she asked about this Brokeback Mountain movie on the internet (also new to her) and was intrigued, and told me she'd like to make plans to go...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:36 AM on Monday, December 19, 2005
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Pre-Xmas family doings in Boston
Pre-Xmas family doings in Boston and Connecticut and no broadband to dip into last night (i.e., Sunday evening)...so "Elsewhere Live" fell by the wayside. Once you start a twice-weekly routine you have to stick to it or people will lose interest, so me bad. I'll be running an interview with Werner Herzog on Thursday from my Brooklyn abode.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:09 AM on Monday, December 19, 2005
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King Kong had a good
King Kong had a good weekend ($50.1 million) and has pulled down an estimated $66.2 million since it opened on 12.14. It's had a successful start and will continue to be successful, etc. Why, then, do audience pulse rates so far seem so profoundly tepid? Why are readers saying over and over again, "I expected huge lines but we got right in wihout a wait," etc.? It's Christmas and King Kong is showing and people are going...fine. But if you're in high school and it's lunch time and you go to the cafeteria and there are three meals on the menu -- meat...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:32 AM on Monday, December 19, 2005
Sunday, December 18, 2005
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I know we're all taking
I know we're all taking off for the holidays, but the failure of major entertainment reporters to step up and face the reality of the Great Middle-American Ho-Humming of King Kong is amazing. This is a hugely surprising story and....zzzzz. Joseph Jones , a reader, says he "saw King Kong last night at an AMC multiplex here in Tampa. We arrived an hour prior to the show, expecting a line (I remember arriving an hour before a showing of Jurassic Park back in 1993 -- and still ending up near the back of the line and in dreadful off-to-the-side seats) but we...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:45 AM on Sunday, December 18, 2005
Saturday, December 17, 2005
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King Kong is weaker than
King Kong is weaker than expected because the girls aren't into him, or so goes the theory. "Judging by the women I've spoken with, there's a definite non-interest in Kong," says reader Matthew Meyerotto. "The movie has no sex symbols. Adrian Brody is too obscure and Jack Black is too chubby. Even if Kong is a love story at its core, the average female movie going audience is too shallow to be brought into the theater without a pretty face."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:02 AM on Saturday, December 17, 2005
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The Chronicles of Narnia: The
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is looking at a projected $34.7 million this weekend, or a 47% drop from the opening round. Syriana is looking at a 55% drop....dead. The Family Stone is projecting a $10 million weekend at $4 thou- sand a print...not launching. But Brokeback Mountain, now in 69 theatres, will pull down about $2.3 million this weekend or $33,000 per print...solid healthy numbers. I know this sounds a bit confusing, but this is what the hard-nosed guys are saying.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:53 AM on Saturday, December 17, 2005
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The Producers will earn a
The Producers will earn a projected $159,000 at six theatres this weekend, or $26,000 a print. Trackers are saying this is D.O.A. business...finito. A guy keeping tabs on the numbers at New York's Ziegfeld theatre told a friend he knew The Producers was dead after Friday's first matinee. Too many bad reviews, too cornball, no under-25 attendance to speak of and Susan Stroman can't direct with any pizazz or sense of style...down for the count and off to DVD.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:12 AM on Saturday, December 17, 2005
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A Birmingham guy named Chance
A Birmingham guy named Chance Shirley (great name!) says he and the missus "went down to the local multiplex last night for a 7:40 Family Stone screening. After hearing your concerns that Fox had dropped the ball marketing-wise, I was surprised that we had trouble finding a seat -- the place was packed. It wasn't long before a theater manager stepped in to let us know Stone would be playing on an additional screen. Both screening rooms were pretty full after all was said and done, and the film seemed to go over well with the audience. We don't live in the most...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:22 AM on Saturday, December 17, 2005
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King Kong finally surged and
King Kong finally surged and took in $14.2 million yesterday (Friday, 12.15) following Thursday's paltry $6.4 million and Wednesday's disappointing $9.8 million. It'll probably tally $46 to $47 million for the three-day weekend and about $62 million for the first five days. Figure a domestic total of $250 or $275 million after all is said and done...which is less than what Universal was hoping for. Kong will turn a handy profit down the road, but there's a definite shortfall thing happening here and it's hard to figure why. What happened to the monster revenues that were expected from the get-go?
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:11 AM on Saturday, December 17, 2005
Friday, December 16, 2005
382 comments
...Read More
Del Mar Nation
Del Mar Nation
Brokeback Mountain is starting to spread out (it went into 69 theatres on Friday), and that means that sooner or later those gay cowboy jokes on "Late Night with David Letterman" and in Aaron McGruder's "Boondocks" comic strip will be coming to an end.
The more people see Brokeback, the greater the likelihood that a certain percen- tage will start to understand that gay cowboys and high-altitude pokin' in the pup tent ain't the point. It's a way into the film's real subject, which is the terrible price of letting a good thing go.
...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:16 PM on Friday, December 16, 2005
Thursday, December 15, 2005
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"The trouble [with King Kong]
"The trouble [with King Kong] is that Jackson, an exuberant director, fresh from his triumph with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, likes to shoot up a storm, and here his exuberance spills over into senselessness," writes David Denby in his New Yorker review. The Depression background, just a few shots in the original [Kong], is stretched out here with a montage of shantytowns and strikes; the black "natives" in Skull Island -- filthy, grotesque and vicious -- seem like escapees from a sideshow. In the original, Kong defends his blonde against dinosaurs for just a couple of scenes, but here the fights...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:35 PM on Thursday, December 15, 2005
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When I told my 16
When I told my 16 year-old son a couple of hours ago that King Kong earned $9.7 million on its opening day (i.e., Wednesday, 12.13), he said, "Really? That sucks!" And the Drudge Report is using the headline "Kong bomb." It's not as bad as all that, although it's certainly disappointing. The $9.7 million Wednesday opening for the most ballyhooed heavyweight spectacle movie of the year (as well as one with a built-in Peter Jackson fan base) is only the 21st highest all-time Wednesday opening. Universal was looking for Kong to earn $80 or $90 million for five days, and now the opening...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:04 PM on Thursday, December 15, 2005
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
499 comments
Best and Worst of '05
Best and Worst of `05
I can't do a Ten Best of '05 of list -- the number has to be fourteen. And I had to include 28 films on the "Pretty Damn Good" roster, and I had to make a special mention of Terrence Malick's stunningly see-worthy shortfaller, The New World.
That's a total of 43 very good-to-sublime films released this year, or a little less than one every nine days. Not a bad tally, and arguably one of the more distin- guished in recent years, and with the makings of a rip-snortin' Oscar fight in January and February.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:41 PM on Wednesday, December 14, 2005
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It's 11:48 am and a
It's 11:48 am and a press release just came into my inbox: "The National Lampoon is excited to announce its collaboration with Half Shell Entertainment Films to create new feature films based on archived material from the revered and classic National Lampoon magazine." This is basically hooey and nothing new because those great old Lampoon short stories by Chris Miller and Doug Kenney will only be weakened or bloated up if they're adapted for a feature film. Half Shell won't do this, but they should make a short film based on Kenney's "First Blow Job," which ran in '73. It's still hilarious, and...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:43 AM on Wednesday, December 14, 2005
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Ron Howard gets a little
Ron Howard gets a little bit better with every movie he makes, but this trailer for The DaVinci Code (Columbia, 5.19.06) makes it look like he's back-slided. It makes a convincing case that the film will be a conventional bullshit potboiler. All it tells me is that (a) Tom Hanks is a year away from being 50 and he looks too old to be paired with the 27 year-old Audrey Tatou, (b) the obsession that Christians have with the celibate legend of Yeshua of Nazareth is totally bumpkin and deranged, (and (c) the Americans have invaded Paris and made that magical...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:22 AM on Wednesday, December 14, 2005
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Manhattan's Ziegfeld theatre is going
Manhattan's Ziegfeld theatre is going to charge $12.50 a head for people to see The Producers for the first week. After the first seven days the price will drop to $10.75. That's it...we need a people's revolt here. The Producers is a broadly entertaining, seriously old-fashioned, honestly hokey musical, but it's not a triple-A great movie...truly. New Yorkers should seriously consider standing up and boycotting the Zeigfeld during its first week of play. You'll be looking at a $25 admission for you and your girlfriend and this is not a play and it's nowhere near worth it.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:05 AM on Wednesday, December 14, 2005
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Here's a piece by the
Here's a piece by the New York Times Caryn James about people laughing at the Brokeback Mountain trailer, and particularly the "I wish I could quit you!" line. She says that "the [trailer's] lush romanticism captures the essence of the film's appeal and its positioning in the marketplace: as a love story like any other, a long-term romance hampered by circumstances. But the film builds slowly to an affecting end, overcoming its soapy tendencies in a way the trailer can't. [And yet] any trailer that has entered the culture enough to be made fun of is doing something right." Maybe, but...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:01 AM on Wednesday, December 14, 2005
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Steven Spielberg is allegedly going
Steven Spielberg is allegedly going to start talking to the press about Munich (there's an L.A. Times piece in the works) and making the rounds. And it's not going to make any differ- ence. Spielberg could stand at the corner of Wilshire and La Peer every night at 7 pm passing out Munich leaflets and it wouldn't matter. A film-critic friend said yesterday that "a let-the-movie- speak-for-itself campaign can work for the right film. The movie just needs to speak to people. Munich didn't. Million Dollar Baby did. I think Pete Hammond saying 'it's not your father's Oscar cam- paign any more' is...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:46 AM on Wednesday, December 14, 2005
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In a chit-chat piece posted
In a chit-chat piece posted yesterday (12.13) by "the Carpetbagger" -- the New York Times "Red Carpet" Oscar-blogger -- about his recent conversation with The Constant Gardner's Rachel Wiesz, he casually says the following: "It seems that as some of the end-of-the-year favorites stumble -- no names need be mentioned although Munich comes to mind -- that some movies like yours that came out earlier start to pick up steam."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:29 AM on Wednesday, December 14, 2005
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Here's an excellent "power geezers"
Here's an excellent "power geezers" piece on Woody Allen by the New York Observer's Suzy Hansen. DreamWorks is seriously pulling out the stops to push Match Point into Best Picture contention. The more this first-rate moralistic drama gets seen and talked up, the higher it moves up on everyone's list. (Most Best Picture nominees say something about life that everyone knows to be bottom-line true, and Match Point obviously delivers in this respect.) The key to getting nominated will be whether DreamWorks' marketing honcho Terry Press and Allen's publicist Leslee Dart can convince Allen to attend the Golden Globes show on...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:09 AM on Wednesday, December 14, 2005
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Rogue tidal wave broadsides cruise
Rogue tidal wave broadsides cruise ship, flips it over, many drown...and a small group of passengers led by gambler Josh Lucas (thank God he's not an activist priest) try to somehow maneuver their way out of the ship. Very cool. It's just called Poseidon (Warner Bros., 5.12.06) because adding "adventure" would make it sound like a Magic Mountain ride (and the similarities between theme parks and dumb-ass mass-market movies are pronounced enough as it is). One viewing tells you (a) it's going to play more realistically than the original, and (b) it's going to be one of those rooting-for-more-people-to-die...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:45 AM on Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
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I'm throwing together my Ten
I'm throwing together my Ten Best Films of the Year list for a piece that will go up tomorrow sometime, but I was thinking it also might be fun to run a "Red State Ten Best" list also...just for fun. You know, the year's finest from the perspective of people who don't want to know from gay cowboys...a ten-best list for people who just want to laugh and be scared and not get all bogged down in issues they don't want to deal with. A list that might start with King Kong, say, and would avoid blue-state dramadies like The Family Stone and...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:37 PM on Tuesday, December 13, 2005
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The San Francisco Film Critics
The San Francisco Film Critics agree with my feelings about Kevin Costner and his loose-shoes performance in The Upside of Anger (voiced in the current lead story) by giving him their Best Supporting Actor award. (Yes!) They also went for Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture, Heath Ledger for Best Actor, Walk the Line's Reese Witherspoon for Best Actress, and Junebug's Amy Adams for best Supporting Actress. They also gave their Best Dcoumentary award to Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man, which, as mentioned earlier, the Academy's Documentary committee diodn't even include on its preliminary list of twelve. Grizzly Man will have its DVD debut...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:23 PM on Tuesday, December 13, 2005
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Universal's "let Munich speak for
Universal's "let Munich speak for itself" campaign...which of course was Steven Spielberg's concept to begin with (and thereafter conveyed by his spokesperson Marvin Levy to Universal publicists and Uni's Oscar consultant Tony Angellotti) was obviously a mistake. Munich doesn't open until 12.23 and won't have its Academy showing until this weekend, but the flatline reactions from critics groups and the failure to score a Best Picture (Drama) Golden Globe nomination means it's all but dead as a Best Picture Oscar contender. And yet Munich could have fared better if Spielberg had agreed to make the rounds and spar in the ring. Oscar prognosticator...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:30 PM on Tuesday, December 13, 2005
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A word of understanding and
A word of understanding and compassion for Oscar handicappers who stick their necks out. Just because you make a wrong call about this or that film being a "presumptive Best Picture Oscar winner" doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. Oscar prognosticating is a very fickle and tricky game. On a nearly daily basis you have to (a) try and take the pulse of the town, (b) consider aesthetic criteria that has taken decades to accumulate and sink in, and (c) listen to your gut. And sometimes your gut ends up calling the tune, and sometimes your gut is wrong. But if you don't...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:58 AM on Tuesday, December 13, 2005
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Reese Witherspoon will win the
Reese Witherspoon will win the Golden Globe (Musical Comedy) award for her Walk the Line performance, and that's cool. But the also-nominated Sara Jessica Parker delivers a more skilled and much-more-difficult-to-pull-off performance in The Family Stone, and the HFPA members should really think this over before voting. Witherspoon's June Carter is all about spirit and buoyancy...the sincerity and level-headedness of a good country girl. But Parker's performance is a trapeze act, and the more I think about it the more exceptional it seems.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:38 AM on Tuesday, December 13, 2005
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Hey, what happened to Diane
Hey, what happened to Diane Keaton's expected Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress in The Family Stone? The HFPA put in the under-utilized Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain and the great Frances McDormand because she got Lou Gehrig's disease in North Country, but they blew off Keaton? C'mon! Hearty congrats to The Constant Gardeneer's Rachel Weisz for her nomination in this category. (She deserves to win.) Ditto Match Point's Scarlett Johansson (absolutely deserved) and Shirley MacLaine for her perfect performance in In Her Shoes.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:58 AM on Tuesday, December 13, 2005
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How did Pride and Prejudice
How did Pride and Prejudice manage a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture (Musical/Comedy)? It's spirited and infectious and "romantic," okay, but I don't see how anyone could try to call it a dramedy even. The Broadcast Film Critics Association wants to be the new Golden Globes and elbow the GG's aside....fine. But to get there the BFCA nominations have can't just be numerous -- they also have to veer into the ridiculous and be joked about around town. And right now, the Globes are way in front.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:35 AM on Tuesday, December 13, 2005
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We all expected that Brokeback
We all expected that Brokeback Mountain, The Constant Gardener and Good Night, and Good Luck would be among the five Golden Globes Best Picture (Drama) nominees. And I guess A History of Violence's inclusion isn't all that surprising. But I'm especially gratified (and welcomely surprised) that Woody Allen's Match Point is one of the five. This should boost the box-office when it opens on 12.28 and add to the Oscar nomination momentum.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:27 AM on Tuesday, December 13, 2005
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Those two Golden Globe Munich
Those two Golden Globe Munich nominations -- Steven Spielberg for Best Director and Tony Kushner (and Eric Roth?) for Best Screenplay -- are ceremonial/political gestures meant to compensate for the lack of a Best Picture (Drama) nomination. I think this is really the end of the road for Munich. No critics awards, no Golden Globe noms to speak of...where can it go from here? There is no joy in Mudville this morning. The "presumptive Best Picture winner" made by the Mighty Steven has struck out.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:39 AM on Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
210 comments
The late Timothy...Read More
Words for Kevin
Thick as Thieves
Once again reactions to Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man have people shaking their heads and asking "what the hell?" And once again there's reason to ask why the members of the Motion Picture Academy's Documentary Executive Committee continue to hold to a tendency to make total boob-level decisions.
Knowledgable people everywhere were appalled when Herzog's brilliant examina- tion of the life of Timothy Treadwell, a self-promoting grizzly bear obsessive who wound up getting eaten by one, didn't make the committee's short list of doc fin- alists, which was announced on 11.15.05.
The late Timothy...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:09 PM on Monday, December 12, 2005
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I spoke to New York
I spoke to New York Film Critics Circle president Gene Seymour a little while ago about this morning's "shockingly convivial" balloting, and particularly the Brokeback Mounain trifecta -- Best Picture, Best Director (Ang Lee) and Best Actor (Heath Ledger). Here it is...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:56 AM on Monday, December 12, 2005
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Brokeback Mountain has been named
Brokeback Mountain has been named the Best Picture of 2005 by the New York Film Critics Circle, following the same decision announced by the Los Angeles and Boston film critics, and Ang Lee has been named Best Director. And Heath Ledger has put a stop to Phillip Seymour Hoffman's unbroken winning streak by being named Best Actor for his inhabiting of Brokeback's Ennis del Mar. And isn't it great that Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man won yet again for Best Feature Documentary, on top of getting the same award from the L.A. and New York Online Film Critics? (The honorable Oscar Documentary committee didn't...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:03 AM on Monday, December 12, 2005
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New York Times reporter Sharon
New York Times reporter Sharon Waxman has delivered a well- reported timeline piece about how the Paramount acquisition of DreamWorks came together earlier this month, and in the process snatching the opportunity from Universal. A $1.6 billion invest- ment in the future -- a purchase of the DreamWorks name, of the company's film library and the prestige factor of having Steven Spielberg working on the Paramount lot and....what else exactly? Spielberg and his two DreamWorks partners David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg will each pocket around $172 million...great. But can someone explain to me how the DreamWorks purchase is going to...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:19 AM on Monday, December 12, 2005
Sunday, December 11, 2005
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New York Times reporter David
New York Times reporter David Halbfinger has run a story about being invited down to the flat marshy area south of Marina del Rey to see the not-quite-right, slightly fake-looking object d'art recontruction of the collapsed World Trade Center towers for Stone's (and Stacy Sher and Michael Shamberg's) World Trade Center, about the two buried Port Authority workers who were the last (or among the last) to be rescued from the Ground Zero rubble. Could the producers have come up with a lumpier, more on-the-nose title? An idea, a plea...call it Underground already. A little understatement tends to go a long...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:18 PM on Sunday, December 11, 2005
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Wait a minute...someone else (Newsweek's
Wait a minute...someone else (Newsweek's David Ansen) has seen Down to the Bone, that hide-and-seek movie that opened with zero fanfare in New York and Los Angeles about three weeks ago, and has come away impressed by Vera Farmiga's lead performance. Ansen says Farmiga is "a revelation as a working-class junkie struggling to get clean." Yesterday (Saturday, 12.10) the Los Angeles Film Critics proclaimed Farmiga Best Actress of the Year for the same performance. This is fascinating. I was invited to three screenings by Lisa Danna of the GS Entertainment Marketing Group in early November, but I was too busy being...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:44 PM on Sunday, December 11, 2005
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Seconding Saturday's L.A. Film Critics
Seconding Saturday's L.A. Film Critics decision, the Boston Film Critics have proclaimed Brokeback Mountain as the Best Picture of 2005 and Ang Lee as Best Director. For the third time, Capote's Phillip Seymour Hoffman was named Best Actor by a critics group and, for the first time, Walk the Line's Reese Witherspoon won for Best Actress. And Cinderella Man's Paul Giamatti was named Best Supporting Actor, also for the first time. The Beantowners also seconded LAFCA's handing their Best Supporting Actress award to Capote's Catherine Keener and their Best Screenplay award to Capote's Dan Futterman. And the Best Documentary award went to ThinkFilm's...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:00 PM on Sunday, December 11, 2005
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The nominations put out today
The nominations put out today by the Broadcast Film Critics Association are too easy and all-embracing. Ten nominations for Best Picture? Six nominations in each major acting category? And six Best Director noms? Why not seven in each category? Why not eight? Wait...why not nine or ten? Spread the love around! Kiss everyone's ass! Get as many people to come to the BFCA awards as possible....wheeeeeeee!
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:58 PM on Sunday, December 11, 2005
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By naming Keira Knightley as
By naming Keira Knightley as 2005's Best Actress for her perf- ormance in Pride and Prejudice, The New York Online Film Critics have splooged all over their reputation as a serious quality- judging entity. The fact that Knightley is a lightweight attitude actress, a flirt, a woman who conveys no sense of even a stream (much less a river) running through her is incontestable and not open for discussion. The members of the NYOFC need to take a couple of days off, take a bus to the Pennsyvania countryside, check into a reasonably priced motel and get together and ask themselves how this...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:43 PM on Sunday, December 11, 2005
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Good move by the Los
Good move by the Los Angeles Film critics Association in giving the great Terrence Howard its "New Generation" award because '05 was such a great breakout year for the guy (Hustle & Flow, Crash, Get Rich or Die Tryin'). Then again, the fact that Howard has been kicking around for quite a while makes the notion of him being a "New Generation" anything sound like a stretch. And LAFCA's decision overlooks the very noteworthy fact that 2005 was Rachel McAdams' breakout year as much as anyone else's. She stepped right up last summer and became the new Julia Roberts...signed, sealed, done deal. No,...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:07 AM on Sunday, December 11, 2005
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The Envelope's Elizabeth Snead has
The Envelope's Elizabeth Snead has done some followup reporting about Radar Magazine Online's item about Rachel McAdams (Wedding Crashers, The Family Stone) canning her personal publicist Amy Van Iden because Van Iden hadn't told McAdams she would be asked to pose buck naked (alongside Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley) for the cover of Vanity Fair's upcoming Hollywood issue. Radar reported that McAdams walked out of the November photo session, but Snead heard differently. "McAdams did tee-totally freak when she got there and found out that VF's 'guest editor' Tom Ford's big artistic concept was to have the gals pose...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:37 AM on Sunday, December 11, 2005
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Estimates for the The Chronicles
Estimates for the The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe weekend haul have been modified due to a smaller bump in Saturday's business than had been expected. The projection is now for a three-day $67 or $68 million haul, give or take, rather than $75 million.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:22 AM on Sunday, December 11, 2005
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The Los Angeles Film Critics
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has done the correct and expected thing by naming Brokeback Mountain as the year's Best Picture, and also by awarding Brokeback's behind-the-scenes alchmeist Ang Lee as the year's Best Director. But stoic Heath Ledger ("If you can't fix, it, ya gotta stand it') was nudged out by Capote's Phillip Seymour Hoffman for Best Actor. (These two are going to be nipping at each other's heels between now and March 5th.) I'll get into the Perplexing Mystery of Vera Farmiga in the next item. Hooray for William Hurt, the totally nutso-bonkers crimelord in A History of Violence's, winning...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:53 AM on Sunday, December 11, 2005
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It's 12:30 am and I
It's 12:30 am and I just got back from two screenings, another Woody Allen q & a and some pizza and beer on the Strip, and I'm faced with a very strange turn of the screw. Vera Farmiga has been honored by the L.A. Film Critics as the year's Best Actress. I go to almost everything that comes out and write about movies for a living, and I had trouble trying to remember who the hell Farmiga is when I first heard the news, and I never even bothered to see Down to the Bone, in which she gave her award-winning performance. No...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:36 AM on Sunday, December 11, 2005
Saturday, December 10, 2005
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What the...? Production Weekly is
What the...? Production Weekly is reporting that Benjamin Bratt and not Benicio del Toro is going to play Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Steven Soderbergh's long-delayed biopic about the legendary '60s revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Geuvara. The report says that Soderbergh's film is now called Guerilla, and that it will start shooting in New York City in January 2006, and will then shoot in and around Vera Cruz. Bratt is totally cool, but what happened to Benny? He was dug into playing Guevara for a lonnng time. (I ran into del Toro at Soho's Mercer Hotel late last October, but I was too...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:10 PM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
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The L.A. Film Critics Association
The L.A. Film Critics Association is expected to chew things over for hours before deciding on a final tally of winners, so there may not be an announcement before 5 pm today...by which time I'll be watching a film on the Fox lot. Of course, if LAFCA was as cool as the New York Film Critics Circle, they would report the winners on their website as they go from one category to the next.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:52 PM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
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Brokeback Mountain true and steady,
Brokeback Mountain true and steady, Match Point rising and Munich falling. Walk the Line is everyone's solid fallback, The New World is the esoteric Malicky forest-primeval fringe flick, and The Constant Gardener and Good Night, and Good Luck are darting in and out.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:39 PM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
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The great Richard Pryor, 65,
The great Richard Pryor, 65, has died at his home of cardiac arrest, his wife is telling reporters. The poor guy...multiple scherosis all those years and he only made one truly great film: Richard Pryor: Live in Concert, the 1979 doc about Pryor's act (performed at the Long Beach auditorium, prior to his burning accident). Pryor's performances in Silver Streak, Blue Collar and Stir Crazy were engaging, amusing, etc., but the '79 concert film, directed by Jeff Margolis, was untempered genius.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:36 PM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
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Sad news about Pryor, but
Sad news about Pryor, but former U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy has left also, at the age of 89.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:32 PM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
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Press enthusiasms have never been
Press enthusiasms have never been synonymous with Academy favors, but damned if Brokeback Mountain's Heath Ledger doesn't seem to be edging ahead of Capote's Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the Best Actor race at this juncture. Ledger is great in Ang Lee's film but I'll be a Hoffman/Capote man to my dying day...it's just how I see it. But the Brokeback reviews are fresh in everyone's mind and the Ledger thing is blowing in the wind. I can feel it...I can feel it.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:59 PM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
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David Carr's recently launched "The
David Carr's recently launched "The Carpetbagger" Oscar column in the New York Times has, for me, the right unpretentious attitude. He seems to be saying, "Maybe I know something about this racket, but maybe I don't...who knows?" Carr's items are fast and astute (i.e., he's hearing the same stuff I am, and reporting it concisely and with a little perspective). And I loved his dopey little video walk-through asking Times Square passers-by if King Kong has a shot at being nominated for Best Picture. Surrrre!
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:40 PM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
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The Hollywood Reporter's Anne Thompson
The Hollywood Reporter's Anne Thompson paints an intriguing portrait of the tangled situation at Sony at the end of a year that reeked of under-performing films (Zathura, The Legend of Zorro, Stealth) on top of the sad failure of Rent, a movie that works beautifully but not enough people wanted to see. Sony is now bracing itself for the arrival of two December releases with difficulties -- Rob Marshall's Memoirs of a Geisha, which is all but dead in the Oscar competition, and Dean Parisot's Fun with Dick and Jane, which I'm hearing "doesn't work." (I don't think this is a...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:27 AM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
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Munich is imploding for now,
Munich is imploding for now, but maybe once it bottoms out it will arrive at some kind of bruised underdog status...did I just say that?
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:20 AM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
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Viacom's $1.6 billion purchase of
Viacom's $1.6 billion purchase of DreamWorks SKG yesterday (Friday, 12.9) is so important a story and of such vital interest to the guy on the street ...it's so important that I'm jumping right on it, 16 or 17 hours after the story broke yesterday evening. The shifting of funds from one super powerful group of rich Hollywood elitists to another group of rich super powerful Hollywood elitists ...if this isn't earth-shaking news, what would be?
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:07 AM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
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Another pellet dings the Munich
Another pellet dings the Munich hide in the form of David Halb- finger's New York Times piece about the potential for Jewish/ Israeli blowback over concerns than Steven Spielberg's film portrays the Palestinian plotters behind the 1972 Munich slaughter of Israeli athletes in too much of an equal light along- side those of Israeli Mossad agents who sought their deaths in retaliation. Halbfinger quotes Ehud Danoch, the Israeli consul general in Los Angeles, as complaining that Munich "[makes] it seem as if Israel's response alone had caused an escalation in terrorism," which Danoch feels is "pure fiction." He argues, in Halbfinger's...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:52 AM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
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Any guesses about today's Los
Any guesses about today's Los Angeles Film Critics voting? Woody Allen's Match Point is on the rise bigtime, but it's gotta be Broke- back Mountain for Best Picture...right? And Heath Ledger for Best Actor? And maybe The Upside of Anger's Joan Allen for Best Actress? I would put money on these two if I were the betting type. I'm going to try and report the results by 3 pm or thereabouts...if the voting doesn't go into extra innings.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:31 AM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
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It's a Chronicles of Narnia
It's a Chronicles of Narnia weekend, all right. Families, church groups and the religious right poured coin into the Disney coffers to the tune of $22.7 million yesterday, and projections are that The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe will take in $75 to $80 million for the weekend...maybe a tad higher. Brokeback Mountain, platforming in just five theatres, did $133,000 per situation for a total of $691 thousand... upscale moviegoers and urban gays coming out in droves. Memoirs of a Geisha earned $99 thousand and change in eight theatres yesterday and is projected to take in $793,000 for...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:35 AM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
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Okay, I've got the wrong
Okay, I've got the wrong attitude. I've got to tone it down. The Munich pan by Variety's Todd McCarthy isn't part of a burgeoning Spartacus-like revolt against the high-and-mighty Time-fortified Universal/Spielberg cabal...it's just a review by one guy and we shouldn't be talking about the threatening snowball getting big- ger and bigger...none of that neg-head people's revolt stuff. Be fair.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:20 AM on Saturday, December 10, 2005
Friday, December 9, 2005
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Woody Allen and his Match
Woody Allen and his Match Point cast -- Scarlettt Johansson, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Emily Mortimer, Brian Cox, Mattthew Goode -- did a post-screening q & a last night at the Arclight with Variety Screening Series moderator Pete Hammond. Most of the questions went to Woody, and here are some of his answers. Once a standup comic, always a standup comic -- Allen really knows how to tell a story and give the crowd just what they want.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:54 PM on Friday, December 9, 2005
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The Munich pile-on is turning
The Munich pile-on is turning into a shocker. I'm quite surprised by what's happening here. A rebellion of the critical elite...a refusal to fall into line...a resounding f.u. to Steven Spielberg and his media pal, Time's Richard Schickel, who sang the film's praises last weekend. The New Republic's Leon Wieselteir (i.e., "The Washington Diarist") says that "the fakery is everywhere" in this Oscar-bait drama. He calls it "powerful in the hollow way that many of Spielberg's films are powerful. He is a master of vacant intensities, of slick searings. Whatever the theme, he must ravish the viewer. Munich is aesthetically no...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:58 PM on Friday, December 9, 2005
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Fox Home Video...bad. First they
Fox Home Video...bad. First they dropped the ball with that barely passable DVD of Alfred Hitchcok's Lifeboat (it came out dirty, speckled and scratchy in the early portions), and then on 11.15.05 they issued an absolute dogshit-quality transfer of the magnificent Todd AO, 70 mm 30-frame-per-second version of Fred Zinneman's Oklahoma! (1955), by transferring it at the wrong frame rate. (Or so I gather. I called Fox's Shawn Belston to get the lowdown but I haven't heard back.) Oklahoma! isn't a near-great or even a pretty good movie, but the blue-chip Todd AO version of it (shot in 30 frame...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:08 PM on Friday, December 9, 2005
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Sharon Waxman's reporting that Chris
Sharon Waxman's reporting that Chris Rock won't be returning as the host of the next Oscar Awards show. I think most of us knew that halfway into his shpiel during last February's telecast. And Gil Cates doesn't know who he's going to hire. "I'm trying to get a handle on what it is this year, and it's a tough year to get a handle on," Cates told Waxman. "The movies are broad -- there are big movies, small movies. I have to get my hands around what this year is like." Zzzzzz. Just hire Steve Martin already. Or Jimmy Kimmel.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:25 PM on Friday, December 9, 2005
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More slings and arrows and
More slings and arrows and sprays of buckshot are going to collide with the hide of Steven Spielberg's Munich between now and opening day on 12.23. I'm getting the feeling that some critics may have been riled by the word "masterpiece" on that Time cover. They saw it and then saw the movie and went "what the...?" Who knows how it's all going to shake down in the end, but it probably wasn't the wisest decision from Universal's perspective (not that Time's editors are obliged or interested in serving anyone's interests but their own) for that word to be printed on the cover...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:47 AM on Friday, December 9, 2005
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Brokeback Mountain's opening-day reviews are
Brokeback Mountain's opening-day reviews are overwhelmingly positive at 82%, but when a movie this sad, classy and penetra- ting comes along, it's not the percentages that count but the passions it seems to ignite. The movies you want to pay attention to and single out for awards are the ones that hit a nerve, and any film that has more than a few top-dog critics describing it as "groundbreaking", "landmark", "heartbreaking", "masterpiece" and "zeitgeist-capturing moment for Hollywood" is obviously up to something extraordinary. You have to hand it to a film that has...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:44 AM on Friday, December 9, 2005
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Here we were beating a
Here we were beating a dead horse, but in the case of Memoirs of a Geisha (Columbia, opening today) it seems fair to note in the wake of the overwhelmingly negative reviews that the chances of this production-designed-and-costumed-to-death period chick flick rating as a Best Picture contender are close to virtually nil. Salon 's Stephanie Zacaharek, expressing the general consensus, says that Geisha has "no life, no juice. Instead of tempting you into submission, it merely drugs you." Academy members can put it up for this or that tech award, but with Geisha getting slammed by the vast majority...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:41 AM on Friday, December 9, 2005
Thursday, December 8, 2005
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How much of a strong
How much of a strong Christian element will there be in Oliver Stone's 9/11 movie that Paramount is releasing next August, and how much of a Chrisitan angle will be part of the marketing of this film? Andrea Berloff's script is about the true story of two Port Authority cops, John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and William J. Jimeno (Michael Pena), who were buried under the rubble of the fallen World Trade Center towers on 9.11. It's been reported that the ex-Marine who drove down to the WTC site from Connecticut and wound up digging the cops out and saving their lives (In The...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:58 PM on Thursday, December 8, 2005
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There's a new Paul Thomas
There's a new Paul Thomas Anderson script called, I think, Let There Be Blood ....wait a minute...is it There Will Be Blood? I can't remember but neither will be used because women will be turned off and refuse to go if they stick with either one, and you just know every distributor out there (except, maybe, the all-seeing, all-knowing Bob Berney) will say "forget it" if Anderson insists on staying with either, so we'll see. I'm mentioning this, in any event, because I'm wondering if anyone has read it or read coverage, even, and can give me a rundown.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:39 PM on Thursday, December 8, 2005
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Slate's Matt Feeney suggests that
Slate's Matt Feeney suggests that one reason for the huge popular- ity of Matthew Vaughn's Layer Cake on DVD (it's earned about $20 million, or nine times the U.S. theatrical gross) is that it's easier to understand the dialogue on a disc. The film's Cockney accents were indecipherable to most American viewers in theatres, but Cake's popularity on DVD suggests, says Feeney, that "viewers are willing to abide this type of difficulty when the 'pause' and 'rewind' buttons are only a thumb's-length away." Maybe, but why would pause and rewind when you can just turn on the English...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:25 PM on Thursday, December 8, 2005
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I'm mentioning this about four
I'm mentioning this about four days later than I should have, but there's a q & a transcript of a chat between Time film critic Rich- ard Schickel and Munich director Steven Spielberg on page 70 of the current issue. And the intro says that Spielberg has collab- orated with Schickel on a TV documentary called "Shooting War." Schickel, as noted earlier, reviews Munich in the same issue (Munich is on the cover) and extremely favorably. Shouldn't Schickel should recused himself from reviewing Munich on the grounds of his having worked with Spielberg on the doc? A guy who...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:22 PM on Thursday, December 8, 2005
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One of the Black September hostage-takers during the actual 1972 Munich Olympic Games standoff
Munich Shortfall
Munich Shortfall
I'm not trying to be a hard-ass for the sake of being a hard-ass, but I can't get on the Oscar boat for Steven Spielberg's Munich (Universal, 12.23).
It's a pretty good movie, but the Best Picture hoo-hah seems a tiny bit forced given what this film truly is in the light of day. If you ask me those prognosticators who've already said "this is it!" are conning themselves.
One of the Black September hostage-takers during the actual 1972 Munich Olympic Games standoff
Directed by Spielberg and written (for the most part) by Tony Kushner...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:26 PM on Thursday, December 8, 2005
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This is a few days
This is a few days late also, but at a fund-raiser last Sunday for the American Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, and which honored Cinderella Man director Ron Howard, Michael Keaton made a cheap crack. (The event, as reported by Roger Friedman, was atttended by Howard, his producing partner Brian Grazer, Jim Carrey, Edie Falco, Renee Zellweger, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, et. al.) "The bad news is that Russell Crowe isn't here,’Äù Keaton quipped. "The good news is that we don't have to listen to his [expletive deleted] band. They suck. They’Äôre horrible. John McCain came up with the...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:26 AM on Thursday, December 8, 2005
Wednesday, December 7, 2005
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Steven Spielberg conferring with Eric Bana (shades) during last summer's shooting of Munich
Munich Jitters
Munich Jitters
It's Wednesday afternoon and everyone's calling around and asking about Munich ...how good, how invincible or vulnerable, and is anyone having shit-fits and if so, who?...whaddaya hear, whaddaya think?
There's already a half-formed perception that Steven Spielberg's film isn't Million Dollar Baby, but some journos are taking their shirts off and waving them over their heads anyway and calling it the new front-runner.
Steven Spielberg conferring with Eric Bana (shades) during last summer's shooting of Munich
Maybe it is that. I'll be seeing Munich in about two hours (Wednesday at 7 pm) so I'll...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:25 PM on Wednesday, December 7, 2005
Tuesday, December 6, 2005
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"Munich is not quite, at
"Munich is not quite, at least on first blush, the unstoppable Oscar powerhouse that I first thought it might be," admits David Poland in his current "Hot Button" column about his viewing of Steven Spielberg's film last night (i.e., Monday). "But it is still the likely winner of this year's Best Picture Oscar, in my opinion." [I presume readers are aware that whenever a writer says "in my opinion," it means he/she is feeling less than 100% resolved.] "It is serious...it is excellent," Poland continues. "And it is about something important beyond its own storytelling parameters. Brokeback Mountain will have its...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:18 AM on Tuesday, December 6, 2005
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Correction: The trades will be
Correction: The trades will be out Friday, 12.16 with their reviews of Terrence Malick's The New World (New Line, 12.25 limited). Most critics will love it, Academy members will run hot, lukewarm and cold, and the paying public....well, who knows? Film sophisticates will turn out, of course...ditto anyone bored with the commercial mainstream output these days...anyone with an appreciation for an unusually told love story...it's a sumptuous art film and a class act all the way.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:00 AM on Tuesday, December 6, 2005
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It was supposed to be
It was supposed to be okay as of yesterday (12.5) to start riffing about The Producers (Universal, 12.16), so where are the trade reviews? Let me be among the first to say that this big swanky movie musical may be square (i.e., in a Mel Brooks time-capsule way, which means square with a certain historical authority) but very entertaining in a brassy and unapologetic Tin Pan Alley fashion. The Broadway musical worked beautifully and this is a stodgy but fervent capturing of that Broadway show ...and there's really nothing to beef about. It plays fine even if you never saw the...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:26 AM on Tuesday, December 6, 2005
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"I don't think any movie
"I don't think any movie or any book or any work of art can solve the stalemate in the Middle East today," Steven Spielberg has said in reply to a question about Munich, which deals with Israel's revenge campaign over the 1972 Olympic massacre murders. "But it's worth a try. Somewhere inside all this intransigence there has to be a prayer for peace. The biggest enemy is not the Palestinians or the Israelis. The biggest enemy in the region is intransigence." A wise and perceptive thought...and yet something in me recoils when moral and ethical ruminations become part of a movie's marketing campaign,...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:28 AM on Tuesday, December 6, 2005
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Here we are at the
Here we are at the end of the year with a couple of weeks left to sift things through before everyone leaves for the Xmas holiday, and I'm only just starting to hear about screenings of two big-studio comedies -- Dean Parisot's Fun With Dick and Jane (Columbia, 12.21) and Rob Reiner's Rumor Has it (Warner Bros., 12.25). We all know that a typical Meathead movie (i.e., one directed by Rob Reiner) will be conservative and tonally smoothed-out as well as diametrically opposed to any kind of loosey-goosey 1980s Pedro Almodovar sensibility, so that kind of diminishes...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:20 AM on Tuesday, December 6, 2005
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The first no-holds-barred critics'screening of
The first no-holds-barred critics'screening of Steven Spielberg's Munich (Universal, 12.23) (i.e., one unsullied by notions of giving Munich and Spielberg a Time cover story) happened last night at 7 pm at the Lindwood Dunn Theater on Vine Street...and I'm sure reactions will begin to seep out sometime today and answers to the Big Question -- is Munich this year's Million Dollar Baby? -- will start to take shape. I won't see Munich myself until Wednesday evening.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:08 AM on Tuesday, December 6, 2005
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It's a melancholy moment for
It's a melancholy moment for all of us, but the Best Picture Oscar campaign for Memoirs of a Geisha seems to be dead in the water, along with any hopes of its director, Rob Marshall, being thought of in a half-serious way as Best Director. What tells me this? Five things. One, strong insect-antennae readings that people are agreeing more and more with my personal conviction that costumes and production design do not a Best Picture make. Two, a 70ish director regarded by yours truly as a harbinger of Academy sentiment is letting it be known he's no Geisha admirer. Three, a producer...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:49 AM on Tuesday, December 6, 2005
Monday, December 5, 2005
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New Yorker critic Anthony Lane's review of Brokeback Mountain is one of the most insightful I've read so far, and one of the best for Heath Ledger's chances for being nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. ""In the end, this is Ledger's picture...[it is he] who bears the yoke of the movie's sadness," Lane concludes. "His voice is a mumble and a rumble, not because he is dumb but because he hopes that, by swallowing his words, he can swallow his feelings, too. In his mixing of the rugged and the maladroit, he makes you realize that Brokeback Mountain is no... Read More
New Yorker critic Anthony Lane's
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:51 AM on Monday, December 5, 2005
Sunday, December 4, 2005
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Sloppy Seconds
Rumble in the Jungle
I saw King Kong for the second time Monday morning (12.5), and I feel the same way I did after my first viewing Sunday night. About 110 minutes of this three-hour film (i.e., the last two-thirds) are rock 'n' roll and worth double the ticket price. And the finale is genuinely touching.
After Sunday night's screening at the Academy theatre I called the better parts of this monkey movie "damned exciting in an emotional, giddily absurd, logic-free adrenalized way."
And then I offered a limited apology to its creator, Peter Jackson....Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:19 PM on Sunday, December 4, 2005
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A friend from London named
A friend from London named Grant Kempster just wrote and said, "Just got back from seeing King Kong this morning, and in a word...'Wow!' Looks like Spielberg could do with learning a thing or two from Jackson when it comes to making blockbuster event films. I'd love to know what you think, but I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. It's not flawless, but a damn entertaining movie that works magnificently considering it's a 'pet project.'"
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:07 PM on Sunday, December 4, 2005
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Richard Schickel's Time magazine cover
Richard Schickel's Time magazine cover story about Steven Spielberg's Munich is now online, but you can't read it unless you're a Time subscriber. It's called "Spielberg's Secret Masterpiece" on the cover (along with Spielberg's bearded puss), but the page title is "Spielberg Takes on Terror." It begins with this graph: "The first and most important thing to say about Munich, Steven Spielberg's new film, is that it is a very good movie -- good in a particularly Spielbergian way. By which one means that it has all the virtues we've come to expect when he is working at his highest levels....Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:55 AM on Sunday, December 4, 2005
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There's a new Best Supporting
There's a new Best Supporting Actress contender in town...10 year-old Georgie Henley, the soul and natural light-beam of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Disney, 12.9). She came out of nowhere (i.e., chosen out of a general cast- ing call in England), but she's Drew Barrymore in E.T. without the cloying I-know-I'm-cute-and-you're-going- to-adore-me attitude. Henley's serene little-girl aura...her beauty, obvious intelligence, cultured British accent, etc...plus the generosity of feeling from within make for a potent combination.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:30 AM on Sunday, December 4, 2005
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King Kong -- the brute
King Kong -- the brute with a case on a certain blonde, a big guy with an even bigger heart, an ape who isn't afraid to really express his feelings (unlike most males) -- will have its AMPAS debut this evening at 7 pm at the Academy theatre. The word from last week's New York junket screening is that Peter Jackson's film is not only thrilling but quite the emotional ride. I know it's going to be a hell of a visual show, but wait...wait...a distribution guy from Europe has seen it and he's not on Baz Bamigboye's train. "It's too...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:13 AM on Sunday, December 4, 2005
Friday, December 2, 2005
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Rachel Weisz, star of Fernando Meirelles' The Constant Gardener, at the Peninsula Hotel -- Thursday, 12.1.05, 1:25 pm.
Gotta Have It
Gotta Have It
I've thought and thought about it, and there's no way Rachel Weisz's performance in The Constant Gardener isn't at the very top of the Best Supporting Actress con- tender list.
Why? Because her portrayal of Tessa Quayle, the soul of this highly charged poli- tical thriller, burns the brightest from within.
Rachel Weisz, star of Fernando Meirelles' The Constant Gardener, at the Peninsula Hotel -- Thursday, 12.1.05, 1:25 pm.
When we first meet her, Tessa is a deeply impassioned London leftie with her heart sewn into her shirt-sleeve. Too plainly. When she...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:50 PM on Friday, December 2, 2005
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Here is one of the
Here is one of the funniest and most outrageously brilliant TV ads I've seen in a very long time. It's Spike Jonze's "Pardon Our Dust" piece for The Gap, and it's supposed to be about the coming of a new design for all the Gap stores, but it's obviously about some- thing much more than that. With the music of Edvard Grieg's "Peer Gynt Suite" playing on the soundtrack, it's about rebellion, revolution... rage against corporate cultural domination. I'm frankly surprised that the Gap people approved it because the piece is clearly a Fight Club thing that says "rise up against...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:44 PM on Friday, December 2, 2005
Thursday, December 1, 2005
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USA Today's Scott Bowles talks
USA Today's Scott Bowles talks to David Poland, Sasha Stone, Tom O'Neill, myself and Rob Alarcon (of Cinema Confidential) about the leaders in the Best Picture Oscar race. Alarcon has the money quote about King Kong, which he saw Wednesday night: "I came [to the screening] thinking, 'No way in hell.' But I was really impressed with the quality across the board. It had everything you would be looking for." Wow...sounds terrific, Rob!
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:54 PM on Thursday, December 1, 2005
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Here's the Jewish Journal version
Here's the Jewish Journal version of that Munich piece from Ivor Davis...the other version, which was posted earlier this afternoon, is running at Movies.com. Davis says there was a line in his draft of the Jewish Journal piece saying that some [operatives] in the movie dress up as women -- lipstick, bras, fake boobs, etc. -- in order to carry out a killing. It's apparently in the movie, but was cut from my story for reasons unknown."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:15 PM on Thursday, December 1, 2005
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"I love you, Kong, and
"I love you, Kong, and I don't know to say except that I can't be with you and it's breaking my heart, just as it's breaking yours. The wind chill factor feels like icy serrated steel 89 or 90 stories above Manhattan in the dead of winter with snow on the streets, and little me wearing only a sheer white evening dress. But I'm not thinking about my physical comfort or how soggy and stinky your palm feels against my skin, but how you must be crying in your heart, and how similar our bond is to the one Jessica Lange had...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:37 PM on Thursday, December 1, 2005
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20th Century Fox has decided
20th Century Fox has decided against sneaking The Family Stone the weekend after next (i.e., the one before its 12.16 opening), and that means they've basically decided that as good as it is, they don't believe that the film will sell itself to the ticket-buying public out there and their only chance at spiking the interest levels is to try and land some Golden Globe acting nominations for costars Diane Keaton and Sarah Jessica Parker. If I were the Fox guy in charge of selling this film, I would definitely sneak it...but that's because I really like it and can't imagine anyone not...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:02 PM on Thursday, December 1, 2005
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"Elsewhere Live" (which will broadcast
"Elsewhere Live" (which will broadcast live today at 6 pm Pacific instead of the usual 7 pm) is now on the home page for the iTunes Music Store. It's listed on the top row of the "New and Notable" podcasts.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:59 PM on Thursday, December 1, 2005
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By all means read this
By all means read this fascinating piece by Ivor Davis about the challenges faced by Steven Spielberg in the making of Munich (Universal, 12.23), which a source who worked on the film in Europe calls "Steven's Passion of the Christ." I'm going to dig into the ramifications in a column piece this after- noon when I return from my Rachel Weisz sit-down at the Peninsula, but I can at least say that Davis delves into a concern in the Jewish community that Munich might be a little too humanistic in its portrayal of the Palestinian terrorists who perpetrated the 1972 Munich...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:23 PM on Thursday, December 1, 2005
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Will someone at 20th Century
Will someone at 20th Century Fox please do something to save The Family Stone? Are they planning on at least sneaking it in theatres nationwide on the weekend after next (12.9 to 12.11, which is the weekend before the 12.16 opening)? I've tried not to oversell it but it shouldn't be undervalued either. The Family Stone is one of the cleverest, warmest and most likable films of the holiday season, as well as the best home-for-the-holidays flick ever made. But (and here's what makes it so fresh and alive) it's also one of those delightful in-betweeners -- not exactly a comedy, not precisely...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:17 AM on Thursday, December 1, 2005
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A solid story by New
A solid story by New York Times reporter David Halbfinger about Emilio Estevez's Bobby, the 43 year-old actor-director's upcoming film about Robert Kennedy's last active day of his Presidential campaign in 1968..a day which ended with his shooting in a kitchen passageway inside L.A.'s Ambassador Hotel. And yet Halbfinger has it wrong when he says that Estevez's Rated X, Estevez's film about the San Francisco porn entrepeneurs Jim and Arnie Mitchell, "fared well at the 2000 Sundance festival before being picked up by Showtime." Obviously, if the film had "fared well" the producers would have found some kind of theatrical release...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:36 AM on Thursday, December 1, 2005
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A couple more of those
A couple more of those films I listed in that earlier "tipped for Sundance" item (the source of which was a Film Finders document) have turned up in the Sundance '06 Premieres section. Terry Zwigoff's Art School Confidential and Nicole Holofcener's Friends with Money, to be precise. Holfocener's film having been chosen as the festival opener raises red flags. As everyone knows, opening-night Sundance flicks have a historical record of being either a bit soft or lacking in provocation or too emotionally simplistic or even mainstream mushy.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:13 AM on Thursday, December 1, 2005
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My stay in Brooklyn last
My stay in Brooklyn last summer happened because of an apartment swap deal I arranged with screenwriter Michael Arndt. And now Little Miss Sunshine, the film that Michael wrote that was filmed in and around Los Angeles last summer, has been announced as one of the premieres at January's Sundance Film Festival. A heart-warmer about a family supporting their young daughter in the finals of a Junior Miss type beauty pagent, pic costars Gregg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano and Abigail Breslin. Johnathan Dayton and Valerie Faris directed.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:04 AM on Thursday, December 1, 2005
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Blockbuster has had a rough
Blockbuster has had a rough year and its execs are feeling blue. That's a good thing, right? Aren't they the bad guys?...the Wal- Mart of home video?...corporate thugs?...Orwellian homogenizers and discouragers of too-particular tastes?...the great film culture Satan?
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:45 AM on Thursday, December 1, 2005
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Congrats to Bennett Miller's Capote
Congrats to Bennett Miller's Capote and Henry-Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro's Murderball for being named Wednesday night as the year's Best Feature and Best Documentary at the annual Gotham Awards. Miller also received the org's "Break- through Director" award.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:18 AM on Thursday, December 1, 2005
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I realize this will put
I realize this will put a dark cloud over Kris Tapley's world and I'm not entirely sure how industry-significant this may be in a heavy-duty sense...it is signficant in and of itself, of course, and good for the good guys and all that...but last night the British Independent Film Awards (sort of the London Spirits...right?) gave Fernando Meirelles' The Constant Gardender its Best Film prize, plus a Best Actor and Best Actress award for the film's two stars, Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. Weisz and Meirelles weren't in London to accept as they're here in Los Angeles to push Gardener with...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:01 AM on Thursday, December 1, 2005