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Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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Us magazine critic Thelma Adams
Us magazine critic Thelma Adams about today's snub of a very deserving Supporting Actress: "Robin Wright Penn delivered the year's ten tautest dramatic minutes in the underseen Nine Lives, as a pregnant wife whose chance encounter with a former lover in the aisles of an L.A. grocery store shatters her serene existence -- and his." Damn right.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:05 PM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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The following allegedly came from
The following allegedly came from Walk the Line star and Best Actress contender Reese Witherspoon, on the subject of today's Oscar nomination: "I was completely surprised." No...no. She couldn't have said that.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:48 PM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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The people at 20th Century
The people at 20th Century Fox are said to be totally bummed about Walk the Line not getting a Best Picture nomination, but c'mon...Reese and Joaquin are nominated for their respective acting categories and the film is over $100 million and still climbing. The biopic lost momentum due to its own lack of sway over the last four or five weeks (those Golden Globe awards notwithstanding), but Fox's Oscar consultant Gregg Brilliant was apparently out-schnorred and out-hobknobbed by Munich consultant Tony Angellotti and Fox's ad campaign was also out-spent by Universal's. If Munich had just done what it was supposed to do after...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:53 PM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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Flight 93, the made-for-TV 9/11
Flight 93, the made-for-TV 9/11 drama that had its first Arts & Entertainment (A&E) airing last night, wasn't half bad. Too many babies appeared`in the calls-from-home sequences and too many wives of too many guys on the plane cried and said "I love you"... not in real life, of course, but all that friggin' crying felt drama- tically tedious to me. Director Peter Markle didn't make it sufficiently clear about how and when the Flight 93 passengers learned of the other 9/11 attacks that were happening at the same time (this knowledge was what led to their taking back the plane from...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:55 PM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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I'm going to risk it
I'm going to risk it and admit to something I'm not proud of, but the following passage in the New York Times coverage of the Goleta postal-worker slaughter made me snicker. This is ghastly...people are dead and families are grieving...but there's something about the dry prose style of this passage that produced a slight grin: "The attack is the latest in a string of attacks by disgruntled mail workers that has given rise to the term 'going postal' as an indication of frustration exploding into violence in the workplace." I'm sorry for feeling this way, but somehow this seems like a good...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:48 AM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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How did Munich pull off
How did Munich pull off those surprising Best Picture nominations (Picture, Director, Screenplay) after getting shut out with the guilds and BAFTA and being generally up against the wall? I think it came down to Universal spending a shitload of money on advertising. Oscar prognosticator Pete Hammond believes that "spending was certainly a big factor...you saw pretty much a nonstop TV campaign over the last week or two...that`Drudge Report rumor that Universal wasn't supporting it enough was obviously totally wrong...newspaper ads, trade ads...plus the influence of Oscar consultant Tony Angellotti...the amped-up Munich campaign began a couple of weeks ago was like a wide...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:14 AM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
8 comments
Nommie Nommie
Once Upon a Time
I'm thinking of a film about two men in love with each other, but one of them loving a bit less. They have sexual hunger for women and children are sired, but nothing approaches their feelings for each other. They're pried apart by social-political con- cerns and they never quite mesh, but the man who loves a bit more can never quit his feelings. He doesn't know how, and he hurts badly as a result.
And then one of them is killed by a group of violent men who despise what their victim stands for, and finally the longish...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:53 AM on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
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The sound of the other
The sound of the other Chris Penn shoe...the one everybody suspected was probably in the wings...is starting to be heard: Page Six is reporting that friends "privately suspect that his death [last week] was caused by drugs. One Penn pal said: 'Chris fought a battle with drugs his whole life, and it had gotten bad again.'" Why is it when a guy dies too young and too soon, which is almost always due to un-natural causes...why do friends and family always consider it sensitive and respectul to keep mum about why he apparently passed? The one good lesson for others to reflect...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:43 AM on Monday, January 30, 2006
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Newsweek's round-table chat with the
Newsweek's round-table chat with the five directors everyone is assuming will be Oscar-nominated for Best Director -- George Clooney (Good Night, and Good Luck), Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain), Bennett Miller (Capote), Paul Haggis (Crash) and Steven Spielberg (Munich) -- has some good banter and at least one strong political acknowledgement. "From the end of the first wave of the civil-rights movement, all the way through Watergate, people were constantly talking about what was going on in the country," says Clooney. "Now it seems that's happening again. You can sit in a room and have people talk about politics -- in Los...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:21 AM on Monday, January 30, 2006
Sunday, January 29, 2006
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What exactly will constitute an
What exactly will constitute an upset or big surprise in terms of Tuesday morning's Oscar nominations? I've been trying to figure that one. I'm not sure I give that much of a shit right now, but I guess I'll rustle up some enthusiasm starting tomorrow sometime...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:39 PM on Sunday, January 29, 2006
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Variety critic Todd McCarthy has
Variety critic Todd McCarthy has written a good bitch-and-moan piece about Sundance '06. Called "The Big Chill," it bemoans the mostly underwhelming dramatic competition entries except for Wristcutters: A Love Story (I presume this means McCarthy doesn't harbor loads of affection for the award-winning Quinceanera), visually lackluster camera work in just about every film, punishing traffic snarls and parking problems, "too many useless scenesters clogging up the town," showings starting way too late, etc. I still love looking up at those snowflakes at night and feeling their gentle moisture on my face, but I agree with every word McCarthy says here.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:11 PM on Sunday, January 29, 2006
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Like I mentioned earlier today,
Like I mentioned earlier today, nobody I spoke to during the Sundance Film Festival had anything to say at all about the dual-award-winning Quinceanera, but Roger Ebert saw and wrote about it, at least. He called it "one of the strongest and most touching films in the competition...there is rich human comedy here, and sadness, and a portrait so textured that we get very involved...[it's] a film that is serious, joyful, and filled with heart."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:42 PM on Sunday, January 29, 2006
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The top two Screen Actors
The top two Screen Actors Guild awards -- Best Actor and Best Actress -- were handed out earlier this evening to Philip Seymour Hoffman for his legendary lead performance in Capote and Reese Witherspoon for her soulful country gal turn in Walk the Line. And the Best Supporting Actor trophies went to Cinderella Man's Paul Giamatti and The Constant Gardener's Rachel Weisz. It's a fait accompli they'll all be nominated Tuesday morning, and I guess they're the quartet to beat at the Oscars on March 5th. Crash's "upset" win over Brokeback Mountain for the overall cast award might signify a Brokeback slowdown...maybe....Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:17 PM on Sunday, January 29, 2006
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Santa Barbara Film Festival director
Santa Barbara Film Festival director Roger Durling sat down with KTYD talk-show guy Matt McAllister last Friday to talk about the lineup for the festival (which kicks off Thursday, 2.2), and wound up issuing a "Brokeback challenge"...which McAllister accepted. Using the patient-but-persistent approach, Durling gradually talked the faintly homophobic McAllister into seeing Brokeback Mountain, which the jock has said he wouldn't sit through due to feared squeamishness over the same-sex coupling scenes. Listen to the chat...it's pretty funny. Durling and McAllister will be attending a screening of Brokeback on Monday, 1.30, at 2 pm at Santa Barbara's Fiesta Five. Here's Durling's Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:50 PM on Sunday, January 29, 2006
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The Guardian's Graham Fuller is
The Guardian's Graham Fuller is buying into a fantasy being pushed by Envelope columnist Tom O'Neil that Walk the Line or Crash might take the Best Picture Oscar from Brokeback Mountain. Whatever...fantasies are fun to wallow in sometimes.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:03 PM on Sunday, January 29, 2006
Saturday, January 28, 2006
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With all the Sundance jazz,
With all the Sundance jazz, Nicole Laporte's Variety story about the limbo-tracking (i.e., slow-boat demise) of Joe Roth's Revo- lution Studios went in one ear & out the other. Partly because it felt like ho-hum news. Anyone with a casual interest in the savoring of good movies wrote off Revolution a long time ago. Formed by Roth in 2000, it became quickly known as a toney outfit that got lucky now and then but seemed to mostly churn out synthetic crap. I really liked Rent, The Missing, Punch Drunk Love and Black Hawk Down, and I even grooved on Hollywood Homicide (seriously...it's...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:05 AM on Saturday, January 28, 2006
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I ran into Marshall Fine,
I ran into Marshall Fine, author of a new John Cassavetes bio called "Accidental Genius", at the Picturehouse party at Zoom the other day. I told him I was 90% sure I had received a copy, and planned to write about his book soon...but here's an admiring New York Times review by Phillip Lopate in the meantime.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:51 AM on Saturday, January 28, 2006
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"It is generally understood that
"It is generally understood that Sundance juries, which are composed of independent filmmakers, actors and actresses, producers, journalists and others associated with low-budget moviemaking, are sympathetic to films that have little chance in the marketplace," writes John Clark in a close-of-Sundance piece in today's New York Times. "After all, many of the jury members were once struggling (and in some cases still are). As a result, they will sometimes give the top prize not to the best film in competition but to the best film that needs help the most."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:49 AM on Saturday, January 28, 2006
Friday, January 27, 2006
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Here's the single most disgusting
Here's the single most disgusting story about the '06 Sundance Film Festival, written by freelancer Chris Lee and published by the L.A. Times. Why disgusting? Because it's about a kind of glitzy cancer attached like a boil to the back of a once-great film festival. And because it made me want to throw up. On Lee. Sample graph: "To get to the truth of the underground Sundance economy, an intrepid Times reporter -- a nobody among somebodies -- boldly attempted to discover how much swag one could collect in six hours spread out over two days. The yield: more than two dozen...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:52 PM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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"How did Brokeback Mountain break
"How did Brokeback Mountain break out? By surgically targeting where the movie would play in its initial release; selling it as a romance for women rather than a controversial gay-bashing tale; and opting out of the culture wars rather than engaging them." So reads John Lippman's Wall Street Journal article [free] about the surprising box-office success of this film, which is selling more tickets than Munich by a 3-to-1 margin and, if you ask me, is looking more and more likely to hit or top $100 million. Lippman reports data from Focus Features marketing guy David Brooks to wit: "As the weeks...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:32 PM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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There's a Brokeback Mountain Oprah
There's a Brokeback Mountain Oprah Winfrey show that ran today (Friday, 1.27). Here's the link.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:13 PM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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To all those thoughtful movie-loving
To all those thoughtful movie-loving righties who wrote in doubting the veracity of the claims in Al Gore's global-warming movie An Inconvenient Truth, I have this reply: if you don't want to believe something, you can usually figure some way of doing that under the guise of subjectivism. Where there's a will, there's a way...right? The scientific and geological data "isn't in yet" on global warming and the president of Iran says the holocaust never happened. I think we all understand that righties don't want to buy into global warming. They want profiteering from any and all sectors of the economy (particularly the...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:38 AM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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Here's an audio clip of
Here's an audio clip of Sundance movie star Al Gore ripping into George Bush on Martin Luther King day over constitutional abuses.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:34 AM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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Three Brokeback Mountain items: (a)
Three Brokeback Mountain items: (a) despite George Bush's recent assertion that he hasn't seen Ang Lee's film, producer James Schamus said recently that the White House has requested a print and that one was sent over; (b) a guy named Pepe Ruiloba has written and told me after seeing Brokeback Mountain [he] was surprised to discover that the male prostitute that Jack Twist picks up across the boarder is none other than the film's Mexican cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, and yet the IMDB doesn't list Prieto...who knows the truth of this?, and (c) a recent new story said that Brokeback...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:14 AM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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Steven Soderbergh's Che recently filmed
Steven Soderbergh's Che recently filmed some exterior scenes on Mahattan's Uper East Side, with Benicio del Toro playing the title role. Here's a photo supplied by Latino Review. I'm assuming this photo is genuine, but you never know.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:04 AM on Friday, January 27, 2006
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It's worth saying again: Lajos
It's worth saying again: Lajos Koltai's Fateless is the first near-great film of 2006. The exquisite widescreen framing, desaturated color and exquisite editing make it, to my eyes, the most visually immaculate Holocaust death-camp drama ever made (am I saying this right?) as well as one of the most realistic seeming and subtly-rendered in terms of story. Based on Imre Kertesz's mostly true-life account, it's about a young Jewish boy from Budapest who ends up in a concentration camp during World War II and just barely survives. It lacks the story tension and rooting factor of Polanski's The Pianist, but situations of hunger,...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:49 AM on Friday, January 27, 2006
Thursday, January 26, 2006
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An excellent Tony Scott-authored New
An excellent Tony Scott-authored New York Times piece about Sundance '06...observing the usual razzmatazz, nostalgia pangs, contradictions, side amusements, etc.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:53 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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Here's an okay Al Gore/Inconvenient
Here's an okay Al Gore/Inconvenient Truth piece by the Washington Post's William Booth.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:44 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
40 comments
I can guess but I don't precisely know who these guys are, but they're Quinceanera...Read More
Alarm Sounder
Quince...what?
Day after day and hour after hour during the Sundance Film Festival I asked every journalist, distributor and agent I ran into what they'd seen and liked (or half-liked). I must have asked this question 60 or 70 times over the eight days I was up there...
And nobody mentioned Quinceanera, a small-scale drama about sexual tensions vs. Hispanic community values in L.A.'s Echo Park. It was like it didn't exist...one of those strugglers that sometimes get lost in the shuffle.
I can guess but I don't precisely know who these guys are, but they're Quinceanera...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:16 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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"I have seen one of
"I have seen one of the wisest films I can remember about love and human intimacy," Roger Ebert wrote a couple of days ago about Jeff Lipsky's Flannel Pajamas...which I just saw this afternoon. "It is a film of integrity and truth, acted fearlessly, written and directed with quiet, implacable skill. [And] I will not forget it." Nor will I. Pajamas is a very smart and probing film about an adult relationship that eventually goes bad. But after a while (after about 90 minutes, give or take) I started to really, really hate it, and I finally couldn't stand another minute and left....Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:00 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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Goran Dukic's Wristcutters: A Love
Goran Dukic's Wristcutters: A Love Story is playing noon on Friday (1.27) at the Eccles, so now I don't have an excuse to miss it. That's too bad. I don't want to see any movie of any kind about post-mortal purgatory, or about anyone cutting their wrists... fuck that shit and send it to hell. And the lead guy Patrick Fugit (who was completely perfect in Almost Famous) has been rubbing me the wrong way in his last couple of films. Everyone's been telling me to see it though, so I guess I'm stuck. "I'm saying that Wristcutters is the best film in...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:45 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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This just happened, just now...right
This just happened, just now...right across from me. A guy sitting on the couch in the lobby of the Yarrow hotel said to a critic friend who just wandered over: "Hey, how was I for India?" The critic answered, "B for boring." Bad news for the filmmaker, right? Maybe, but you need to take into account a certain tendency that critics and journalists have when speaking to each other in groups, which is to always be clever.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:29 PM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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I sat right outside the
I sat right outside the Yarrow press screening room when Right At Your Door was being shown late Wednesday afternoon...obviously wanting to see it but also needing to freshen the column material and put up new photos. Duty prevailed. Door, a futuristic thriller about terrorist destruction hitting Los Angeles, has been acquired by Lionsgate, and at least six others have been bought also. Little Miss Sunshine has been acquired by Fox Searchlight, Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep by Warner Independent, The Night Listener by Miramax (I haven't seen a less commercial- seeming film at this festival), Wordplay by IFC Films, Factotum by...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:18 AM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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A dead-certain acquisition to come:
A dead-certain acquisition to come: the quietly moving and intriguingly measured Stephanie Daley, which I saw early Wednesday afternoon at the Eccles. My hat is sincerely tipped to director Hilary Brougher, and especially for eliciting such superb performances from Tilda Swinton and especially Amber Tamblyn, who is now on the Big Map because of this film. (It's too bad after giving such a finely textured dig-deep performance in Daley that she's agreed to star in the lowballing Grudge 2). Other Sundance pickups in the wings include Bobcat Goldwaithe's Stay (which is nominally about the ramifications of a woman having given a blowjob to...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:03 AM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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The lawyers representing Kirby Dick
The lawyers representing Kirby Dick and This Film Is Not Yet Rated have been making a curious call since the film first press-screened two days ago (i.e., Tuesday). As noted in Wednesday's article about the film, it reveals the names and backgrounds of the MPAA's previously anonymous film raters and appeals board members. But the lawyers and the good publicists at Falco Ink, obviously conerned about a possible MPAA blowback, are declining to provide these names for print purposes. The press notes, which they wrote three or four weeks ago, don't provide the names, and an informal attempt to get this information...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:38 AM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
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The only gay cowboy joke
The only gay cowboy joke I've half-chuckled at since Brokeback Mountain opened some eight and a half weeks ago is that one in The New Yorker...know it? Shows a guy lying in bed and working on a laptop, and he's saying to a guy in long johns and cowboy hat standing nearby, "And what if I don't want to be Jack or Ennis?" This 1.25 piece by USA Today's Susan Wloszczyna is one of the best Brokeback Mountain cultural-impact readings I've come across since the film opened. It's basically about how and why the spread of Brokeback jokes across the country...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:11 AM on Thursday, January 26, 2006
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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I think it's fair to
I think it's fair to at least ask if there's such a thing as the Curse of Ryan Gosling. Excepting The Notebook and The Believer, every film Gosling has made has been very well chosen -- i.e., hip, smart, serious, indie-level...but they've all turned out a bit precious and unsatisfying. Murder by Numbers, The United States of Leland, Stay, The Slaughter Rule...all smart-and-sensitive, all problem movies. Which is why I haven't yet gone to see Gosling's latest, Half Nelson, whcih I've heard is pretty good. I'm getting used to his type of film and I'm sorry but I'm starting to cool off.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:53 PM on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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Right at Your Door, an
Right at Your Door, an economically produced, realistically scrappy drama about what happens when a bunch of terrorist "dirty bombs" are exploded around Los Angeles, has allegedly been picked up for theatrical distribution by Lionsgate. You didn't hear it from me.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:50 PM on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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David Poland is too much
David Poland is too much of a hard-ass in his critique of Kirby Dick's This Film Is Not Yet Rated, but he makes some good points here and there. One thing I felt absolutely should have been acknowledged in Dick's film (but isn't) is the fact that filmmakers routinely look for ways to push the envelope in terms of sexually kinky and/or aberrant behavior, or, in the Michael Bay/Robert Rodriguez realm, for new ways to depict ultra-violent, super-stylish action. They need to do this so moviegoers won't be bored -- we all know they do this -- but no one in Dick's...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:01 PM on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth,
Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth, which I saw this afternoon, is about as succulent and brilliant as a "spinach documentary" -- i.e., one that's very good and nutritional to watch -- can possibly be. It's basically a documentary presentation of Al Gore's global-warming slide show, which the former President candidate and vice-president has been presenting to audiences around the globe for the last few years. Everyone on the planet needs to see this film, even if they think they know everything there is to know about the harm being done to this planet. Gore's teaching style is folksy, straight and quite personable....if only...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:38 PM on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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Here's Roger Ebert saying more
Here's Roger Ebert saying more than a few flattering things about Jeff Lipsky's Flannel Pajamas, which I am now committed to seeing at the Park City Racquet Club tomorrow evening (Thursday), no matter what.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:26 PM on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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The last Word item I
The last Word item I tapped out was yesterday (1.24) around 1 pm. This feels like a losing battle, but I'm about to see The Darwin Awards at the 6 pm Eccles show...well, I might make it there...and poor Chris Penn, one of the costars, is dead at 43. And of course no one is going to voice the thought that first came to mind when they heard the news, including me. But we all know it's unnatural for a 43 year-old body to expire without a contributing factor or two. Very sad news in more ways than one. Here's to...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:46 PM on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
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I went straight from Tuesday
I went straight from Tuesday night's God Grew Tired Of Us after-party to the Eccles screening of Jonathan Demme's Neil Young: Heart of Gold at 9:30 pm. Obviously in the class of Demme's Stop Making Sense, it's a very clean and classy concert film, which means, in this instance, a plain but open-hearted immersion into Young's music -- or rather his latest album, "Prairie Wind", which a knowledgable ex-music critic tells me is Young's best since "Harvest Moon". Demme's film starts with a little background conversation among the band members, but it's mainly a straight-ahead filming of Young's two-night set at Nashville's Ryman...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:56 PM on Tuesday, January 24, 2006
1 comment
This Film Is...Read More
Lonely Deliverance
Dick's MPAA Flap
Kirby Dick is complaining that the MPAA illegally copied, apparently for internal purposes, a "digital version" of his new film This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which a several journos saw at a press screening yesterday morning and which screens at 9:30 pm tonight at the Sundance Film Festival.
More to the point, Dick got L.A. Times reporter John Horn to do the squawking for him in a piece that ran Wednesday (1.25) called "Avast, Ye Pirates!" It struck me as a thin beef, but it made for good press.
This Film Is...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:59 AM on Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Monday, January 23, 2006
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I should have posted this
I should have posted this yesterday, but Munich screenwriter Tony Kushner has countered the criticisms of the film's political opponents with this very intelligent response, which appeared in the 1.22 L.A. Times. And Steven Spielberg has finally let go with some anger at these criticisms through an interview he gave to a writer for the German magazine Der Spiegel. Now, if just one of them had addressed the why's and wherefore's of that sex scene intercut with Munich massacre footage...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:31 AM on Monday, January 23, 2006
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New York Times reporter Sharon
New York Times reporter Sharon Waxman got in touch with the Little Miss Sunshine principals -- producer Jon Turtletaub and Cinetic Media's John Sloss -- and wrote this comprehensive piece about the five-year effort to finance the film and the 10-hour effort to sell it last Friday night and early Saturday morning. The victor was Fox Searchlight. The selling price was $10.5 million "plus 10 percent of all gross revenues on the film, a hefty figure that set tongues wagging." Sunshine will hit theatres sometime this summer.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:51 AM on Monday, January 23, 2006
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Hollywood Elsewhere's Sundance coverage slowed
Hollywood Elsewhere's Sundance coverage slowed to a near-total halt on Sunday, 1.22. This has been a pleasant but (so far) unexceptional festival...everyone is in agreement about this. Not so hot...nothing really igniting....shoulder-shrugging. And with Sunday's wake-up downshifting and not seeing this or that allegedly mezzo-mezzo movie seemed like a permissible way to play it. No...inspired! Woke up late and kinda groggy after crashing at 3 am...wrote a column, missed Stewart Copeland's Police doc, Everyone Stares...saw Freida Lee Mock's straightforward but pleasingly passionate Tony Kushner doc, Wrestling with Angels; went to a Women in Film gathering at the River Horse; decided to blow off...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:26 AM on Monday, January 23, 2006
Sunday, January 22, 2006
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I'm told that the increasingly
I'm told that the increasingly eccentric Ralph Nader woke up this morning, took a shower, watered the plants, walked the dog around the block and decided be'd better not attend the Sundance Film Festival, and therefore Monday's press conference for Henriette Mantel and Stephen Skovan's An Unreasonable Man, a doc about Nader, has been cancelled as Nader "will no longer be able to attend," according to an IDPR press release.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:36 PM on Sunday, January 22, 2006
Saturday, January 21, 2006
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Last night a filmmaker I
Last night a filmmaker I respect (there's a reason not to divulge his name) told me he was deeply impressed with Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar's A Lion in the House, which people are referring to as the "kids dying of cancer" movie. It runs 230 minutes. I asked film journo Harlan Jacobsonif he was planning on seeing it or if he'd heard anything to support the filmmaker's opinion, and he said, "Well, I figure I'm going to live another 30 years or so..."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:06 PM on Saturday, January 21, 2006
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That entertainment attorney who told
That entertainment attorney who told me Saturday afternoon that Mia Goldman's Open Window, a drama about violation with Robin Tunney, Joel Edgerton and Cybil Shepard, is being bid on by serious people...I've since determined that guy was probably talking out of his ass. That or he was smoking something.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:56 PM on Saturday, January 21, 2006
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Today's (i.e., Saturday's) news #1:
Today's (i.e., Saturday's) news #1: Cinematical's Karina Longworth is reporting that "Paramount" (big Paramount? Paramount Classics?) has closed a deal for $10 to $12 million to distribute Little Miss Sunshine, the dark family comedy that got standing ovations after the Eccles screening last night and after the Library screening early this morning. Maybe...but I was told by two knowledgable industry guys sources just before a Racquet Club screening of Sherry Baby late this morning that Fox Searchlight is the buyer, and that the figure is $10 million. It'll all come out in the wash. And yes, a lot of people are...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:37 PM on Saturday, January 21, 2006
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Yesterday's news #1: Got into
Yesterday's news #1: Got into town around 5 pm Friday afternoon, dumped my stuff, got my press pass and went straight over to the Eccles to see Little Miss Sunshine. [My reaction is in the lead column story.] I was told before and after by three people that Dito Montiel's A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, which screened Friday afternoon, is a Problem Movie. (One guy told me that "30 or 40 people walked out" by the first hour.) I myself saw Paul Cuigan's Lucky Number Slevin at the 9:30 pm sscreennig at the Eccles, and found it tedious, trite, boring. It's one...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:39 AM on Saturday, January 21, 2006
4 comments
Sunshine Sublime
Docs Own It
So far the most affecting highs of Sundance 2006 are not coming from the features but the documentaries. No narrative except Little Miss Sunshine has generated any kind of noticable wattage, but everywhere you turn people are talking up the docs.
Yesterday afternoon I saw Freida Mock's conventional but nonetheless moving and impassioned Wrestling with Angels, a study of the great playwright Tony Kushner. Here, at last, was a film of serious substance and palpable emotion...something that woke me up...a movie about caring and striving and laying it on the line.
An acquisitions...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:19 AM on Saturday, January 21, 2006
Friday, January 20, 2006
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In my story about Nick
In my story about Nick Cassevetes' Alpha Dog [see below], I failed to give credit to Lewis Beale for having been the first to write about the legal troubles that are threatening to impede New Line Cinema's plans to release Alpha Dopg in February. Beale's story ("Based and Bested by a true Story') ran in the New York Times on 10.19; here's a link to a syndication of the story that ran in the Arizona Republic.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:19 AM on Friday, January 20, 2006
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Here's an okay q &
Here's an okay q & a with Sundance Film festival founder Robert Redford by Time's Desa Philadelphia.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:11 AM on Friday, January 20, 2006
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Nicole Holofcener's Friends with Money,
Nicole Holofcener's Friends with Money, the Sundance Film festival's debut flick, had two showings last night at the Eccles -- at 6:45 and 9:30 pm. It's now 10:10 am Friday and and I haven't found one quickie review anywhere yet. C'mon, press contingent! ...it's a bit early in the festival to be dragging ass. (That means you, Indiewire.) Yesterday I asked a friend to e-mail me a fast ten-word review of Friends with Money -- he responded with one. The film costars Jennifer Aniston, Catherine Keener, Joan Cusack, Frances McDormand, Jason Isaacs (who's fantastic in Nine Lives, which will soon be out on...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:00 AM on Friday, January 20, 2006
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This is only about four
This is only about four months late, but when the 50th anni- versary of James Dean's death was being written about early last September, I was searching all over for this fairly high- quality (i.e., by the CG standards of the late '90s) computer simulation of how the smash-up between Dean's Porsche (a.k.a. "Little Bastard") and Donald Turnupseed's black and white Chevy probably went down. I couldn't find it, and then all of sudden it turned up yesterday on my external hard drive so here it is. (It's a Quicktime file.)
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:48 AM on Friday, January 20, 2006
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Here's a pretty good London
Here's a pretty good London Times piece by Denis Seguin about Kirby Dick's This Film Is Not Yet Rated, a documentary strongly critical of the MPAA's CARA ratings board. Excerpt: "It wasn’Äôt censorship that really annoyed Dick. What got him going was the anonymity of it all. So, armed with a budget of $1 million, Dick hired a private investigator named Becky Altringer to help him track down and expose the MPAA's examiners. For months, Dick and his crew sat outside the MPAA's offices in Encino, California. They followed employees to lunch and even sifted through their rubbish." Dick's doc will debut...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:38 AM on Friday, January 20, 2006
Thursday, January 19, 2006
59 comments
Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain
For the first time since the '93 Sundance Film Festival, I haven't gotten a jump on things by arriving early in Park City -- Wednesday night, say, or early Thursday afternoon -- and filing the usual hot story about the food I've bought at Albertson's and the people I've run into in the aisles.
I won't even be picking up my press pass until late Friday afternoon, which means I'll be missing the 1:30 pm press screening of The World According to Sesame Street, which I'm hearing is time very well spent. But the value of pre-festival Los Angeles phone-chat info...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:56 AM on Thursday, January 19, 2006
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Pete Hammond has sent in
Pete Hammond has sent in some additional views on the Syriana switcheroo: "When I interviewed Gaghan for his WGA nomination screening the weekend before last I asked him if Syriana was basically an original and he admitted that only about a paragraph of the actual book is in the movie, but after spending so much time with Bob Baer in preparing the film he felt the inspiration he got from him is throughout the film. But an adaptation of a book? Never. On the cover of Bob Baer's "See No Evil," the book tie-in for Syriana, the copy on the cover says, "The...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:09 AM on Thursday, January 19, 2006
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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It's too late for me
It's too late for me to double-check this, but In Contention's Kris Tapley is reporting that the Academy has suddenly and rather surprisingly waited until today -- Wednesday, 1.18 -- to announce a significant decision that was made about 20 days ago, which is that the screenplay for Stephen Gaghan's Syriana has been classified by the Academy as an original screen- play, and NOT -- as many have understood all along -- an adapted screenplay based on Robert Baer's "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism." The AMPAS decision, says Tapley, "was not...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:41 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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It's always a problem getting
It's always a problem getting to Sundance events in the early morning, but IFC Films is having a breakfast and panel discussion at the Premiere & Film Music Lounge, 277 Main Street, on Monday, 1.23, from 9 to 11 ayem. The subject is "collapsing windows, vertical integration and the new day-and-date model"...gotta try.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:52 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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Two days ago I copied
Two days ago I copied and pasted every p.r. message about films, events, promotions and panel discussions at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and put it on a mini-hard drive and printed it out at Sir Speedy. It's on thick paper but even with that it's thicker and heavier than any script I have -- it's like a Russian novel. And 20 or 30 new Sundance e-mails have come in since. Every year I've written some kind of sum-up and I always miss out on this or that hot-button film...screw it. I'm just going to go to this film and that film and...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:34 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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This is about 10 days
This is about 10 days old but it only just appeared on my screen: a MacLeans piece by author George Jonas about (a) the writing of "Vengeance", his 1984 book about Mossad's revenge campaign upon the supporters and perpetrators of the 1972 Munich massacre, and (b) how, in his opinion, Steven Spielberg got it all wrong. The title is "The Spielberg Massacre: My book was all about avenging evil. Then the King of Hollywood got hold of it." The piece is well-written, seems grounded in reality...worth reading.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:26 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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"Friend of the court" Jeff
"Friend of the court" Jeff Dowd (a.k.a. "the Dude") is imploring those visiting Park City, Utah, over the next eight to ten days to please pay proper attention and respect to Patricia Foulkrod's The Ground Truth: After the Killing Ends, which is screening in the independent film doc competition section. It's basically a piece about post-traumatic stress and emotional recovery problems that U.S. soldiers have been coping with after returning from the Iraq War. Kind of the same story as the one presented in The Best Years of Our Lives, only different...right?
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:13 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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3,148 features were considered for
3,148 features were considered for Sundance 2006, according to Kenneth Turan's annual start-of-the-festival piece in the L.A. Times. up from last year's 2,613, as well as more than 4,300 shorts. Plus the fact that "indie-style films such as Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Good Night, and Good Luck are dominating the awards season as never before," he notes. "This roaring success, however, has also brought unwanted attention and aggressive commercialization to the independent world. Through no fault of its own, Sundance has become Mardi Gras North, a celebrity magnet and party destination for people with zero interest in watching films, independent or otherwise."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:08 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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"STUDIO EXECS PREFER 'BROKEBACK' OVER
"STUDIO EXECS PREFER 'BROKEBACK' OVER 'MUNICH' -- SPIELBERG SAID DISPLEASED," a Drudge Report headline said earlier today. I'm not saying this allegation is gospel but who at Universal wouldn't be feeling more enthusiastic about Brokeback Mountain than Munich at this stage? An emotionally moving critical fave now sitting at the top of a Showbiz Data box-office chart vs. a politically despised, okay-but-no-cigar Spielberg movie that's doing blah business and which nobody but nobody thinks has a chance of nabbing any Oscar nominations of note, much less the awards.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:37 PM on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
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USA Today's Scott Bowles is
USA Today's Scott Bowles is floating the idea that Walk the Line is surging after winning three Golden Globes last night and may even be nipping at Brokeback Mountain's heels. Why not? Anything to make it seem like a horse race. (The Envelope's Tom O'Neil is playing a similar tune, saying that Crash or Good Night can still beat Brokeback at the Oscars.) The best part of the Bowles piece is the observation that Globe acceptance speeches are Academy audition tapes.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:15 PM on Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Monday, January 16, 2006
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One of the few complaints
One of the few complaints about Good Night, and Good Luck is that Edward R. Murrow (played by David Strathairn) is portrayed in ways that are insufficiently fleshed-out. He's too virtuous, too noble...too much of a paragon of journalistic integrity. In my first riff on the film in early October, I said that co-screen- writers George Clooney and Grant Heslov should "have added more shading to Murrow. He's just a rock-ribbed man of virtue here. He needs some ticks and peculiarities. Men of consequence are usually driven by more than what they believe in and are willing to fight for. If he had...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:25 PM on Monday, January 16, 2006
Sunday, January 15, 2006
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Things changed on Saturday and
Things changed on Saturday and it it began to look as if Glory Road might squeak past Hoodwinked for the #1 slot...but it's a very tight competition with The Chronicles of Narnia also in the race. And that's all I know...I'm going off to meet up with Larry Clark in Santa Monica and then do some bike-riding.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:31 AM on Sunday, January 15, 2006
1809 comments
Globe Finals
Dog Has Its Day
Of the dozens of definite-interest films playing at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival (which I haven't even begun to try and summarize), Nick Cassevetes' Alpha Dog has easily gotten the most press...and yet it's showing at the very end of the fes- tival (Friday, 1.27 at the Eccles, and Saturday, 1.28, at Prospector Square) when most of the hot-and-happening crowd will be gone.
I have it on very good authority that it's worth sticking around for. Alpha Dog isn't a great film but it's quite provocative and even agitating (in a good way). It's certainly thought-provoking, and it boasts...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:06 AM on Sunday, January 15, 2006
Saturday, January 14, 2006
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Sean P. Means and (I
Sean P. Means and (I guess) some others at the Salt Lake Tribune have assembled loads of material in this section on Sundance '06.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:14 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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I haven't done any serious
I haven't done any serious Sundance digging, but there's one film I've consistently heard is awfully good, and I'm not saying this because it was written by Michael Arndt, a guy I happened to swap apartments with last summer. It's called Little Miss Sunshine, it's a "heart" movie about a dysfunctional family, and it costars Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin (the little girl who said "there's a monster outside my window...can I have a glass of water?" in Signs) and Paul Dano. It's a Premier selection, and the best of these are usually slotted on Friday, Saturday...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:41 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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Here's to the fearless Don
Here's to the fearless Don Murphy, a laser-brained, seriously tough-nut producer I've known since about '94 (when he was producing Natural-Born Killers with his then-partner Jane Hamsher)...a guy who won't take 'no'...a guy who once tore into me because I had the absolute temerity to ring up Vincent Gallo and later Ed Sanders because I was interested in the progress of a possible Murphy-produced Charles Manson movie...a guy who once said to me, "You...are...my...bitch!" They're just words and they hit the floor like drops of water off a duck's ass. Murphy is one of the coolest hard-core hombres in town, and he comes...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:25 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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I should have posted this
I should have posted this Friday (1.13), but it's weird reading the piece by the Wall Street Journal's Jon Weinbach about the "other" Munich movie called Sword of Gideon -- a 1986 HBO cable movie -- that's about the same thing (i.e., an Israeli assassin's sense of gathering guilt over helping to kill several conspirators who helped perpetrate the 1972 Munich Olympic games massacre) and more-or-less based on the same 1984 book "Vengeance," by Canadian author George Jonas. Weinbach makes this sound like a big revelation, to wit: "Now here's something else to add to the discussion: It turns out there was...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:58 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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"Between the wide-angled planes of
"Between the wide-angled planes of her cheekbones, [Claire Danes'] features are large and mobile -- more chunky than delicate -- and expressive in a way that at times seems out of her conscious control," begins a 1.15 New York Times profile by Dana Stevens. "On the day we meet in a crepe place in SoHo, around the corner from the loft she shares with the actor Billy Crudup, Ms. Danes's face looks, by moments -- and I mean this in the nicest way -- almost like that of an eager, curious animal."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:56 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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From an admiring but somewhat
From an admiring but somewhat brash, straight-from-the- shoulder profile of Philip Seymour Hoffman by David Edel- stein in the 1.15 New York Times. Interesting Hoffman quote: "There are certain jobs, in certain environments, when I'm not as scared. So, therefore, I am who I am, which I think is a pretty decent person. But if I'm struggling, if I feel like I'm falling short, I'm incredibly hard on myself. And when you're in front of a camera and in front of people, that's a very vulnerable place to be. I can become difficult. But I'm not demanding. I'm not the guy who's...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:26 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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Poor Shelley Winters, who died
Poor Shelley Winters, who died yesterday at the age of 86 years and 4 months, was always feisty and frank. I sat right next to her at a 1983 Cannon Films press luncheon for Over the Brooklyn Bridge (held prior to shooting), and as producer Menahem Golan got up and began making a speech, Winters squinted her eyes and said to pretty much everyone at our table, "Don't like him... nope, don't like him." I met her again in 1997 at the Silver Spoon, a breakfast place in West Hollywood, and she told me I reminded her of an old boyfriend from...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:33 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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Here's a totally hilarious trail
Here's a totally hilarious trail of Roger Friedman Fox 411 quotes about how it's all going downhill in terms of prospective awards and healthy box-office for Brokeback Mountain, starting on December 9th and moving right up to January 13th. Scroll to the bottom of the page...it's a scream. (Thanks to N.Y. Daily News guy Wayman Wong for this.)
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:14 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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"I just read your Wired
"I just read your Wired comment about James Franco with Tristan and Isolde not catching a break, and I couldn't agree more about his being a fine actor. His work on Freaks and Geeks (the most perceptive show about high school to ever air) was wonderful. It's unfortunate that so many people only know him as Peter Parker's bitch from the Spider-Man films." -- Jesse Perry, Nashville, Tenn.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:07 PM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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Brokeback Mountain, playing in just
Brokeback Mountain, playing in just over 700 theatres as of yesterday, will reach $32 million or thereabouts by the end of the four-day weekend. I'm presuming that Focus Features will expand big-time after Monday's night's expected Best Picture win at the Golden Globes awards. One marketing expert is forecasting a $60 million haul by the end of the theatrical run, but I don't know...if it wins the Best Picture Oscar on March 5th it'll get a new surge and probably stay in theatres until April, and it could go a lot higher. Ain't no reins on this one.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:49 AM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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The box-office positions could switch
The box-office positions could switch between now and Monday night, but it appears that Hoodwinked, the animated Weinstein Co. release, is going to nudge its way into being the #1 film over the Martin Luther King holiday. Analysts are projecting a 4-day take of $16,900,000 over the second-place The Chronicles of Narnia with a projected $16,340,000. Hoodwinked "is not burn- ing up the pea patch," a marketing veteran commented, "but it's the first kids picture to hit the market since Narnia." Some anal- ysts were speculating that Glory Road, the Jerry Bruckheimer forumula sports flick about a black Southern college basketball team in...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:11 AM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
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Here's a very fine beat-by-beat
Here's a very fine beat-by-beat description of "Diana," that short-film sequence in Rodrigo Garcia's Nine Lives that I got all jazzed about in one of my October columns...the one that happens in the supermarket between Robin Wright Penn and Jason Isaacs. The description (accompanied in Sunday's edition by similar riffs by A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis) is by the New York Times' Stephen Holden. I'm guessing that 97% of the people reading this never saw Nine Lives. Well, it'll be out on DVD on 2.14.06...just four weeks from now.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:00 AM on Saturday, January 14, 2006
Friday, January 13, 2006
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I had a nice and
I had a nice and relaxed "Elsewhere Live" chat with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga on Wednesday, 1.11. Arriaga is the gifted screenwriter of Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of Melqui- ades Estrada (Sony Classics, opening wide in early February) as well as three films by Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu -- Amores Peros, 21 Grams and the forthcoming Babel. I'll eventually put this into the "Elsewhere Live" archive, but here it is in the meantime. Arriaga spoke to me from his home in Mexico City.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:55 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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Another slam against Munich, this
Another slam against Munich, this one from the Washington Post op-ed columnist Charles Krauthammer. Doesn't matter on this coast because Munich is a dead horse. In late December when the notion of "poor Munich" was the going thing I thought it might get lucky with a Best Picture nomination, but I doubt even this will happen now.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:11 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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I was talking today with
I was talking today with a journalist friend about David Poland's Oscar blogger-rat pack analogy (Anne Thompson is Shirley MacLaine, Tom O'Neil is Joey Bishop, etc.) and the journo said, "Well, Poland's part of this group so who's he? Akim Tamiroff?" (This is a reference to Tamiroff having co-starred with Sinatra, Martin, Lawford, Davis, et. al. in the 1960 Ocean's 11.)
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:56 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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I don't cover Hollywood business-affairs
I don't cover Hollywood business-affairs stories because they're boring (guys buying other guys' companies and getting their friends to run them, etc.) but I'm told there's activity going down right now regarding a purchase of Lions Gate. The suitors could be either MGM chairman-chief exec Harry Sloan, who's an old pal of Lions Gate CEO Jon Feltheimer, except that Sloan would first have to void Sony's purchase of MGM (he's supposedly not happy there) by giving the money back and then he'd be free to do the Lions Gate deal. The other possible scenarios are about Paramount or Disney buying Lions Gate, as...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:23 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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David Carr, the N.Y. Times
David Carr, the N.Y. Times Carpetbagger guy, tried to dimiss Walk the Line as a Best Picture contender this morning. Or has this Johnny Cash biopic in fact lost serious steam? That would be news to me, but maybe I'm not talking to the right people. Carr back- handed Jim Mangold's film with stealth and without seeming too aggressive. He merely said it "has faded from memory, perhaps because it was not that memorable of a film." Maybe...but it's the only the Best Picture contender on the short list that's certain to top $100 million, and isn't there some kind of...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:15 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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I liked David Poland's comparing
I liked David Poland's comparing the various Oscar bloggers to early '60s Rat Pack members (Pete Hammond is Sammy Davis, Jr., David Carr is Dean Martin, I'm Bing Crosby, et. al.), but boy, is he wrong when he says the Oscar race "is a horse race" and "there is no Secretariat this year" and that "anything can happen." I know it's more fun to pretend the ball is still in the air, but that sad little flick about them cowboys jes poke-poke-pokin' along has the Best Picture Oscar all but roped and tied, and for two reasons above and beyond the...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:43 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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It's very cool to be
It's very cool to be mentioned and quoted in this Variety piece, written by Patrick McLean, about the various Oscar bloggers ("Oscars watchers buzzed by blog blitz"), but I want to try to teach a grammatical lesson. Wired magazine tried to make the same point a couple of years ago and failed, to wit: it's not "Web site," it's "website." And when are editors going to get past this bizarre obsession with capitalizing the "i" in "internet"? You know, my Shortwave radio has been on the fritz for the last couple of days, so I guess I'm going to...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:08 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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There's a theoretical concern that
There's a theoretical concern that Hany Abu-Assad's Paradise Now, the undoubtably excellent Palestinian submission for Best Foreign-Language Film, isn't going to make it because Academy members with a special loyalty to Israel are less than supportive because the film is a thoughtful, fair-minded look at a couple of would-be Palestinian suicide bombers. I called some people about this and there wasn't much of a response so maybe it's hooey. A distribution exec theorized that there might have been an anti-Paradise Now attitude out there last fall, but most of the ardent Hebrews have since shifted their animus toward Munich. If so, I guess...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:28 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
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There are two gorillas among
There are two gorillas among the Best Foreign-Language Film contenders: Gavin Hood's Tsotsi (Miramax), a South African film which I loved and wrote wrote about September from the Toronto Film Festival, and Christian Carion's Joyeux Noel (Sony Classics, 3.6), the French entry that I saw in Cannes last May and didn't much care for. There's also Lajos Koltai's excellent Fateless (Thinkfilm, from Hungary), Marc Rothemund's Sophie Scholl (from Germany), Kwang-Hyun Park's Welcome to Dongmakgol (from South Korea), Hany Abu-Assad's Paradise Now (Palestine), Fabiane Beilinsky's The Aura (from Argentina), Kaige Chen's The Promise< (from China) and Anders Thomas Jensen's Adam's...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:10 PM on Friday, January 13, 2006
Thursday, January 12, 2006
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That Rolling Stone piece about
That Rolling Stone piece about the secret life of V for Vendetta co-director Larry Wachowski, written by Peter Wilkinson, went up today on the magazine's website. But the most interesting passage is about their (alleged) creative attitude. Wilkinson quotes entertainment lawyer Eric Feig as saying that the Wachowski's "[are] not that interested in movies right now. V for Vendetta was set in motion before The Matrix. They're focusing exclusively on comic books and video games." Wilkinson adds that "Larry's own filings in his divorce from Thea Bloom [makes no mention] of new Wachowski brothers scripts in the pipeline."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:32 PM on Thursday, January 12, 2006
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Horror filmmaker Eric Red (The
Horror filmmaker Eric Red (The Hitcher) killed a couple of people in a West Los Angeles demolition-derby car wreck accident in May 2000. I don't know what the moral is, but this is one of the weird- est Hollywood-filmmaker-dodges-the-legal-consequences stories I've ever read. Written (and very thoroughly reported) by Paul Cullum, it's in this week's L.A. Weekly and is called "Death Race 2000."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:37 PM on Thursday, January 12, 2006
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This Video Dog/Salon piece may
This Video Dog/Salon piece may seem at first like only a moder- ately amusing parody of Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man, but hang in there. The payoff comes at the end, and it's pretty close to hilarious.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:36 PM on Thursday, January 12, 2006
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Moby is "helping out" with
Moby is "helping out" with the music for Richard Kelly's Southland Tales, which will be out towards the end of the year, and he's seen an early edit and here's what he said about it on his journal: "It's remarkable....some people will love it and some will hate it. It's not going to be a movie that allows for ambivalence or indifference, and it's safe to say that almost no one who sees it will be able to say what it's about. I love it, and i'm really happy to be working on it."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:55 AM on Thursday, January 12, 2006
52 comments
Vendetta Days
Down To It
I finally saw Debra Granik's Down to the Bone last night and got the wisdom of what almost every deep-focus movie journalist and critic has been saying since it (barely) opened in New York and Los Angeles nearly six weeks ago, which is that it's grimly real but has something that doesn't let up.
This is a profoundly honed and life-like low-budgeter about a mom with two kids coping with drug addiction, and Vera Farmiga, who plays this withered young woman like she's not playing her at all, is the absolute shit.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:13 AM on Thursday, January 12, 2006
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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It's over two weeks old
It's over two weeks old (heavens!), but this Mick LaSalle piece in the San Francisco Chronicle is one of the most perceptive and well-grounded explanations why theatrical revenues dropped in '05...and why they'll continue to drop (putting aside the claims of those who insist that the slump is a statistical myth or wieves' tale) until something drastic happens. Which of course won't happen until mainstream films start costing less to make (which won't happen until things get so bad that superstars and their agents stop holding up the studios for exorbitant upfront pay-or-play fees) or theatres drop their prices or...you tell me....Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:15 PM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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Time's Richard Corliss on the
Time's Richard Corliss on the great Terrence Howard: "He exudes a charismatic musk as DJay, the pimp-turned-rapper in the indie film Hustle & Flow. Those soft eyes, the feline athleticism, a voice that can caress subtlety into any dialogue -- viewers get a taste of that, and in a minute they say, 'This guy's a natural star.'"
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:30 PM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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We all know that screw-ups
We all know that screw-ups happen now and then, and this one's not a rumor: the Technicolor tech guys who sent out screeners of Steven Spielberg's Munich on behalf of NBC Universal have messed things up as far as members of the British Film Academy (BAFTA) are concerned. The purchase order on Universal's part was correct, but somehow it wasn't carried out right and BAFTA's 3000-plus members "were sent encrypted 'screener' DVDs that were mastered for North America, and can only be played on special [multi-region] DVD players supplied by Cinea (www.cinea.com -- a Dolby subsidiary)," according to a Boing-Boing correspondent....Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:41 PM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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Okay, we've figured out the
Okay, we've figured out the best actors to play director Nicholas Ray in Phil Kaufman's I Was Interrupted, which will cover Ray's final decade. Candidate #1: Nick Nolte. Candidate #2: Liam Neeson. Candidate #3: Sam Shepard, but Ray's voice was deep and bellowing so Shepard would have to do something about that aw-shucksy twangy thing. Candidate #4: Geoffrey Rush, but I don't think so. And Candidate #5: Ian McKellen...maybe.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:57 PM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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An amusing, appealing teaser for
An amusing, appealing teaser for Kevin Smith's Clerks 2 (Weinstein Co.), which may turn up at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival...or so I've been told.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:35 PM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
2 comments
Brokeback Mountain star Heath Ledger,
Brokeback Mountain star Heath Ledger, currently in Australia and interviewed at the Melbourne premiere of Ang Lee's film, had a couple of things to say about Larry Miller's refusing to show it in Salt Lake City last weekend. But Ledger's claim that West Virginia had lynchings "only 25 years ago" appears suspect. According to this June 2005 Washington Post article about Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia (who was a former member of the Ku Klux Klan), the last lynching in West Virginia was in 1931.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:23 PM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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The salivating ambition of the
The salivating ambition of the Broadcast Film Critics Awards aside, the awards they handed out early Monday evening were right down the middle of the bowling alley -- Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture, Ang Lee for Best Director, Philip Seymour Hoffman for best Acotr in Capote, Reese Witherspoon for Best Actress in Walk the Line, et. al. The only hiccups were (a) naming the bizarrely over-rated The 40 Year-old Virgin as Best Comedy, and (b) giving John Williams the Best Musical Score award for Memoirs of a Geisha instead of Gustavo Santaolalla's for Brokeback Mountain.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:24 AM on Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Monday, January 9, 2006
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No one has ever been
No one has ever been able to explain any kind of easy-to-sort- through criteria by which a regular guy can decide that the sound editing on this film is better than the sound editing on that film. It's always been a total mystery to me...to everyone. And why is is that only the expensive big-noise films with elaborate costumes and weaponry seem to get nominated for the sound editing Oscar? This year's nominees, in alphabetical order, are The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, King Kong, Memoirs of a Geisha, Star Wars:...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:55 PM on Monday, January 9, 2006
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The Broadcast Film Critics --
The Broadcast Film Critics -- the new whores on the block, the KY Jelly conquistadors said to be determined to out-glitz and out-fellate the Golden Globes -- are handing out their coveted awards tonight. Be sure and watch and see which of their ten Best Picture nominees -- Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Cinderella Man, The Constant Gardener, Crash, Good Night, and Good Luck, King Kong, Memoirs of a Geisha, Munich and Walk the Line -- walks off with the prize. That's right -- they've listed Memoirs of a Geisha as a nominee for Best Picture of 2005. It starts at 5 pm at the...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:40 PM on Monday, January 9, 2006
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Steven Spielberg is one very
Steven Spielberg is one very hip and cool guy, or at least he was a year ago. A piece in the February issue of W says that comic Kathy Griffin is still agog that Spielberg's attorneys threatened her for joking during the 2005 Golden Globes awards ceremony that Dakota Fanning "had entered rehab." (And imagine...this anecdote just collected dust for eleven months!!) A Page Six sum-up says that "lawyers for Spielberg, who directed Fanning in War of the Worlds, contacted Griffin after the awards and demanded that she apologize for the crack. When she refused, Spielberg's legal lackeys warned that she would...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:14 PM on Monday, January 9, 2006
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This sounds interesting...kind of. Variety
This sounds interesting...kind of. Variety is reporting that Philip Kaufman (Quills, The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being) has signed to direct a biopic of legendary cult director Nicholas Ray called I Was Interrupted, based on a script by Oren Moverman (Jesus' Son). It's about the last decade of Ray's life (he died of cancer in '79), during which time he played an art forger in Wim Wenders' The American Friend ('77) and co-directed (with Wim Wenders) Lightning Over Water, a documentary about his last days. The film will reportedly focus on Ray's relationship with Susan Schwartz, whom he met when...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:34 AM on Monday, January 9, 2006
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I was right, of course,
I was right, of course, in presuming that Last Holiday (Disney, 1.13), the Wayne Wang-Queen Latifah remake of the 1950 Alec Guiness comedy, would discard the finale of the original British version, which was written by J.B. Priestley. (Soon after Guiness is told his fatal illness diagnosis was a mistake, he gets into a car crash and is killed.) I won't be seeing the new film until tomorrow night's all-media screening (which I'm thinking of blowing off), but in his Variety review Joe Leydon said "it's not at all surprising that the remake eschews Priestley's audacious ending."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:44 AM on Monday, January 9, 2006
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The Chicago Film Critics have
The Chicago Film Critics have honored Crash as Best Picture and gave the pic's co-authors Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco their Best Screenplay award...great. And Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Best Actor award, of course, for Capote, and Joan Allen won for Best Actress again (yay!) for her acting in The Upside of Anger. (She's won something like two or three critics awards so far, right?) Cheers to Brokeback Mountain's Gustavo Santaolalla for winning the Best Original Score award, and to Werner Herzog for winning the Best Doc award for Grizzly Man.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:06 AM on Monday, January 9, 2006
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Brokeback Mountain is playing well
Brokeback Mountain is playing well in the heartland, "averaging $10,000-plus per screen in such markets as San Antonio, Nash- ville and Columbus, Ohio," says a Scott Bowles story in Monday's (1.9) issue of USA Today. A neighboring story by Marco R. della Cava says Ang Lee's drama is also becoming a popular date movie.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:49 AM on Monday, January 9, 2006
Sunday, January 8, 2006
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The first-anywhere big-media blowjob for
The first-anywhere big-media blowjob for Larry and Andy Wachowski's V for Vendetta (Warner Bros., 3.17) is in the current February issue of Vanity Fair, and has been written by renowned media/political columnist Michael Wolff, of all people. This London-based political tinderbox of an action film will be screening before long, and I guess it's about time to dive in. I'm guessing Warner Bros. is feeling fairly nervous about it, which, in my book, makes this grimy-and-desexualized-Natalie Portman-with-a-tennis-ball- haircut flick seem preemptively cool. Wolff, who's seen it, says the film's "punch line" is that "some of the world's most famous towers are blown...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:06 PM on Sunday, January 8, 2006
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Defamer's Mark Lisanti is a
Defamer's Mark Lisanti is a good wordsmith to start with but... fuck it, I just like this one in particular: "There's going to be an Ocean's 13, and you know what that means: turn the incestuous-rich-and-famous-movie-star-friends-circle-jerk-o-meter up a notch!" If producer Jerry Weintraub wants to really deliver a total debasement of this once semi-respectable pseudo-heist franchise, don't get Soderbergh to direct it...get Roger Kumble, Brett Rattner...someone guaranteed to slap-dash it and blue-collar it up.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:50 AM on Sunday, January 8, 2006
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The filmmaker interview for tonight's
The filmmaker interview for tonight's "Elsewhere Live" is with Why We Fight director Eugene Jarecki, and even if I do say so myself I think it's the best discussion I've ever done since the program began. I kept my questions simple and kept my irritating "uhm-hmm" sounds to a minimum and just let the guest go to town. And Jarecki is brilliant, and so is his film, which I've just seen for a second time. Why We Fight will have its New York and L.A. debut on 1.20 and then spread out from there.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:16 AM on Sunday, January 8, 2006
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In the wake of Larry
In the wake of Larry Miller's shutdown of Brokeback Mountain at his Salt Lake City Jordan Common plex on Friday, the Salt Lake Tribune ran a solid and obviously timely piece the very next day about why men who worship and cherish the rugged-cowboy tradition find the film so threatening. Written by Leonard Pitts, it's simply called "Why 'Brokeback Mountain' is so frightening"...and here's an excerpt: "[The lovers in] Brokeback Mountain...are not cute gays, funny gays, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy gays. These are 'cowboys', and there is no figure in American lore more iconically male. Think Clint Eastwood, John...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:30 AM on Sunday, January 8, 2006
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The Envelope's Tom O'Neil has
The Envelope's Tom O'Neil has the behind-the-scenes, numerical breakdown about how Capote won the National Society of Critics Best Picture award. It went down complicated, but David Cron- enberg's A History of Violence got the most initial votes for the first three or four (or was it five?) ballots, but on the sixth ballot the 57 members -- 26 attending, the rest voting by proxy -- finally gave it to Capote over Violence by a one-vote margin. The 5 and 1/2 hour meeting happened at Sardi's restaurant in New York City. Congrats to Miller and the team for the Capote win, and...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:25 AM on Sunday, January 8, 2006
Saturday, January 7, 2006
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"As an active member of
"As an active member of the LDS (Mormon) faith, a semi-new resident of Salt Lake City and a self-proclaimed cineaste, I find Larry Miller's pulling of Brokeback Mountain rather hypocritical and in very poor judgement," says Jeremy Porter. "Good ol' Larry has been making mint off of morally questionable films for a long time now (Casanova, Hostel and Grandma's Boy are all currently playing the same location from which Brokeback Mountain was pulled). While I believe theater management is completely entitled and justified to pull a film on moral grounds if they so desire, but if you want to take a stand,...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:07 PM on Saturday, January 7, 2006
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"Apart from the news about
"Apart from the news about Brokeback Mountain getting pulled in two cities, I thought you might be interested to know that in Oklahoma City last night's Brokeback opening was packed," says reader Kevin Costello. "Two theatres were filled with 45 minutes prior to a 7:15 showtime -- the two biggest auditoriums in the biggest multiplex in the metro area. This without the film being screened for area critics at any point and a just-moved-up release date here. Now, Oklahoma is state so red the skies and buildings are coated in a tangible Matrix-like crimson haze (this might also be due to our abundance...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:28 PM on Saturday, January 7, 2006
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Reader Harold Wexler has explained,
Reader Harold Wexler has explained, and I understand now: it's not SAG's fault for leaving Roberta Maxwell out of the SAG ensemble nomination list for Brokeback Mountain. The film's producers are responsible for submitting the lists of which cast members should be cited in the nomination, and with the notable exception of Good Night, and Good Luck (which lists everyone who has a halfway important part, up to and including Dianne Reeves), all the nominated films are represented only by those cast members with featured billing. As small as Anna Faris' role is in Brokeback Mountain, she's got featured billing because she's been...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:10 PM on Saturday, January 7, 2006
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I heard this morning that
I heard this morning that Eli Roth's Hostel, which opened Friday to big business, could have been a Screen Gems release but something queered the deal and Lions Gate came in and scooped it up. It did $7.5 million on Friday at 2195 theatres (roughly $3400 a theatre) and is expected to take in $20 million for the weekend.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:02 PM on Saturday, January 7, 2006
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Narnia will do about $14
Narnia will do about $14 million for the weekend. Fun with Dick and Jane isn't a very good film, but it's going to top $100 million after all -- did $3.8 million last night and projecting $12.2 million for the weekend. King Kong did $3.4 million last night...expected to earn $11.5 for the weekend. (It'll wind up with about $225 million.) Cheaper by the Dozen 2 did $2.2 million last night, $7.7 million for the weekend. In 1485 theatres, Munich did $2.2 million last night and is expecting a $7.6 million weekend haul...not so great. Memoirs of a Geisha did $1.8 million last...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:02 AM on Saturday, January 7, 2006
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These stories about Brokeback Mountain
These stories about Brokeback Mountain getting suddenly pulled from theatres [see below] in both Salt Lake City and Pulsbo, Washington, are terrific. I love it when the red brigades get all morally adamant and dig in their heels...it's good drama. Ang Lee's film moved into 215 new theatres yesterday (Friday, 1.6). If there are any new incidents happening anywhere else in the country, please advise.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:54 AM on Saturday, January 7, 2006
Friday, January 6, 2006
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"Brokeback Mountain opened in Portland,
"Brokeback Mountain opened in Portland, Maine, today," writes resident Chris Gray. "I got out of work at 9 pm in hopes of making a 9:40 pm show just five minutes away, and there was a line around the block. Sold out, as was the show before that. A friend called me from inside the theater before it began and said he feels like part of a big cultural sensation. Granted, this is a much more bohemian town than most, but we're hardly motivated enough to sell out a movie theater with such exclamation. I'm ready to bargain that I won't be able to...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:21 PM on Friday, January 6, 2006
46 comments
Straight-off-the-screen image from Warner Home Video's "director's cut" DVD of The Wild Bunch, released in 1997. 
From WHV's new double-disc Bunch that comes out Tuesday, 1.10...Read More
Crash Man
Cheaters
There are three serious things wrong with Warner Home Video's new double-disc "special edition" DVD of The Wild Bunch (on sale Tuesday, 1.10).
The wrongos may not seem like a big deal to some of you, but in my book they constitute a serious cheat on the part of Warner Home Video, enough for me to recommend that loyal Peckinpah fans should steer clear.
Straight-off-the-screen image from Warner Home Video's "director's cut" DVD of The Wild Bunch, released in 1997.
From WHV's new double-disc Bunch that comes out Tuesday, 1.10...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:33 PM on Friday, January 6, 2006
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"I live in Louisville, Kentucky,
"I live in Louisville, Kentucky, and have two friends who work at different movie theaters -- one being the city art house, the other an overblown gratuitous multiplex," says reader Erik Ainsworth . "Brokeback Mountain opened in both today and both friends have told me that it's been selling out all day. Louisville has a strong democratic/liberal base, but let me assure you that selling out all through an entire non-holiday Friday is a pretty rare thing. This movie may be well on the way to breaking through the barriers and becoming a serious hit."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:52 PM on Friday, January 6, 2006
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The reign of New York
The reign of New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther came to an end in the late '60s after he showed time and again that he was becoming more and more oblivious to what was hot and happening in the culture. (He scolded 1963's Dr. Strangelove for the disrespect shown to the government and the military, and he called Bonnie and Clyde "a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy that treats the hideous depredations of [the lead characters] as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cutups in Thoroughly Modern Millie.") I think Today critic Gene Shalit demonstrated...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 6:27 PM on Friday, January 6, 2006
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Yesterday the Screen Actors Guild
Yesterday the Screen Actors Guild listed the cast of Brokeback Mountain as possible recipients of the org's Best Cast (i.e., Ensemble) Award, and the names are Linda Cardellini (Heath Ledger's second-act girlfriend), Anna Faris (the gabby married wife in that dance-hall scene), Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Heath Ledger, Randy Quaid (Joe Aguirre, the gruff sheep owner) and Michelle Williams. Of course, the SAG rocket scientist who put this list together ignored Roberta Maxwell, who only gives the most deeply felt and devastating brief performance in the film (unlike Faris, who gives...what's the term?...the chirpiest?). Peter McRobbie, Jack Twist's snarly dad, and Kate Mara,...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:49 PM on Friday, January 6, 2006
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Last Holiday (Paramount, 1.13), another
Last Holiday (Paramount, 1.13), another go-girl Queen Latifah movie, is based on a 1950 Alec Guiness film of the same name. Directed by Henry Cass and written by J.B. Priestley, the Guiness version is about a mousey office worker who's told he hasn't much time to live and so he withdraws his savings, heads off to Europe and has the time of his life. And to judge by the the trailer, the Queen Latifah version uses the exact same set-up. [Note: the following is not a spoiler because the Guiness film is 55 years old, but somebody out there is going...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:05 PM on Friday, January 6, 2006
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If you're making a movie
If you're making a movie about something truly ugly and detestable, does that mean you shouldn't let the photography be too pretty? I said a week or so ago that Lajos Koltai's Fateless "is the most visually immaculate Holocaust death-camp drama ever made (does that sound right?)...situations of hunger, despair and the ashy aura of near-death have never been rendered with such remarkable pictorial finesse." And today N.Y. Times critic A.O. Scott is making more or less the same point: "The visual beauty of [the film] is unmistakable, and also a bit disconcerting...[there is verisimilitude] in Fateless and yet one finds oneself noticing,...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:32 PM on Friday, January 6, 2006
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I checked with New Line
I checked with New Line publicity and it's true: there will be an extra-long version of Terrence Malick's The New World on the DVD. That means longer than the 155-minute New York-and-LA version that closed last Tuesday night, and obviously much longer than the 137- or 138-minute version that will re-open on 1.20.06.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:09 PM on Friday, January 6, 2006
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Whoa...wait a minute. Hollywood Reporter
Whoa...wait a minute. Hollywood Reporter columnist Anne Thompson has written in her Risky Business column that "right now, Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain and George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck are leading the Oscar pack." In other words, Clooney's film has the second-highest Best Picture heat factor after Lee's. I'm not saying she's wrong and I realize that Clooney & Co. have done a brilliant job of promoting their drama about journalistic ethics and personal courage, but if GNAGL has in fact surged as high as Thompson claims, people -- Academy members -- are losing sight of the overall. They like...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:49 PM on Friday, January 6, 2006
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Remember that recent New York
Remember that recent New York Times piece by Peter Edidin about fickle typeface guys and graphic-arts designers that voiced a complaint about the allegedly incorrect use of Helvetica for a CBS logo seen in Good Night, and Good Luck? Well, it appears that Edidin's sources were wrong and GNAGL wasn't. The film's art director Christa Munro has clarified matters with designer Mark Simonson, who has passed along her comments on his website. The beef was that GNAGL takes place in 1954 but Helvetica wasn't invented until 1957. But Munro told Simonson that "Helvetica was not used in the film,...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:08 PM on Friday, January 6, 2006
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The Envelope's Tom O'Neil fears
The Envelope's Tom O'Neil fears that Jon Stewart may turn out to be "the worst Oscar host ever" when he takes the mike on the Kodak theatre stage on March 5th. O'Neil allows that Stewart has an "edgy defiant 'tude that attracts young hip TV viewers," but says he's "a comic assassin" whose tuxedoed material may be too withering and ascerbic and "has the potential of being a catas- trophe of epic Cecil B. DeMille proportions." As former House speaker Sam Rayburn used to say, "Aww, shit, sonny." Everyone knows the secret to being a good Oscar host is to maintain an...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:32 AM on Friday, January 6, 2006
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Either sports-movies-with-plots-you've-seen-17-times-before get you or
Either sports-movies-with-plots-you've-seen-17-times-before get you or they don't. They're almost a genre. But the good ones are always a bit different...they always pay off in some unforeseen way. I was afraid that Remember the Titans would make me nod off, but it didn't. (And yet...frankly...thinking back upon Remem- ber the Titans, I can't remember very much.) I thought Friday Night Lights would be the same old stuff, but it had a lot of good actors and that grainy-funky photography and had those bleak Odessa, Texas, backdrops and the team lost the big game at the finale...and it turned out to be fairly exceptional....Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:45 AM on Friday, January 6, 2006
Thursday, January 5, 2006
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"Jarhead has more in common
"Jarhead has more in common with Beckett, Sartre and Banuel than it does with Oliver Stone," in the view of director Sam Mendes. "In America, they assumed I was trying to make an Oliver Stone movie and that I'd failed." I don't think that was the problem. The problem was that nothing really happened. Not to sound too primitive, but that was it.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:16 PM on Thursday, January 5, 2006
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The 21st Santa Barbara International
The 21st Santa Barbara International Film Festival, which runs from February 2nd to 12th, will kick off with Oscar-winner Robert Towne's Ask The Dust starring Salma Hayek and Colin Farrell and finish with Jason Reitman's very sharp and funny Thank You For Smoking with Aaron Eckhardt, Maria Bello, Katie Holmes,Rob Lowe, William H. Macy and Robert Duvall. I don't recognize the films yet, but there will be discussions with and tributes paid to Towne, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Heath Ledger, Felicity Huffman, Maria Bello and Naomi Watts. The festival will also present the second annual "Attenborough Award for Excellence in Nature Filmmaking" to director...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:00 PM on Thursday, January 5, 2006
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Reader Mike Gebert just wrote
Reader Mike Gebert just wrote and said, "The Oscars could be hosted by Jenna Jameson for all I care, but if the Best Picture nominees are Capote, Brokeback Mountain, Crash, Good Night and Good Luck and Munich, then haven't the Oscars basically become the Independent Spirit Awards and completely severed any ties with the main American moviegoing public?" And I replied, "First of all, Munich probably won't make it. But otherwise...hello?...Brokeback Mountain is on its way to becoming a sizable popular hit (it hasn't even begun to be seen by mainstream America), and Crash connected very nicely before going to DVD. And Capote,...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:32 PM on Thursday, January 5, 2006
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Obviously the best thing about
Obviously the best thing about this teaser-trailer for M:I:3 (Mission: Impossible III for those who aren't into the brevity thing) is Phillip Seymour Hoffman's acting in the opening seconds of it. He takes some ordinary bad-guy-threatening-the-good-guy dialogue and really makes it sing. You believe him emotionally, and he puts some great English on the final line -- "Then I'm going to kill you right in front of her." Great actor! And the worst thing about it is Ving Rhames embracing star Tom Cruise at the very end and saying, "Welcome back, brother!" Of course, the overwhelming sentiment about Cruise in Ticket-Buying Land...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:49 AM on Thursday, January 5, 2006
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Now that I'm back in
Now that I'm back in L.A. and all the tech stuff (microphones, speaker phone, etc.) is plugged in and functioning, "Elsewhere Live" will make its post-holiday return this evening at 5 pm Pacific, 8 pm Eastern.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:28 AM on Thursday, January 5, 2006
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The Paul Haggis surge with
The Paul Haggis surge with this morning's DGA nomination (on top of the surge for Crash with the recent SAG and Producers Guild noms) is the big story of the morning, and let's give credit where credit is due. MCN's Gurus of Gold is about predicting popular industry support, and no one voted for Haggis except for Maxim critic and industry gadfly Pete Hammond. In fact, if it weren't Hammond's vote (he listed Haggis as #3 among his five most-likely Best Director nominees) Haggis wouldn't be on the Gurus of Gold countdown at all. All of these journo know-it-alls (myself included)...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:12 AM on Thursday, January 5, 2006
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Was I wrong about Munich's
Was I wrong about Munich's strength or is this just some corroded political DGA thing? Steven Spielberg has nabbed one of the five Best Director nominations from the Directors Guild of America, and David Poland, one of Munich's most die-hard supporters, is now apparently of two minds. Today's Hot Button is obviously a limited Munich pullback piece on one level, but he also says, incredibly, that "I still believe in my gut that if Munich gets nominated, the month following nominations will see enough people lining up behind the film in this good-not-Oscar-great season for it to win the Oscar." The reason...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:29 AM on Thursday, January 5, 2006
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I've listened and considered and
I've listened and considered and poked at the ground with a stick, and I think I understand what the Jon-Stewart-hosting-the- Oscar-show deal is going to be. The Blue Staters love his tweaky irreverence and are looking very much forward to his wicked bons mots, and the Reds aren't into him as much (a guy wrote me claiming that people between the coasts and outside the cities don't even know who he is) and won't watch as much as they would if someone they felt more comfortable with had been chosen to host. Am I suggesting that the Academy release photos of Stewart waiting...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:51 AM on Thursday, January 5, 2006
2 comments
Following this morning's Screen Actors
Following this morning's Screen Actors Guild nominations, it's looking more and more like the four Best Picture locks with the Academy are going to be Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash and Good Night, and Good Luck...because these four were nominated (along with the somewhat startling entry of Hustle and Flow...go Terrence Howard, Craig Brewer and Taraji P. Henson!) for the Best Ensemble Cast category -- SAG's equivalent of the Oscar for Best Picture. The likelihood factor kicks in when you consider that these same four films were nominated yesterday by the Producer's Guild for their Daryl F. Zanuck award. I'm guessing that Walk...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:25 AM on Thursday, January 5, 2006
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In any event, the Capote
In any event, the Capote team can finally start to exhale -- director Bennett Miller, screenwriter Dan Futterman, star-producer Philip Seymour Hoffman. George Clooney and his Good Night team can also, I think, give themselves a premature pat on the back for having (apparently, most likely) made the cut, and ditto Lion's Gate and the Crash director-writer Paul Haggis and co-writer Bobby Moresco. I'm not congratulating the Brokeback Mountain gang because their film has been locked for a Best Picture nom (and let's face it, seems headed right now for an almost certain victory in early March) for a good two or...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:15 AM on Thursday, January 5, 2006
Wednesday, January 4, 2006
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I wasn't expecting anything from
I wasn't expecting anything from Eli Roth's Hostel (Lion's Gate, 1.6) except gore, torture, sadism, et. al. In other words, I was expecting to sit through a typical deranged, dumb-assed horror film. But to my surprise, I didn't hate it. It's appalling but not stupid. I didn't like Roth's Cabin Fever that much, and this struck me as better...for what it was. Hostel is not a "good film" but is moderately watchable if you watch it with the right diseased attitude, which is to say the right kind of hip-movie-geek detachment. Roth says he doesn't see the representations of violence in his films...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 9:22 PM on Wednesday, January 4, 2006
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So Woody Allen has finished
So Woody Allen has finished his second British film -- a comedy called Scoop with Scarlet Johansson and Hugh Jackman. Next he'll do another British-produced film later this year, and then in early 2007 he'll shoot an English-language film in Spain using an international cast. I think it's great that across-the-pond financing is working out for Allen...good financially and creatively, I somehow sense. London culture was clearly one reason Match Point turned out so well. Here's hoping he'll shoot a couple of films in Paris also.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:48 PM on Wednesday, January 4, 2006
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The Producers Guild will choose
The Producers Guild will choose one of the following five groups of producers to receive their Daryl F. Zanuck award, to be presented on 1.22.06: Brokeback Mountain's Diana Ossana and James Schamus; Capote's Caroline Baron, William Vince and Michael Ohoven; Crash's Paul Haggis and Cathy Shulman; Good Night, and Good Luck's Grant Heslov, and Walk the Line's James Keach and Cathy Konrad. Conventional wisdom says that Producer's Guild nominations don't portend anything in terms of AMPAS Best Picture nominations, but I don't know. I think they might. Apart from its high ranking with the Movie City News critics picks, has Capote been singled...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:18 PM on Wednesday, January 4, 2006
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"I think with the Jon
"I think with the Jon Stewart pick the Oscar show producers are basically acknowledging that the ratings of the show will be pretty low because of the 'small movies' that will likely be be nominated," says a reader who didn't give his name. "Stewart is the Bush-bashing blue-state pick from the heart. He might keep some of those younger viewers that Chris got last year but will turn off older viewers for sure. I just told my red-state dad, who was going to watch in hopes of a Walk The Line sweep...but he's turned off now."
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:52 PM on Wednesday, January 4, 2006
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I've read this Sharon Waxman
I've read this Sharon Waxman story about Walk the Line star Joaquin Pheonix visiting Folsom Prison and singing songs and meeting inmates and basically...well, promoting the movie. And yet Waxman's story says the visit began "with an invitation from a religious outreach group called the Prison Fellowship, whose leaders felt that Walk the Line might inspire inmates with its story of redemption." Whatever...
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:34 PM on Wednesday, January 4, 2006
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The Envelope's Steve Pond is
The Envelope's Steve Pond is reporting that Daily Show host Jon Stewart has been hired to host the Oscar Awards telecast, which will air two months from now. Pond says the official announce- ment is expected Thursday morning. I still say a Luke Wilson- Vince Vaughn pairing would be a cooler thing, but Stewart...I don't know. I suspect he won't quite be as intoxicating as Steve Martin was, and I fear he might be another David Letterman. I've got a bit of a funny feeling about this, but I think I'll start watching The Daily Show again.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, January 4, 2006
77 comments
Outside the Laemmle Fairfax -- Tuesday, 1.2.06, 7:05 pm.
Respect This Movie
Respect This Movie
It's not a rumor and there's absolutely no question about it: Ridley Scott's 190- minute "extended cut" version of Kingdom of Heaven is a considerably better film than the 145-minute theatrical version that opened last May (and which came out on DVD on 10.11).
I saw it yesterday afternoon at the seedy-but-functioning Laemmle Fairfax in West Hollywood. The projection and sound were fine, but why is a must-see, calling-all- cars revival like this playing in a theatrical equivalent of a doghouse?
Outside the Laemmle Fairfax -- Tuesday, 1.2.06, 7:05 pm.
Stand-up critics...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:45 PM on Wednesday, January 4, 2006
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The hard-working professionals in charge
The hard-working professionals in charge of manning the defenses at Lunar Pages are fending off a hostile DDoS attack...screaming savages outside the gates of the fort...woo-woo-woo!...flaming arrows!...Ward Bond taking one in the chest...and that's why I haven't put very much up this morning.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:07 PM on Wednesday, January 4, 2006
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The Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America has given one of its five best Original Screenplay Award nominations to Judd Apatow and Steve Carell's The 40 year-Old Virgin....what? In the process they've blown off Craig Brewer's Hustle & Flow, Woody Allen's Match Point and Guillermo Ariagga's superb The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Does Judd Apatow host a WGA poker game or something? Is there some kind of "aww, Judd has worked so hard and he's a nice guy and needs a pat on the back" sentiment out there? The 40 Year-Old Virgin is, at best, an above-average relationship comedy during its second half, but...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:56 AM on Wednesday, January 4, 2006
Tuesday, January 3, 2006
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I sort of expected this,
I sort of expected this, but Radar magazine has folded. Kurt Andersen's withering review of the fledgling publication in a 6.6.05 issue of New York magazine sounded the death knell. It read, in part, that "Radar seeks to be one of those 'rare titles' that 'define a cultural moment by getting there first.' But if that's the goal, shouldn't it be more original?"
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 3:18 PM on Tuesday, January 3, 2006
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The Seattle Weekly's Sheila Benson
The Seattle Weekly's Sheila Benson and Chuck Wilson have agreed with me (and quite a few others, I suspect) about Roberta Maxwell having given a brief but stirring performance as Jake Gyllenhaal's mom in Brokeback Mountain . They've got her at at the top of their list of the year's finest blink-and-they're-gone performances ("The Two-Minute Oscars"). And right on for including Walk the Line's Dallas Roberts for his acting as record producer Sam Phillips, the guy who says "sorry" when he hears a few bars of Johnny Cash's rendition of a gospel tune but then goads him into playing 'Folsom Prison Blues"...and a...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:47 PM on Tuesday, January 3, 2006
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If anyone's stuck for Sundance
If anyone's stuck for Sundance lodgings, I think I've got some- thing that sounds good. Semi-spacious, not too expensive. Write me and we'll talk it over. Available for the entire span of the fes- tival...near Prospector Square. Respond hastily.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 2:18 PM on Tuesday, January 3, 2006
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As I understand it (i.e.,
As I understand it (i.e., as the newspaper ads proclaim), the initial 149-minute version of Terrence Malick's The New World is going to "close" late tonight -- Tuesday, January 3rd -- and a new shorter version is going to re-open on Friday, 1.20.06. So today is the last chance for anyone to see the longer, more meditative version of this half-awesome, half-not-so-awesome film. For all we know the 149-minute version will never again see the light of day. You never know...will the eccentric Malick forbid New World Home Video from releasing it? It's looking to me like more and more of a big...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:42 PM on Tuesday, January 3, 2006
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So why was Ridley Scott's
So why was Ridley Scott's "extended cut" of Kingdom of Heaven not sent out on DVD to Academy members or selected press? It's only showing at the Laemmle Fairfax...which isn't a very good theatre, by the way. It should have been booked into a better house in Westwood somewhere. If you're going to promote a big-budgeted film for year-end Academy Awards consideration (which is what showing the "extended cut" is apparently about), why do it in such a half-assed way?
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 1:14 PM on Tuesday, January 3, 2006
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Here's an L.A. Times public-opinion
Here's an L.A. Times public-opinion piece piece by John Horn and Scott Collins ("Moviegoers Speak Up") about what average folks feel about the moviegoing experience. It feel lazy, this thing. It adds nothing to what everyone's been hearing and repeating for a long time. Oh, and I have no respect for anyone who says they're "not bothered" by theatrical TV commercials. I'm speaking of one Frank Delgado, 41, who spoke for his wife Patty, 42, and children Emily, 7, and Ryan, 11. Delgado was interviewed at the Edwards Westpark 8 in Irvine...baaahh.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:41 PM on Tuesday, January 3, 2006
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I always thought once you
I always thought once you get a bit older and know who and what you are, watching a sensitively-made movie about a non-hetero romance is no big deal. So what's with Larry David's New York Times piece about how he can't quite roll with the idea of seeing Brokeback Mountain? I think it's supposed to be a satire about homophobia (right...?) but it also strikes me as a somewhat honest confessional. Larry David never inhabits another persona -- he's always himself. "I just know if I saw [Brokeback Mountain], the voice inside my head that delights in torturing me would...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:07 PM on Tuesday, January 3, 2006
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The Carpetbagger, the New York
The Carpetbagger, the New York Times Oscar blogger, says "negotiations are still under way with Whoopi Goldberg and Steve Martin to host the Oscars"....beehhrrrnnnng!! Whoopi's done well but nobody really wants her to host again, and Steve Martin has passed, apparently over a sense of general career lethargy and "Pantherphobia" in particular. And no one's talking about hiring Jon Stewart either, although he'd be pretty damn good. I say again that getting Wedding Crashers stars Owen Wilson and Vaughn to co-host would be brilliant. I was the first one to say it so I want a commission if Gil...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:45 AM on Tuesday, January 3, 2006
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We are suddenly in the
We are suddenly in the January Dog Days...the doldrums...the dead times. Not in terms of the various guild awards this week and planning for the Sundance Film Festival, etc. I mean because the new films screening are mostly bilge. Those scintillating days of year-end excitement are over. Hostel! Grandma's Boy!
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:08 AM on Tuesday, January 3, 2006
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An arrangement was made in
An arrangement was made in late November or thereabouts by an Oakland school teacher to have me come up for a discussion lecture thing in one of her classes during the first or second week in January. She left a message a week or two ago but I lost the number and I've forgotten her name...so now what?
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:54 AM on Tuesday, January 3, 2006
Sunday, January 1, 2006
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Ever since hearing about Paul
Ever since hearing about Paul Greengrass's Flight 93 (Universal), which is either wrapped or close-to-wrapping with an opening date set for 4.28.06, I've become more and more convinced that this is the 9/11 movie that will pack the strongest punch and be the best of all of them (including Oliver Stone's World Trade Center and those TV-movie projects). Pic is based on the hijacking of United Airlines flight #93 on 9.11.01, which led to some kind of confrontation between terrorists and passengers (as imagined in Neil Young's "Let's Roll"). This resulted in the plane crashing into a field in...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 8:21 PM on Sunday, January 1, 2006
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Here's another Oscar-hosting idea. What
Here's another Oscar-hosting idea. What offbeat comic team has performed the most consistently funny and inventive bits on previous Oscar telecasts and generally been the most out-there and in-front-of-the-crowd? Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. Now let's go one better...make the Oscars into a three-way gig between Stiller, Wilson and Wilson's Wedding Crashers partner Vince Vaughn. Are you kidding me? These guys would kill, and again they'd get the younger viewers. Think of it...The Wedding Crashers crash the Oscars! Think of the level of the writing! Think of the nerve element!
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:25 PM on Sunday, January 1, 2006
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So who's gonna host the
So who's gonna host the Oscars? No Chris, no Billy...Steve Martin has passed. (Hosting the Oscars would be a great way for Martin to recover from the debacle of The Pink Panther and Shopgirl and people thinking there must something wrong with him for having done those Cheaper by the Dozen movies.) Nathan Lane would be great, but he has a scheduling problem since he's in the completely-sold-out The Odd Couple on Broadway until April, and to do the Oscars he'd have to bag a lot of performances (at least a week's worth) because he'd want to come out to L.A. to rehearse,...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 5:05 PM on Sunday, January 1, 2006
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Someone who'd be great hosting
Someone who'd be great hosting the Oscars? Seriously great? In all serious-ity? Look to The Aristocrats. Or rather, look to the Zeus of The Aristocrats...the Big Man...the 4'11" Killer in the Baby-Blue Tuxedo...the potty-mouthed tornado...The Man They Could Not Hang...look to none other than the great Gilbert Gottfried. That would be such an insane choice...the world would be totally on its ass over the Oscars hiring a truly criminal mind...totally side- ways....or, as a fallback, book three Aristocrats as a triple-threat tag team -- Gottfried, Sarah Silverman and George Carlin. Or how about a George-and-Gracie thing...a smart-funny man and a smart-funny woman who...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 4:54 PM on Sunday, January 1, 2006
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Oh, yeah...I might as well
Oh, yeah...I might as well say "Happy New Year" to everyone. A lot of people said this to me last night, and I said it right back. And as far as it went, I meant it.
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:18 PM on Sunday, January 1, 2006
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Manhattan's Film Forum flim-flammed in
Manhattan's Film Forum flim-flammed in claiming that their just concluded projection of Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder in the original double-system NaturalVision form (i.e., two projec- tors synchronized to give maximum brightness, color and depth) would look better than "an inferior single- projector process" that was used in the early 1980s. Hell, I saw Dial M projected at the Eighth Street Playhouse in '81 or thereabouts, and it looked a little bit better then than it did at the Film Forum on New Year's Eve. All during last night's showing two thoughts kept repeating: (a) the 3-D is cool...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 12:10 PM on Sunday, January 1, 2006
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Another amusing New York Times
Another amusing New York Times piece, this one by Charles McGrath, saying that talking back to the screen is an allowable people's-movement thing if you happen to be watching really lousy films like Aeon Flux or really gruesome bloody ones like Wolf Creek. The best talk-back action I ever had in my life was during a viewing of Irwin Allen's The Swarm at the Quad Cinema on West 13th in 1978. I didn't say much myself, but the hoots and catcalls and groans got louder and louder as the film went on. The Swarm is a classic stinker. Michael Caine,...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:39 AM on Sunday, January 1, 2006
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Here's an amusing New York
Here's an amusing New York Times piece by Peter Edidin about typographers and graphic designers complaining about period movies (like George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck) using the wrong typeface for signs and such. It mentions a similar obsession that hairdressers probably have about the wrong styles used. I used to complain about movies using the wrong (or slightly fudged) period haircuts, but I stopped thinking about it. Jack Black and Adrien Brody's early 1930s haircuts in King Kong are way too hairy. Haircuts were quite short and tidy back then, but Black and Brody are wearing hair...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 11:17 AM on Sunday, January 1, 2006
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Depth of Feeling
Depth of Feeling
In real life Roberta Maxwell, the gifted New York actress who's quietly riveting as Jake Gyllenhaal's bereaved mom during a four- or five-minute scene near the finale of Brokeback Mountain, barely resembles her emotionally bruised, hardscrabble character.
Her face is pale and plain and vaguely trembling in Ang Lee's film, and with short, sort-of-mousey red hair. Very much a cowering but compassionate farmer's wife from Wyoming. But the woman who opened her apartment door at 6 pm on New Year's Eve was a pert and sophisticated New Yorker in glasses, her blondish-gray hair cut even shorter and her eyes the...Read More
posted by Jeffrey Wells at 10:00 AM on Sunday, January 1, 2006