Home
Subscribe
Archives
About
Contact
Twitter
Facebook
Search
Hollywood Elsewhere - Movie news and opinions by Jeffrey Wells

“There’s Hollywood Elsewhere and then there’s everything else. It’s your neighborhood dive where you get the ugly truth, a good laugh and a damn good scotch.”
–JJ Abrams
(Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Super 8)

“Smart, reliable and way ahead of the curve … a must and invaluable read.”
–Peter Biskind
(Down and Dirty Pictures Easy Riders, Raging Bulls)

“He writes with an element that any good filmmaker employs and any moviegoer uses to fully appreciate the art of film – the heart.”
–Alejandro G. Inarritu
(The Revenant, Birdman, Amores Perros)

“Nothing comes close to HE for truthfulness, audacity, and one-eyed passion and insight.”
–Phillip Noyce
(Salt, Clear and Present Danger, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Dead Calm)

“A rarity and a gem … Hollywood Elsewhere is the first thing I go to every morning.”
–Ann Hornaday
Washington Post

“Jeffrey Wells isn’t kidding around. Well, he does kid around, but mostly he just loves movies.”
–Cameron Crowe
(Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky)

“In a world of insincere blurbs and fluff pieces, Jeff has a truly personal voice and tells it like it is. Exactly like it is, like it or not.”
–Guillermo del Toro
(Pan’s Labyrinth, Cronos, Hellboy)

“It’s clearly apparent he doesn’t give a shit what the Powers that Be think, and that’s a good thing.”
–Jonathan Hensleigh
Director (The Punisher), Writer (Armageddon, The Rock)

“So when I said I’d like to leave my cowboy hat there, I was obviously saying (in my head at least) that I’d be back to stay the following year … simple and quite clear all around.”
–Jeffrey Wells, HE, January ’09

“If you’re in a movie that doesn’t work, game over and adios muchachos — no amount of star-charisma can save it.”
–Jeffrey Wells, HE

  • Home
  • Subscribe
  • Archives
  • About
  • Contact
  • Merch
  • He Plus
Follow @wellshwood
10 Comments
Crawford and Spoto

I’ll always admire Donald Spoto, particularly because of “The Dark Side of Genius,” his 1983 Alfred Hitchcock biography. But I resolved to stop buying after reading “High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly,” which told me that Spoto had become an ally and protector of his subjects’ reputations. Now it’s being claimed that his Joan Crawford biography, called “Possessed,” continues in this vein.

As an Amazon.com reviewer puts it, “Joan Crawford biographies seem to fall roughly into three categories: (1) Utterly Junky; (2) Interesting Curios with Revealing New Biographical and Career Information; and (3) Respectable Tomes that Defend Joan and Primarily Gather Info from Already-Published Sources. Donald Spoto’s ‘Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford‘ falls into the latter category.”

“Spoto, who did good work on Hitchcock decades ago and has since become a rolling mill of star bios, tries to cleanse [Crawford’s] portrait,” writes New Yorker critic David Denby, “separating rumor from fact, alleged hysteria from garden-variety unhappiness.

“Must we hate Crawford? Must we think about Crawford at all? Few men go weak in the knees dreaming about her, as they might with Lana Turner or Rita Hayworth; nor is she the kind of woman men could imagine bantering with blissfully as a lover, as they might with Katharine Hepburn or Barbara Stanwyck. She’s the date who raises your blood pressure, not your libido.

“Yet if Joan Crawford is not very likable she would, in a just world, be widely honored for a series of fiercely effective performances and for her emblematic quality as a twentieth-century woman. She was no feminist, but, willy-nilly, she got caught up in the dilemmas of strong women who are also the kind of highly sexual women who need men.

“In her more than eighty movies, she played flappers, working girls, adulteresses, matrons, and, most notably, the anguished heroines of melodrama. Any call for justice to Joan Crawford, however, runs into a dead end: the image of her as a madwoman is too juicily entertaining to give up.

“In 1978, the year after Crawford died, her estranged and disinherited adopted daughter Christina, a failed actress, produced a venomous portrait, “Mommie Dearest,” which alleged both physical abuse and a series of bizarre tests and punishments. In 1981 the director Frank Perry made the sensationally vindictive movie of the same title in which Faye Dunaway, her career as a star fading, grabbed at a chance for glory, or at least notoriety, by launching herself into a spangled caricature of Crawford.

“The collective memory of Crawford quickly hardened into the remorselessness of camp.”

Postscript: I had heard stories all my life about Grace Kelly, the hottest blonde in Hollywood history, having had affairs with almost all of her leading men, and then along came party-pooper Spoto, plausibly debunking most of them. But I don’t want truth and realism — I want magic! I want to hear stories about Gary Cooper‘s portable dressing room rocking with passion during the shooting of High Noon. I know now that the tireless and scrupulous Spoto is averse to this sort of thing, and that’s fine, but that’s also why I’m off the boat.

December 29, 2010 6:25 amby Jeffrey Wells
23 Comments
Counting

Over 13,000 signatures — mine included — have thus far protested the incarceration of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi. HE readers are requested to join the band. Do it.

December 28, 2010 8:19 pmby Jeffrey Wells
3 Comments
40 Hours

December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse Angle 2 from Michael Black on Vimeo.

December 28, 2010 8:17 pmby Jeffrey Wells

10 Comments
McCabe & Friends

Robert Altman‘s McCabe and Mrs. Miller (’71) was among the 25 films added today by the The National Film Registry to its list of “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” films. My favorite scene is when Julie Christie explains the whore business to Warren Beatty. Closing line: “Now I haven’t got a lot of time to sit around and talk to a man who’s too dumb to see a good proposition when it’s put to him. Do we make a deal or don’t we?”

Also named were Alan Pakula‘s All The President’s Men, John Badham‘s Saturday Night Fever, William Friedkin‘s The Exorcist, Blake Edwards‘ The Pink Panther, the Zucker brothers’ Airplane! and John Huston‘s Let There Be Light.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller “was originally called The Presbyterian Church Wager,” says the Wiki page, “after a bet placed among the church’s few attendees about whether McCabe would survive his refusal of the offer to sell his property. Altman reported that an official in the Presbyterian Church called Warner Brothers to complain about having their church mentioned in context of a film about brothels and gambling. The complaint prompted a name change to John McCabe, but it was further changed and released as McCabe & Mrs Miller.”

December 28, 2010 2:30 pmby Jeffrey Wells
15 Comments
Last Laps

The seven-day period between Christmas and January 2nd is the flattest time of the year. No screenings, nothing going. You can hear a pin drop. And then comes New Year’s Eve (which I always ignore with a passion) and then another blank-out on January 1st, and then the Producers Guild and Writers Guild nominees on January 4th, and then the DGA noms on January 10th. But all this time it gets a little bit harder to write with any feeling about the awards race because people are getting sick of it by this time. They need a break already.

So you focus on January openings, of course, and sometimes that’s fine. Plus whatever you can get into regarding Sundance. And then Sundance finally happens (I’m leaving on the 18th) and you’re alive again big-time. Nine 18-hour hammer days in a row. And then comes the Santa Barbara Film Festival, which lasts until the 4th or 5th of February. And then it’s back into the Oscar race for another 20-something days. And that’s okay because at least it’s ending. And then finally a new slate.

December 28, 2010 12:34 pmby Jeffrey Wells
22 Comments
"Stutter Island"

Forbes.com’s Bill McCuddy has passed along his Top Ten of 2010:

10. True Grit –“I loved every slow, drawn-out, bourbon-infused, sepia-filled breath of this movie.”

9. The King’s Speech — “‘Stutter Island’ feels a little stuffy and claustrophobic in places because it’s basically a stage play, but a brilliant one because Colin Firth‘s “Bertie,” an heir to the throne who can’t rule a complete sentence, feels like the world is caving in on him.

8. Winters Bone — “Moral: If you’re going to make crystal meth, do it in the city. Not the country. The term dysfunctional family saw this movie and tweeted ‘WTF!?'”

7. Rabbit Hole — “Nicole Kidman found a grief stricken role that didn’t require her to wrinkle her forehead.”

6. Waiting For Superman — “The best documentary of the year because it turns into a taut thriller late in the second act.

5. Greenberg — “Why did everyone hate this? Because Ben Stiller is unlikable in the title role? Then explain The Social Network to me. Bonus: Costar Greta Gerwig is a real star in the making.”

4. The Social Network — “This year I discovered it’s possible to like a movie more than anyone in it. Like a party you go to and don’t really know anyone but still have a good time. David Fincher‘s obnoxious gala is one of the best rides of the year. And the Winklevii is a really good actor.”

3. The Ghost Writer — “I can watch Ewan McGregor in anything but this clever thriller has other great assets including the best non-Bond role of Pierce Brosnan‘s career.”

2. Black Swan — “I don’t often audibly gasp at the end of a movie. Natalie Portman gave the performance of the year in the dramatic movie of the year. But on this list, it wasn’t a drama that was my number one.

1. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World — “The most fun I had at the movies this year, period. Game over.”

December 28, 2010 12:21 pmby Jeffrey Wells

16 Comments
Purity of Jail

Paul Haggis, Sean Penn and Harvey Weinstein “have joined forces with British-Iranian actress and Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) spokesperson Nazanin Boniadi to condemn the harsh sentence imposed on Iranian film director Jafar Panahi,” a statement reads. Panahi was recently sentenced to six years of Iranian prison confinement plus a 20-year ban on filmmaking for “propaganda against the state.”

Why, I’m asking myself, are Haggis, Penn and Weinstein standing alone? Each and every filmmaker the world over needs to co-sign this petition. It should have 5,000 signatures. Could it be that some are having difficulty rousing themselves into full protest mode over this matter? Perhaps because they can’t relate to the motives of a filmmaker who, as I suggested on 12.20, appears to be more in love with the idea of matryrdom than the necessity of creation?

Those looking to urge Iranian authorities to overturn Panahi’s sentence need to visit www.amnestyusa.org.

December 28, 2010 10:25 amby Jeffrey Wells
7 Comments
Exactly

Asked by Vulture to submit a one-sentence review of True Grit, Steve Heisler wrote the following yesterday at 12:02pm: “Grarrarggra garrgrgargarr garrg ggrggrg agrrargar arggg grgg.”

December 28, 2010 10:16 amby Jeffrey Wells
4 Comments
Black Swan Coattails

I looked at this trailer for Don Roos‘ The Other Woman and went, “Wait, wait…didn’t I see this last year sometime?” I checked and, sure enough, I saw it 15 months ago at the Toronto Film Festival. IFC Films will make this downish drama available on demand four days hence (1.1.11) before opening it theatrically on 2.4.11.

December 28, 2010 10:08 amby Jeffrey Wells

10 Comments
Makes It Harder

The Sundance Film Festival team is only just starting to officially inform journalists that their press credentials have been approved. Does anyone else find this just a teeny bit inconsiderate on the festival’s part? Hearing today, for example, would afford a little more than three weeks advance notice. Same deal last year: I wasn’t notified that my 2010 press credentials were good until 1.4.10, or about 17 days before that festival began.

Within the last month I’ve spoken to three journalists who felt they had to wait on finding accomodations until they knew for sure. But it’s hard to find a well-situated place to stay at decent rates at this stage. Cannes and Toronto don’t wait this long to inform.

December 28, 2010 9:13 amby Jeffrey Wells
38 Comments
Among 2011's Worst

Your Highness won’t Norbit-ize Natalie Portman‘s Oscar hopes since it comes out post-Oscar (i.e., 4.8.11). But to call this latest trailer “not funny” isn’t the half of it. The blase throwaway tone doesn’t just make me cringe and convulse. It makes me dream about fantasy paybacks. In a word, retribution.

Portman, James Franco and Zooey Deschanel get a pass because…well, they just do. But I’d be okay with the careers of Danny McBride and director David Gordon Green being hurt by this. This trailer completely destroys all the hip-cool vibes created by Pineapple Express.

Notice how Portman gets to perform all the standard 2010 female-action-star stuff in a medieval guise — punch, kickbox, shoot arrows (as Cate Blanchett did in Robin Hood) — but she also peels down to a thong bikini in one swimming hole scene. This is basically a case of Portman and her reps (a) demanding and getting all the socio-political power demonstrations afforded a major female star when costarring in a throwaway idiot-costume comedy, or (b) elevating the 2010 industry horseshit factor to level 12. (I would have been okay, incidentally, with Olivia de Havilland having a thong-bikini scene in Michael Curtiz‘s Robin Hood…no complaints at all.)

Remember how it was Kevin Costner who performed the au natural swimming-hole scene in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves and not Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio? Imagine the humor from McBride taking a dip in a pond and Portman watching nearby from a hidden place, checking out his pot belly and pimply ass and man-boobs and going “ahh, my heart goes pitty-pat!”

December 28, 2010 8:32 amby Jeffrey Wells
14 Comments
Fundamentalist Scum

This recently-posted teaser for Kevin Smith’s Red State is, for me, great impressionist marketing. It gives you nothing of the basic drill (i.e., three teenage kids suckered into a spider’s web by hellfire-and-brimstone religious wackos) but that’s fine. Obviously the mood and rhythms seem radically different than Smith’s usual boilerplate style. And yet Smith cut it, and the dp is David Klein (Zack and Miri Make a Porno).

The “name” costars are John Goodman, Michael Parks, Melissa Leo and Kevin Pollak.

December 28, 2010 6:55 amby Jeffrey Wells

Page 3 of 20« First...«2345»1020...Last »
  • Full Ferrara
    Full Ferrara
    December 5, 2020

    It’s been 17 years since I last saw Rafi Pitts‘ Abel Ferrara: Not Guilty. The kids and I caught it...

    More »
  • Soderbergh’s Atlantic Crossing
    Soderbergh’s Atlantic Crossing
    December 3, 2020

    Let Them All Talk (HBO Max, 12.10) is a smart, reasonably engrossing, better-than-mezzo-mezzo character study that largely takes place aboard...

    More »
  • Basic Truth About “Soul”
    Basic Truth About “Soul”
    November 29, 2020

    Earlier this month I wrote that “if there’s been one steady-drumbeat message that has thundered across the Twitterverse for several...

    More »
  • Back From The Dead
    Back From The Dead
    December 2, 2020

    From “How Francis Ford Coppola Got Pulled Back In to Make The Godfather, Coda“, a 12.2.20 N.Y. Times piece by...

    More »
  • “Some Like It Hot” Is A Four-Song Musical
    “Some Like It Hot” Is A Four-Song Musical
    December 2, 2020

    In yesterday’s “Evolving Prom Thread” I mentioned that Some Like It Hot is one of my favorite musicals. Obviously it’s...

    More »
  • “Good Terminator” vs. Bitter, Derelict Mom
    “Good Terminator” vs. Bitter, Derelict Mom
    October 14, 2020

    To judge by this trailer, Ron Howard‘s Hillbilly Elegy (Netflix, 11.24) is a highly charged soap opera about domestic family...

    More »

© 2004-2018 Hollywood-elsewhere.com / All rights reserved.