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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

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42 Comments
Classic 3D Action Figures

If someone were to manufacture classic action figures made from 3D printing, I’d probably buy two or three. Cool characters like William Holden‘s Pike Bishop from The Wild Bunch, Tom Cruise‘s Vincent from Collateral, Jean Arthur‘s Bonnie Lee from Only Angels Have Wings, Lee Marvin‘s Walker from Point Blank, Joan Crawford’s Mildred Pierce, Cary Grant‘s Roger Thornhill from North by Northwest, James Cagney‘s Cody Jarret from White Heat, Gregory Peck‘s Tom Rath from The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Humphrey Bogart‘s Fred C. Dobbs from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Alan Ladd‘s Shane, Robert DeNiro‘s Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver or Neil McCauley from Heat, Marlon Brando‘s Rio from One-Eyed Jacks, etc.

Nothing tiny-sized, mind, but figures that stand a good eight or nine inches tall. Maybe even a foot. It’s a fairly common technology these days, but so far most of the manufacturers have aimed at the vanity/selfie market.

July 31, 2018 2:01 pmby Jeffrey Wells
46 Comments
First-Timers

Since 2015, the Directors Guild of America has been handing an award for Outstanding Direction of a First-Time Feature Film. There can only be five nominees, but already there are seven names in apparent contention:

Bradley Cooper, almost certainly, for his direction of A Star Is Born. Ari Aster for Hereditary. Paul Dano for Wildlife. Josie Rourke for Mary, Queens of Scots. Bo Burnham for Eighth Grade. Jonah Hill for Mid90s, and Boots Riley, most likely, for Sorry To Bother You.

The quota people will insist on nominating Rourke and Riley for representation reasons, and that’ll leave three slots. I’m guessing they’ll be taken by Cooper, Aster and Hill. It’s possible Hill or Aster will be bumped by Burnham…who knows?

Get Out‘s Jordan Peele won the 2017 award. The other four nominees were Geremy Jasper (Patti Cake$), William Oldroyd (Lady Macbeth), Taylor Sheridan (Wind River) and Aaron Sorkin (Molly’s Game).

July 31, 2018 1:36 pmby Jeffrey Wells
8 Comments
Singapore Sling

As far as I know or have heard, John Chu‘s Crazy Rich Asians (Warner Bros., 8.15) is the first major studio release with an all-Asian cast since 1993’s The Joy Luck Club. That in itself means that a certain portion of the critics will bend over backwards to give it a pass, given that representation is an important consideration these days. HE’s opinion — quality is quality, regardless of this or that stamp or attitude — remains unchanged. If a movie is great, it’s great. If it’s good, it’s good. And if it kinda sucks then it kinda sucks. The trailer makes it look like “Meet The Parents in Singapore,” with Constance Wu in the Ben Stiller role. A friend who’s seen it calls it a “very by-the-book romance. It didn’t feel like Meet the Parents but more like a very tame, politically correct version of Wedding Crashers. Nothing blazingly original except for the casting.”

July 31, 2018 12:46 pmby Jeffrey Wells

11 Comments
Flinty Hedren Vibes

There’s a link between Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds and “A Stop at Willoughby,” a noteworthy Twilight Zone episode that first aired on May 6, 1960. Patricia Donahue, who played Jane Williams, the cold-bitch wife of James Daly‘s Gart Williams, is a dead ringer for Tippi Hedren‘s Melanie Daniels, at least in terms of her business-appropriate apparel and hair style. On top of which Daniels and Williams have the same kind of dry, curt, somewhat chilly manner of speaking.

July 31, 2018 12:14 pmby Jeffrey Wells
29 Comments
Continued Mothballing of Rhett and Scarlett

The reputation of Gone With The Wind began its decline a little more than three years ago. The campaign began with former N.Y Post critic Lou Lumenick calling its “undeniably racist” attitudes no longer tolerable in our current socio-political climate. This was reiterated last August when the Orpheum theatre in Memphis said it would no longer show Gone With The Wind after receiving complaints about the 1939 film being “insensitive”, etc.

Now a Reddit piece offers further proof of how yellowed and moth-eaten Gone With The Wind is by the current calendar. With Margaret Mitchell‘s story spanning the years 1861 to 1873, David O. Selznick‘s film is now slightly closer to the Civil War era it portrays than to the present day. The film opened 78 and 1/2 years ago (i.e., December 1939) while the timeline of the film (which begins in April 1861) began just shy of 79 years before that event.

The author of the eight-day-old Reddit piece, “u/RespectMyAuthoriteh,” goes on to explain in detail how phenomenal the popularity of Gone With The Wind was, considering the intense competition from other films. Example #1: “From the ’20s to mid ’50s seven major Hollywood studios were grinding out 25 to 40 movies per annum,” etc. Example #2: “Gone With The Wind finally left theaters in late 1941. But it was such a huge hit, it was already resurrected for a revival run in March 1942, just three or four months later. It ran on Broadway for two years straight. That’s why GWTW‘s run is so impressive. There has never been anything like it before or since, with the possible exception of Star Wars.”

(More…)
July 31, 2018 11:00 amby Jeffrey Wells
27 Comments
Mid-Clinton Era

I was in a negative-attitude place with Robin Williams at the time of Joe Johnston’s Jumanji. I’d loved Williams’ genie in Aladdin but half-hated his overly precious acting in The Fisher King, and I really despised him in Hook, Toys and Mrs. Doubtfire. But man, I sure do miss that mid ’90s Williams now. He was around 43 when he made Jumanji, and had another seven years of good career traction ahead of him. Things started to go downhill after his performance in Chris Nolan‘s Insomnia (’02)

Last December’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was a huge hit, of course — $404 million domestic, $962 million worldwide. I avoided it like the plague, mostly due to the presence of Dwayne Johnson. So I’m in no position to compare it to Johnston’s 1995 original, which brought in $100 million domestic and $262 million with overseas revenue. I can report, however, that Detroit News critic Adam Graham wrote last December that Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle “makes the original Jumanji look like a towering cinematic achievement.”

The general consensus was that Johnston’s film was (a) far from classic but (b) not too bad. I remember loving David Alan Grier‘s performance as an easily flustered local cop.

July 31, 2018 8:02 amby Jeffrey Wells

39 Comments
Not Again

Upmarket screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson (The Girl on the Train, Men, Women & Children, Secretary) will pen a Paramount remake of Adrien Lyne‘s Indecent Proposal. Collider‘s Jeff Sneider reported it first.

The 1993 drama, adapted by Amy Holden Jones and costarring Robert Redford, Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson, was basically a chick flick that flirted with the double-edged fantasy of a woman being paid a million smackeroos for a single night of sex with a suave, good-looking billionaire. Lyne’s film won three Razzies (Worst Picture, Worst Supporting Actor, Worst Screenplay) but earned $266 million.

I saw Indecent Proposal once a quarter-century ago, and have never even flirted with a re-watch. I recall flinching in my theatre seat when Moore used the term “dream house” in a voice-over narration. But this clip is pleasing. The 81-year-old Redford was 55 during shooting, and seemed a good five years younger. Harrelson had hair back then, and looked around 24 or 25 — he was actually 31. The 30 year-old Moore was peaking (A Few Good Men, Disclosure), but her fortunes plummeted after Striptease (’96) and G.I. Jane (’97).

July 31, 2018 6:15 amby Jeffrey Wells
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