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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.”
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(Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Super 8)

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(Down and Dirty Pictures Easy Riders, Raging Bulls)

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(The Revenant, Birdman, Amores Perros)

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“Jeffrey Wells isn’t kidding around. Well, he does kid around, but mostly he just loves movies.”
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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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8 Comments
Soderbergh’s Sense of Humor

I somehow missed the recent intel about Steven Soderbergh‘s The Laundromat being a comedy. Okay, but hold a sec. Soderbergh might have made a quietly hilarious satire in his usual underplayed or deadpan sense (I’ve been told that the “s” word definitely applies), but he doesn’t do hah-hah comedy. Or at least, not the bottom-feeder kind. He never has. This doesn’t mean his comic material or attitude isn’t funny — it’s just not aimed at your Melissa McCarthy megaplex crowd.

Example: Out of Sight was often funny as shit, but it never put on a red Clarabelle the Clown nose and squirted seltzer water. Remember when Dennis Farina chided Michael Keaton‘s Ray Nicolette for wearing an FBI T-shirt — “Hey, Ray, do you have a T-shirt that says ‘undercover‘?” I laughed at that line for days but it probably went over a lot of heads. Remember when that fat guy slipped on the stairs and accidentally shot himself in the head? A shocking moment, but kind of “funny” in a dry Soderberghian way.


Meryl Streep as Ellen Martin in Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat.

Wiki boilerplate: “Plot follows Ellen Martin (Meryl Streep), whose dream vacation takes a wrong turn and leads her down a rabbit hole of shady dealings that can all be traced to one Panama City law firm, run by seductive partners Jürgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Ramón Fonseca (Antonio Banderas).

“She soon learns that her minor predicament is only a drop in the bucket, one of millions of files linking an off-shore tax scheme to the world’s richest and most powerful political leaders.”

The titular term refers to Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider. The umbrella term for the scandal was and is the Panama papers.

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August 1, 2019 3:41 pmby Jeffrey Wells
61 Comments
World War I “Birdman” Action

Update: In the midst of horrific World War I battle, a British soldier is ordered to deliver a message to commanders of a neighboring battalion to call off a planned attack. If the message isn’t delivered, 1600 men will die. (Remember Mark Lee‘s Archy Hamilton in Gallipoli? Also a messenger.) The above-mentioned soldier is so ordered, apparently, because his brother is a member of this battalion. Do I understand no one else is willing to deliver the message because the mission seems suicidal? But since when is soldiering a matter of willingness? If I was an officer looking to save 1600 men I would send three messengers, which would increase the odds of at least one getting through.

Previous: A trailer for Sam Mendes‘ 1917 (Universal 12.25), which has been described as “Birdman meets the carnage of World War I”, surfaced today.

Co-written by Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, 1917 will follow “two young soldiers” — George MacKay‘s Schofield and Dean-Charles Chapman‘s “Blake” — as they struggle to survive the bullets, shrapnel and generally harsh conditions. Costarring Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Madden and Andrew Scott.

Pic has allegedly been shot as one long continuous take by the great Roger Deakins, hence the Birdman analogy. 1:30 pm Update: Apparently not so much.

Filming began on 4.1.19, and ended only about ten days ago, I’ve read. Filming mostly happened in Wiltshire, Hankley Common and Govan, Scotland, as well as at Shepperton Studios.

The purpose of the trailer, obviously, is to say “hey, Academy members and award-season handicappers, don’t forget that we’ll be in the Best Picture race as much as anyone else, even though we won’t open until Christmas….save the date!”

Mendes has been on hiatus from the auteurist heavy-hitter award-seeking game for just over a decade. Revolutionary Road (’08) was his last would-be Best Picture contender. (I’m sorry but Away We Go didn’t count.) Twice over the last seven years Mendes became a Bond director for hire — on Skyfall (’12) and then Spectre (’15).

Stanley Kubrick‘s Paths of Glory, which opened 62 years ago, is still the high-water mark for intense, you-are-there World War I verisimiitude. 1917 will have to beat Kubrick’s attack-on-the-anthill sequence, and if it doesn’t it’ll be rough sledding. I’m just being honest.

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August 1, 2019 7:10 amby Jeffrey Wells
16 Comments
Durango to Telluride Share

I feel frustrated and resentful every time I arrange Los Angeles-to-Telluride travel. The 46th annual festival runs from Friday, 8.30 thru Monday, 9.2. I always fly to Durango, but the cost of getting from Durango-LaPlata Airport to Telluride always seems excessive. There’s no economical shuttle option. The best four-day rental car deal for a midsize four-door (including minimal insurance and gas, leaving from Durango on the afternoon of Thursday, 8.29) is around $350, and around $400 if your rental time stretches to four and a half days.

You’re basically paying $175 to $200 to drive from Durango to Telluride and then another $175 to $200 to drive back. A distance of 72.94 miles that takes 153 minutes. Once in Telluride the rental car just sits in a parking lot until you leave. I’m sorry but I get irritable when overcharged.

For a Durango-to-Telluride round trip, the private shuttle services (Telluride.com, Buckhorn Limousine, Telluride Express, even Uber) charge $550 to $600 round-trip, or more. One service claims to offer a $95 one-way fee, but that’s only if your shuttle is booked with at least four other passengers. Gougers, all. Drooling dog saliva.

The best HE option would be to share car rental and gas costs with a Telluride pass holder who’s also flying to Durango on Thursday, 8.29. So I’m asking here and now if a person or two would like to split expenses. Or, reversing the situation, if you already have a Durango car rental how about accepting a passenger who will share costs?

Last year I drove all the way from Los Angeles to Telluride and back with Variety‘s Chris Willman. A fun, scenic trip. Visited Monument Valley and everything. Sasha Stone is also driving this year with her usual troupe (two friends and her two dogs).

August 1, 2019 6:33 amby Jeffrey Wells

93 Comments
Forget Hinterland Bumblefucks, Nominate Michelle Obama

There are no blazing rockstars among the Democratic contenders. Well, there’s Pete Buttigieg but mule-headed black voters are determined to shut him down. So we’re left with Typewriter Joe, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and/or Kamala Harris. Biden would probably beat Trump in the general (hoping!), but what a deflating, depressing thing that would be. Who would honestly rejoice about electing a nearly-80-year-old, indebted-to-yesteryear gaffe machine?

Michael Moore is right: Michelle Obama would destroy Donald Trump. She could save this country from itself, and she won’t even consider it. A shame.

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August 1, 2019 12:03 amby Jeffrey Wells
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