September 14, 2019 – Hollywood Elsewhere

Serious Film Buff Hotel

December 27, 2020September 14, 2019 by Jeffrey Wells

A couple of days ago Paul Schrader suggested the idea of a movie-themed hotel. Some kind of flush establishment, he meant, that would offer exact duplicates of famous hotel rooms from classic films — the climatic 2001 hotel suite, The Shining‘s room 237, the bare-bones Phoenix hotel room where Marion Crane and Sam Loomis met for a lunch-hour quickie, “cabin” 1 at the Bates Motel, Eve Kendall‘s room at Chicago’s Ambassador East, etc.

A cool notion, Schrader concluded. Then he mentioned that he googled it and found that “someone else already had the same idea.”

Overlook Hotel’s room 237.

Actually, not quite. The movie-themed hotel suites profiled in Claire Trageser‘s 2.14.18 Travel & Leisure article (“These Movie-themed Hotel Rooms Will Bring Your Favorite Fantasy to Life“) were actually created for the rube tourist crowd. She describes rooms inspired by Talledega Nights, Star Trek and Spongebob Squarepants. She also describes some Harry Potter wizard chambers and Lord Vader‘s quarters (with a kid’s bunk bed?). You wouldn’t have to be an Okie from Muskogee to enjoy one of these abodes, but it would probably help.

In short, a serious film-theme hotel doesn’t exist.

If and when it ever happens, it should be located in the Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Ave. area. Hollywood Elsewhere would gladly consult on the particulars for a reasonable month-to-month fee. But it probably won’t happen because while the boobs may like movie-themed rooms, their prime concern is staying somewhere slick and swanky, and sometimes the concept would argue with that.

Which would mean no Touch of Evil motel room (i.e., the one in which poor Janet Leigh is taunted and almost raped by gang members) and no Psycho rooms (either the Bates motel or the Phoenix flophouse). And no replica of the cheap Times Square hotel where Jon Voight stayed until his money ran out. And no Judy Barton hotel room from Vertigo with green neon glaring through the window. Only deluxe accommodations!

Latest Actor, Supporting Actor Rankings

September 14, 2019September 14, 2019 by Jeffrey Wells

Nobody knows what will happen with DeNiro and The Irishman, but right now it seems likely that Adam Driver and Joaquin Phoenix will snag a good portion of the prestigious critics awards for Best Actor, including the NYFCC and the LAFCA foodie awards.

People generally vote for Oscar nominees they feel close to, whose journey they understand, or whom they simply like the most. Under these terms Driver would be the favorite, but you never know.

Right now the supporting lineup is composed of Brad Pitt, Willem Dafoe, Jamie Foxx, Al Pacino and possibly Anthony Hopkins. The entire civilized world wants Cliff Booth to win. The second strongest contender is probably Dafoe, who was nominated last year for his Vincent Van Gogh and the year before that for the motel manager guy in The Florida Project. And Foxx sounds like a definite keeper.

Escape Clause

September 14, 2019September 14, 2019 by Jeffrey Wells

If I found myself in the position of Daniel Kaluuya‘s Slim and Jodie Turner-Smith‘s Queen, I would immediately duck into a friend’s attic or basement and stay there for three or four days until things cool down. I would then somehow persuade the same friend to drive us out of town and across the border into Canada. We would take a series of bus trips across Canada and into Alaska, and hide out in Nome or Fairbanks.

And then, weeks later, we’d get on a plane to Seoul. Or maybe Hanoi. Or Bangkok. Then we’d try to figure things out. We could become characters in a Nicholas Winding Refn movie.

We would basically make every possible effort to disappear. No Bonnie and Clyde shit, no speeding down rural roads, no attracting attention, no tragic finale, no nothin’.

“Hustlers” Mystery

September 16, 2019September 14, 2019 by Jeffrey Wells

The Goldfinch, which completely blows and has totally died at the box-office, got a B CinemaScore — a moderately weak (if not quite fatal) grade. And yet Hustlers, which the Toronto wokesters and JLo worshippers adored, and which made $13M yesterday and is projected to finish the weekend with $32M, got a B minus?

Is there something screwy with CinemaScore’s methodology? Or on some level are Joe and Jane Popcorn not as enthusiastic about the film as the Toronto crowd was? Obviously the Hustlers grade represents a problem of some kind.

Strange Creature

September 14, 2019September 14, 2019 by Jeffrey Wells

Glenn Strange had the wrong kind of face to play the Frankenstein monster. Whatever it was that Boris Karloff had, Strange did without. Look at his expression in this cake-cutting photo with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. There’s something forlorn and downcast in his features — he almost looks like Peter Fonda — he could be a Boy Scout master or a gas-station mechanic in upper New York State. Bela Lugosi was a lousy-ass Frankenstein monster also. Ditto Christopher Lee and Robert De Niro. There was only one who mattered.