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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.”
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(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.”
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(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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7 Comments
Clean-Ups

The Sapphires director Wayne Blair at yesterday’s Telluride Film Festival patron picnic. A healthy portion of his film, which I caught in Cannes, “is cool, snappy, rousing, well-cut and enormously likable,” I said on 5.20. “And dancable.”

(l. to r.) Also at yesterday’s brunch: Ezra Scott, N.Y. Times critic A.O. Scott, Focus Features honcho James Schamus, Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson.
August 31, 2012 9:52 pmby Jeffrey Wells
11 Comments
Another Road Tap

Walter Salles‘ On The Road “is masterful and rich and lusty, meditative and sensual and adventurous and lamenting all at once. It has Bernardo Bertolucci‘s ‘nostalgia for the present’ except the present is 1949 to 1951 — it feels completely alive in that time. No hazy gauze, no bop nostalgia. Beautifully shot and cut, excitingly performed and deeply felt.

“It’s much, much better than I thought it would be given the long shoot and…I forget how long it’s been in post but it feels like ages. It’s so full of life and serene and mirthful in so many different ways. I was stirred and delighted and never less than fully engrossed as I watched it, and it’s great to finally run into a film that really hits it, and then hits it again and again.” — from a 5.23.12 Cannes Film Festival posting.

August 31, 2012 9:40 pmby Jeffrey Wells
32 Comments
Argo Wins & Satisfies But…

We gondola-ed down from the Argo screening at the top of the mountain, but it took a while and by the time we got to the Masons theatre, the 4:30 pm screening of Dror Moreh‘s The Gatekeepers — one of the big buzz films so far — was sold out and locked down. So we sauntered over to a coffee cafe so I could write a little something about Argo.

Ben Affleck‘s period drama, set during the 1979 and ’80 Iran hostage crisis and based on fact, is a partly light-hearted, partly riveting drama about a kind of Mission Impossible scam about smuggling six American foreign-service workers who had taken shelter in Tehran’s Canadian embassy after the storming of the U.S. embassy and the taking of hostages.

An enterprising CIA guy named Tony Mendez (Affleck) devises a plan to hoodwink Iranian officials into believing that these six are filmmakers looking to use Iranian locations for a cheesy-sounding sci-fi film called Argo that is, of course, fake.

Argo starts out as a somber docu-drama, and then shifts into a kind of flip jocular vein (especially with the appearance of John Goodman and Alan Arkin as a couple of exploitation producers who assist Afleck in creating the backstory for the phony film), and then somber again and then sad and then revved again and then really, really tense.

In short, it’s smart and absorbing for first two-thirds to three-quarters, but it’s the suspenseful final act that brings it home.

Argo delivers superb period detail all the way through — technology, cars, clothes, haircuts, everything.

Affleck’s direction is clean and concise and doesn’t waste time or footage. The screenplay by Chris Terrio is aces. And the cast hits nothing but true notes — Affleck as Mendez, Bryan Cranston as his CIA boss, Arkin and Goodman as the producers, Victor Garber as Iran’s Canadian ambassador who protected the six when they were hiding in his residence, and Kyle Chandler as the late Hamilton Jordan, Jimmy Carter‘s chief of staff.

Somebody tweeted “instant Best Picture contender!” after it was over. Really? Brilliantly suspenseful as the last act is, Argo, boiled down, is just a clever, well-jiggered caper film. Hats off but why does it have to be a Best Picture contender? A story well told and highly suspenseful, for sure, but there’s no thematic undertow, no metaphor tug — nothing more than “this is what really happened, and wasn’t it cool that the CIA pulled this off?” Yes, it was cool…but Best Picture contenders are about common chords and universality and shared emotional discovery, and that is not what Argo is up to.

Well, somewhat at the end because it’s nice to see a tough situation resolved through ingenuity and guts, but it’s not really a Best Picture contender for the ages. It’s a good, smart, satisfying adult thriller — why isn’t that enough?

August 31, 2012 2:34 pmby Jeffrey Wells

16 Comments
Telluride Patron’s Brunch

Argo director-costar Ben Affleck, Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy — Friday, 11:40 am.

Frances Ha star/cowriter Greta Gerwig, director/cowriter Noah Baumbach — Friday, 11:55 am.

Leonard Maltin, Alexander Payne.
August 31, 2012 10:52 amby Jeffrey Wells
44 Comments
Affleck on To The Wonder, Malick

My brief chat with Argo director-costar Ben Affleck at today’s Telluride Film Festival patron’s brunch was mostly about Terrence Malick‘s To The Wonder, in which Affleck “stars,” so to speak. A friend who’s seen Malick’s film tells me Affleck has been all but cut out of it, just as Adrien Brody was edited out of Malick’s The Thin Red Line and Sean Penn‘s role was reduced to almost nothing in The Tree of Life.

In any event I asked Affleck if he’s seen To The Wonder and he said, “Yes, I’ve seen it”….(beat) (beat) (beat)…”and it makes The Tree of Life look like Transformers.” I didn’t take notes so the remainder of his comments are only approximately recalled, but he basically said it’s not a commercial film, that it’s the kind of thing that’s mainly for critics, and that when he’s directing a film “I’m always thinking about how to make this aspect completely clear and make this aspect understandable, and Malick doesn’t give a damn about any of that” and that his basic thing is to follow the butterfly, so to speak.

Jett and I are about to head up to the Chuck Jones theatre to see Argo, which Affleck will introduce, at 2 pm. He’ll be doing a q & a following tomorrow’s 1 pm screening.

August 31, 2012 10:37 amby Jeffrey Wells
30 Comments
You Don’t Say?

At a dinner party last night I listened to the views of a hardcore Obama hater, an older woman who was otherwise perfectly agreeable. I say “hardcore” because she not only embraces the nonsensical view that we’re currently worse off than we were four years ago (when the country was teetering on the brink of financial catastrophe, caused entirely by a Republican-enabled Wall Street gangsta free-for-all), but she’s also a bit of a birther. Sorry, but I rarely come into first-hand contact with these people. They’re out there by the millions, I realize. I had to suppress the urge.

August 31, 2012 5:34 amby Jeffrey Wells

10 Comments
Low Whining Beast

I’m staying at the home of producer Glenn Zoller in Telluride so I can’t complain, but my son Jett and I are staying in a large room with three bunk beds plus a 15-foot-high loft, and one of the worst snoring incidents of my life occured at 2 am. I’m hardly one to talk since I snore, I’m told, but I’m also a very deep sleeper — right at the bottom of the lake — and I was nonetheless awoken by some truly grotesque noises coming from one of the bunks.

It was like that howling satanic growl heard in the third act of The Exorcist. Something beastly, appalling…a human couldn’t be the source.

I’ve found that if you clap your hands and go “hey!” the snorer will shut up for a while, and that technique worked for a while this morning, but the snoring returned two or three minutes later. I finally had to grab the blankets and sheets and throw them down on the floor and climb down the loft ladder and trying sleeping on the couch in a nearby TV den. But between the aural trauma of the snoring and the thin mountain air I couldn’t get back to sleep for at least 90 minutes. Terrific.

August 31, 2012 5:10 amby Jeffrey Wells
4 Comments
American Ritual

Our most recent mass shooting happened early this morning in a Pathmark supermarket in Old Bridge, New Jersey. At least three dead, reportedly including the shooter, who may be an ex-Marine. If only a packing NRA member had been there.

August 31, 2012 4:57 amby Jeffrey Wells
3 Comments
First Telluride Grabs

Taken this evening around 7:30 on the way over to birthday party for Santa Barbara Film Festival director Roger Durling.
(More…)
August 30, 2012 8:52 pmby Jeffrey Wells

63 Comments
“I Was Even Crying”

“Clint, my hero, is coming across as sad and pathetic,” Roger Ebert tweeted tonight. “He didn’t need to do this to himself. It’s unworthy of him.” Here’s an assortment of reactions, mostly funny.

August 30, 2012 8:31 pmby Jeffrey Wells
20 Comments
“You Need An American”

During his acceptance speech this evening before the Republican National Convention, Mitt Romney blew another dog whistle by saying “when the world needs someone to do really big stuff, you need an American.” I’m presuming the import of that statement doesn’t need explaining. (And no, I can’t figure why the embed code won’t adapt to the 460 pixel width I’ve assigned it.)

August 30, 2012 8:16 pmby Jeffrey Wells
33 Comments
Telluride Lite

Update: I’ve just hit Telluride and I’ve learned that Ben Affleck‘s Argo is indeed playing here, albeit as a sneak preview.

Earlier: I got out the iPhone the instant my Phoenix-to-Durango plane landed (about 50 minutes ago) to review the final Telluride 2012 lineup…and I was soon feeling faint. The blood had drained from my cheeks. This?

Why isn’t David O. Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook showing here? There’s a reason, of course, but I wanted that kind of film here and it’s not. What happened to the rumor about Trouble With The Curve and a possible Clint drop-by? People were tweeting “wait, wait…this is it?”

No Master, no Malick, no Clint, not even DePalma…no established power-hitters.

In recent years Telluride has become known as an elite, pre-Toronto, first-out-of-the-gate place to sample at least a smattering of award-season contenders. Well, not this year, pally! This year it’s Tom and Gary’s Cool Little Indie-Foreign Festival plus a sampling of Cannes Hand-Me-Downs and Sony Classics servings (Amour, No) and one or two fringies. Roger Michell‘s Hyde Park on Hudson will play here, but who knows what that is besides performances? I guess award season will start in Toronto this year, and Telluride will just be a nice cool place to hang and schmooze with maybe two or three pop-throughs…maybe.

2012 Telluride selections: The Act Of Killing, (d: Joshua Oppenheimer); Amour (d: Michael Haneke); At Any Price (d: Ramin Bahrani); The Attack (d: Ziad Doueiri); Barbara (d: Christian Petzold); The Central Park Five (d: Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon); Everyday (d: Michael Winterbottom); Frances Ha (d: Noah Baumbach); The Gatekeepers (d: Dror Moreh); Ginger And Rosa (d: Sally Potter); The Hunt (d: Thomas Vinterberg); Hyde Park On Hudson (d: Roger Michell); The Iceman (d: Ariel Vromen); Love, Marilyn (d: Liz Garbus); Midnight’s Children (d: Deepa Mehta); No (d: Pablo Larraín); Paradise: Love, Austria, (d: Ulrich Seidl); Piazza Fontana (d: Marco Tullio Giordana); A Royal Affair (d: Nikolaj Arcel); Rust & Bone (d: Jacques Audiard); The Sapphires (d: Wayne Blair); Stories We Tell (d: Sarah Polley); Superstar (d: Xavier Giannoli); Wadjda (d: Haifaa Al-Mansour); What Is This Film Called Love? (d: Mark Cousins).

August 30, 2012 12:47 pmby Jeffrey Wells

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