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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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11 Comments
Mayor of Crazy Town: “Don’t Text, Ayehole”

May 31, 2013 3:06 pmby Jeffrey Wells
1 Comment
Cloud Cover
May 31, 2013 6:48 amby Jeffrey Wells
3 Comments
“Are Who Are You? Al Capone?”

Yesterday in Berne I came upon a small park that was used for an important scene in Smiley’s People (’82), the six-part BBC miniseries adaptation of John Le Carre‘s 1979 novel. made for the BBC. It’s the scene in which the corrupt Soviet diplomat Grigoriev (exquisitely played by Michael Londsdale) is kidnapped by Toby Esterhase (Bernard Hepton) and his men, and driven to a flat where a well-armed George Smiley (Alec Guinness) awaits. (The scene begins at 1:06 in this clip.) I happened upon it by accident, but I recognized it instantly.


Thursday, 5.30, 2:35 pm.
May 31, 2013 4:34 amby Jeffrey Wells

12 Comments
Dissolve

My son Jett, a highly sophisticated music guy, swears by Pitchfork (“easily the most cutting-edge hipster music site…the best place to read about music you can’t stand”) and is telling me I should visit The Dissolve, a Pitchfork-created, Chicago-based movie site, when it debuts sometime this summer. I still have no WordPress embed capability (although it briefly returned in Paris a couple of days ago) so the URL is http://thedissolve.com.

Led by editorial director Keith Phipps and edited by Scott Tobias, The Dissolve “will feature reviews, commentary, interviews, and news about the films of the moment, while also exploring more than a century of film history”…fascinating! “[Covering] everything from the latest studio blockbusters to American independent films to vital imports from around the world, the site will also conduct in-depth conversations with filmmakers, screenwriters, and actors while engaging in commentary that goes beyond gossip and box-office results.” Wait…I do that! Okay, I don’t talk to that many actors.

May 31, 2013 4:04 amby Jeffrey Wells
16 Comments
Raging Parent Who Won’t Take No

And Paul Dano plays the creepo. Hugh Jackman goes vigilante when a detective (Jake Gyllenhaal) fails to find his kidnapped daughter. Paychecks for Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Viola Davis, etc. Directed by Incendies helmer Denis Villeneuve (Incendies) and penned by Contraband‘s Aaron Guzikowski. Whoa…Contraband with Mark Wahlberg? This is what’s known in the motion picture industry as an “uh-oh” moment. Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! Opens on 9.20.

May 31, 2013 3:39 amby Jeffrey Wells
29 Comments
Your Swiss Giggles Are Killing Me

I clench up every time a table of three or four people erupts in loud sustained giggling. Laughter is basically about the releasing of feelings that you’ve kept bottled up for whatever reason. Freeing these suppressed judgements and emotions from the cage is exhilarating — an occasion for pure joy. I’ve been there a few thousand times in my life, and will hopefully go there again very soon. But it’s over within five or ten seconds, max. And then I settle into “the space.” Because I don’t have that much bottled up to begin with. No healthy person does.

What good are you if you can’t be Zen about things? The Zen guy or the Bhagavad Gita gal lives 24/7 with the hum of the universe animating his/her spirit and zapping every molecule, and therefore he/she doesn’t explode in spazzy giggling fits at breakfast tables…on and on and on, dropping silverware on the floor, getting louder and louder.

It’s not “she knows too much to argue or to judge” — it’s “she knows and feels too much to giggle for 30 or 40 seconds straight.”

The fact is that anyone who succumbs to boorish and sustained giggling fits means they’ve probably got a shitload of bottled-up feelings and rage and bad memories, which obviously indicates they’re living in a fairly conflicted or repressed place, and are therefore probably miserable to some degree, not to mention immature. So if you’re the type of person who giggles in loud, prolonged, hyena-like bursts in a Swiss breakfast room at 8:25 am you’re probably a bit of an asshole. You probably need years of therapy, but if you haven’t done the therapy by now you probably never will.

Does it matter to you that you’re irritating others with your gales of hideous gaiety? Of course not. Why should it? You’re on your vacation and you worked hard to pay for it and so you can do what you want, whenever you want…right? So you’re a sociopath to boot.

May 31, 2013 3:20 amby Jeffrey Wells

1 Comment
Doctor My Eyes

I decided to do a brief weekend in Lauterbrunnen, the little village in the Bernese Alps that I visited last June. Back then it was warmish, summery — this year it’s chilly and occasionally rainy. Jackets, scarves, layers. But that’s cool. But the wifi sucks again. It takes 20 to 30 seconds for a new page to load. And it doesn’t work at all in the wee hours. (Or it didn’t this morning at 5:30 am.) So I’m delighted to be deep inside God’s natural cathedral but at the same time irritated and even miserable. I was so dispirited by the crap wifi I didn’t even file anything yesterday.

(More…)
May 31, 2013 2:53 amby Jeffrey Wells
37 Comments
I’ve Read ”Rodham”

Yesterday I read Young Il Kim‘s Rodham, the Hillary Clinton-at-the-crossroads screenplay that James Ponsoldt (Smashed, The Spectacular Now) will direct. It’s a snappy, reasonably engaging read as far as it goes.

I can see why it’s a “go” project and why some top-tier actresses want to play the part. It’s an intriguing story about a smart woman dealing with sexism in high places, and how she dealt with the difficult choice of becoming the star of her own life and career vs. becoming the partner of an up-and-comer. The film will also serve as a flattering testimonial when Clinton (presumably) launches her campaign for President in 2015.

(More…)
May 31, 2013 1:50 amby Jeffrey Wells
56 Comments
Low-Rent Apocalypse…Ironically, In Quotes

This should reach the really sophisticated idiots out there. The idea, I gather, is to make light of End of Days as a way of making light of actual feelings of doom and futility shared by co-directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and their pallies. Costarring Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny “slovenly Irish animal” McBride and Craig Robinson, blah blah.

May 29, 2013 4:05 pmby Jeffrey Wells

24 Comments
Dissecting Feminist Stalinoid Disdain For Blue

The Daily Beast‘s Richard Porton has today posted a fascinating analysis of the disdain that some feminist critics have expressed towards Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest Color, which won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or last Sunday night.

It all boils down to reactions to the film’s notorious ten-minutes-or-longer sex scene — tongues and fingers and “impressive scissoring,” etc. Porton quotes Manohla Dargis‘s view in her 5.23 N.Y. Times piece that this and similar scenes aren’t cool because they’re basically about Kechiche indulging in male-horndog panting. Here are some of the hot-button points that follow:

(More…)
May 29, 2013 12:19 pmby Jeffrey Wells
13 Comments
Agreeable New Crib

On Boulevard Bourdon, a couple blocks south of Place Bastille, adjacent to the Canal St. Martin.

May 29, 2013 11:20 amby Jeffrey Wells
4 Comments
Why Do I Weep?

I dropped by an apartment yesterday to pick up a set of keys and write down a door code and generally prepare for a move-in. The building manager was away so the person in charge was the cleaning person. She is/was more worldly than I in that she speaks French and Spanish but no English at all. I speak cretin-level French and Spanish, so there was no common language ground. It was agony — I was nearly brought to tears. And all I was trying to do was explain to this woman that I would move in next Monday, 6.3, and vacate on Sunday, 6.9. Somehow this attempt at conveyance (how much simpler could a message be?) turned into a 35-minute melodrama of misunderstanding and subtle groaning.

(More…)
May 29, 2013 4:33 amby Jeffrey Wells

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