I launched Hollywood Elsewhere sometime around August 20, 2004. Maybe a day or two earlier but it was right around there. I’m not much for taking bows as a rule. The 15th anniversary of this column on Mr. Showbiz happened last October and I didn’t say boo. But I’m nonetheless trying to think of some way to celebrate HE’s tenth anniversary without sounding, you know, blowhardy. It’s been a bitch but I’m very proud of having hung in and toughed it out and…well, succeeded. (I was going to say “survived with some measure of comfort” but I’ve done better than that.) The multiple-posts-per-day format began around April 2006; before that I was posting a twice-weekly column plus a forum (“Wired”) for rat-a-tat-tat items. WordPress informs that I’ve written 27,000 posts since the beginning, but that doesn’t add up if you average something like five stories per day x 365 days x ten years, which comes to 18,000 and change. I’m posting this because while I printed out some of the earliest columns I’m trying to find records of its appearance online, and so far I’m coming up blank. I’ll probably make serious hay about this when the actual anniversary rolls around.

Three days ago In Contention‘s Kris Tapley threw a few derisive swipes in my direction on Twitter. My offense was having written that the 2014 Venice Film Festival selections seemed “interesting and well-chosen as far as they go, but where are the sexy, award-season attractions? Or at least a surprise or two that no one saw coming? You need a little pop-pop-fizz-fizz with your kale salad and steamed carrots or the troops will get bored.” Here are the three Tapley tweets that took issue with this plus a little clarification from yours truly:

Tapley Tweet #1: “Not everything is a glitzy fucking gala with a hot-ticket after-party for you to go and be a sycophant. There’s a whole world out there.” Wells reply: “Kris can unzip his tuxedo slacks and piss-spray all he wants, but apart from the choice of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s Birdman as the opener and perhaps Ramin Bahrani’s 99 Homes, the 2014 Venice selections seem to exude a certain kind of engaging, presumably intelligent but probably-not-world-class quality — distinctive, nicely done, mildly intriguing, possibly second-tier-ish. Kris knows that and still he calls me — me! — a red-carpet sycophant type. He knows as well as I do what kind of aromas that the two Al Pacino films (David Gordon Green‘s Manglehorn and Barry Levinson‘s The Humbling) are putting out. Tapley has just as good of an idea or gut instinct as I do about Peter Bogdanovich’s She’s Funny That Way, Michael Almereyda‘s Cymbeline, Andrew Nicoll‘s Good Kill, Abel Ferrara‘s Pasolini, etc. Venice is the kickoff of ‘the game’ and Kris knows that. He knows that Venice has premiered many, many ‘game’ films before, and he knows that the qualities that tend to get films into the game in the first place often tend to translate more often than not into riveting, first-rate or at least highly noteworthy cinema.”

From Andrew O’Hehir‘s Salon review of Woody Allen‘s Magic in the Moonlight: “Every so-called plot twist is telegraphed in advance, the chemistry between Emma Stone and Colin Firth is negligible (although they both look terrific in period evening wear), and the cast of fine actors around them is arranged as types rather than individuals: Hamish Linklater as the insipid rich boy in love with Sophie, Jacki Weaver as the credulous old biddy, Eileen Atkins (bringing a hint of life to the dismal proceedings) as Stanley’s onetime bohemian aunt. But those things, even the zero-wattage romance, aren’t as fatal as the first-draft quality of the script and the lethargy of the direction.”

That’s been a hallmark of Allen’s films for some time now, hasn’t it? A first-draft feeling to the script and a lack of innovative pizazz in the shooting and cutting? Didn’t Blue Jasmine, Midnight in Paris, Vicky Cristina Barcelona and even Match Point feel this way also? I’ve been bitching about this all along and it doesn’t seem to matter to anyone, least of all Allen. The DNA that goes into his brand is not going to change. Who goes to a Woody Allen film these days expecting to savor the push-pull engagement that was palpable in his ’70s, ’80s and ’90s films? Older artists tend to be less reflexive, no? They’re not absorbing as much as much as they did when they were younger and “in the game,” as it were. Their arteries tend to harden.

George Miller‘s Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (’85) had that Tina Turner song, but it wasn’t the sequel that fans of Miller’s Mad Max (’79) and The Road Warrior (’82) really wanted. It’s possible that Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road (Warner Bros., 5.15.15) might be what the faithful have been looking for all along. Rockin’ dystopian kick-ass actioners weren’t much of a thing when Mad Max opened 35 years ago. The Road Warrior (called Mad Max 2 outside of the U.S,) was the first big hit in this realm. Just as George Romeo never successfully expanded his repertoire beyond his zombie films, Miller has never really broken free of his Australian wasteland savage-madness films.