Month: June 2017

On 5.12.17, or three days after he fired FBI Director James Comey, President Trump tweeted that “Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” During his 6.8 testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey said “I’ve seen the tweet about tapes…Lordy, I hope there are tapes.” Orange Orangutan refused to confirm or deny if recordings exist of his conversation[s] with Comey. Today he tweeted the following: “With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea whether there are ‘tapes’ or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings.”

You contemptible bullshitter, you swaggering phony. You make me sick with your empty taunts and braggadocio.

From CNN.com: Ten of the 12 jurors in Bill Cosby’s recent assault trial voted to convict the comedian on two counts of aggravated indecent assault, but the case was declared a mistrial because two people on the panel continued to hold out, a juror told ABC News.

The jury consisted of four white women, six white men, one black woman and one black dude. Since the mistrial announcement my assumption has been that the two hold-outs (i.e., refusing to convict) were either among the four white women or the six white guys. Seriously — the applicable phrases are (a) tribal dynamic and (b) do the math.

Cosby faced three counts of aggravated indecent assault. CNN reports that the vote was 10 to 2 to convict him on charges that he digitally penetrated Andrea Constand in January 2004 without her consent, and 10 to 2 that he gave her drugs that substantially impaired her ability to resist, the juror told ABC Wednesday. The vote was 11 to 1 to acquit Cosby on a charge that he digitally penetrated her while she was unconscious or unaware.

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Hats off to Western Built Construction, the general contractors who’ve been working on a huge, two-story, concrete-and-glass structure at the northwest corner of Melrose and Westbourne, which is near my place. I complained about some obnoxious lighting mounted on the rear of their building, and one of the WBC principals responded in a reasonable, mild-mannered way in a matter of minutes. Life should be so simple and easy in other realms.

“[Name] and [name] — I’m Jeffrey Wells, a Hollywood columnist (www.hollywood-elsewhere.com) and longtime journalist who lives near that massive, two-story commercial space you’ve been working on for…what’s it been, eight or nine months? I’m writing to complain about those three obnoxiously bright lights mounted on the rear of your building. I’m asking you to please replace them with lights that are quieter, amber-ish, toned down and not so aggressively bright.

“Right now these lights are a nocturnal eyesore. I don’t know the wattage but the level of brightness and intensity is ridiculous — the kind of lethal, industrial-strength lighting that might be used by a state prison or some warehouse with truck bays in the middle of nowhere.

“Westbourne Drive is a quiet residential street, and having lived here for many, many years I assure you there’s no need for that kind of illumination. We have no escaped convicts running around (or none that I know of) and there’s no need to have lighting so fierce and glaring that jets flying over Los Angeles at 35,000 feet can easily pinpoint the corner of Westbourne and Melrose.

“This may sound curious, but some of us believe that the night should be allowed to be what it is, which is to say allowed to be dark. You know, the way it was on the planet before guys like you and your commercial lighting schemes came along?

“Walk down Westbourne south of Melrose — each and every home is lighted quietly, softly, with a certain restraint. Your building is the only one using an aggressive state-prison aesthetic.

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I have two questions about the firing of Phil Lord and Chris Miller off the Han Solo spin-off. One, why did producer Kathy Kennedy wait four and a half months to cut them loose with the film having begun shooting in late January or thereabouts? And two, what does it say about Kennedy’s hiring instincts that she chose a couple of guys whom she so disagreed with that “she didn’t even like the way they folded their socks,” according to Brent Lang‘s Variety story?

Kennedy, no doubt looking to shoot and construct the film along familiar lines, said in a recent statement that “it’s become clear that we had different creative visions on this film, and we’ve decided to part ways.”

This conflict wasn’t apparent to Kennedy after three or four weeks of principal photography? Or after several weeks of it? I don’t know the backstory but what kind of producer needs four and a half months to assess a flawed situation and then finally do something about it with filming two-thirds completed?

In my book this is the second big problem with the Han Solo flick, the first being the casting of Alden Ehrenreich as Solo. I explained my reservations in a 5.22.17 piece called “Ehrenreich Won’t Cut Han Solo Mustard“:

It was my reaction to Alden Ehrenreich‘s performance in Alexandre Moors‘ The Yellow Birds, which I saw at last January’s Sundance Film festival, that convinced me he won’t be a good Han Solo. He just doesn’t have that presence, that Harrison Ford cock-of-the-walk cool. There’s just something about Ehrenreich that feels guarded and clenched.

Alden Ehrenreich and Untitled Han Solo Film costars (including Woody Harrelson) in recently posted set photo.

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I for one wouldn’t see Kyra Sedgwick‘s Story of A Girl (Lifetime, 7.23) with a knife at my back. It’s about a young girl (Ryann Shane) coping with unwanted notoriety from a viral sex-tape video, surreptitiously captured when she was only 13. It’s not the execution, which for all I know is pretty good or even expert, but the premise. In what way is cruel and odious behavior on the part of nearly everyone in a small community remotely interesting? I’m not surprised there was next to no interest when it screened the other day at the L.A. Film Festival, which in itself exudes a generally droopy vibe. Pic is based on a book by Sara Zarr.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Los Angeles Film Festival, where the turnout for the world premiere of Kyra Sedgwick’s directorial debut looks like this.” — Variety‘s Peter Debruge on Instagram.

“And how about Jon Voight, who plays Ray’s father/nemesis Mickey Donovan? In 2013 the Oscar winner (’78’s Coming Home) won a Golden Globe for the first season of Ray Donovan, but that was before he came out four-square for the most malevolent and deranged Oval Office occupant in the history of this nation. While Voight was snubbed by the Emmys last year, he could stage a comeback.” — HE-edited version of Sid Lipsey’s Gold Derby assessment of Voight’s chances.

My heart is down, his head is turnin’ ’round because Jon Ossoff didn’t make it. Yes, Georgia’s sixth district, an affluent, well-educated suburb of Atlanta, seemed like a prime arena for a liberal progressive to defeat a bland bullshit Republican like Karen Handel, but the sixth has been a safe Republican district since the dawn of the Reagan era. And as a N.Y. Times analysis piece noted, “it showed that Republicans skeptical of [President] Trump remained comfortable supporting more conventional candidates from their party.”

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Miles “don’t be a pervert, man” Teller, who got into some kind of trouble in San Diego last weekend, plays a PTSD-afflicted soldier in Jason Hall‘s Thank You For Your Service (Universal, 10.27). Boilerplate: “As three American soldiers return from Iraq, they struggle to reintegrate with their families and adjust to civilian life while also struggling to forget their memories of war.” This sound way too generic and familiar — American Sniper (also written by Hall) meets Bruce Dern‘s story in Coming Home meets Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk meets Dana Andrews‘ nightmare in The Best Years of Our Lives meets Alexandre Moors‘ The Yellowbirds meets Paul Haggis‘s In The Valley of Elah. Costarring Haley Bennett, Beulah Koale, Amy Schumer, Scott Haze, Joe Cole and Keisha Castle-Hughes.