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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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58 Comments
Final Word on Tony and Manohla Wokester Piece

As noted yesterday, N.Y. Times film critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis have authored a sprawling essay titled “The 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century (So Far)“. The piece, I wrote, is “mainly an opportunity for Tony and Manohla to demonstrate how profoundly aroused and motivated they are by the woke political winds that are currently blowing through urban culture.”

They apparently picked their faves from a woke checklist perspective…much attention paid to women and a lot less to white males (and no gay ones)…mostly a multi-cultural celebration, many shades and ethnicities (including two Koreans) plus extra-special special tributes to Keanu Reeves and Melissa McCarthy. But no love for Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Casey Affleck, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and many others.

Friendo: “Even if America were 40% white (or 85%, or 20%), we shouldn’t be rating artistic achievement based on gender and skin color. It makes sense to do that for college admissions, but not for arts criticism. ‘You gave the best performance of the year…because you’re Chinese!'”

November 27, 2020 8:47 pmby Jeffrey Wells
10 Comments
Gangsters Are No Damn Good

I’ve never been much of a fan of obscure, low-budgeted, boilerplate film noirs. It’s a real oddball cult thing. I realize and respect the fact that some can’t get enough of this genre, and are always forking over for Bluray box sets, etc. This fraternity will most likely be interested in a new noir package coming on 2.15.21 from England’s Powerhouse Films — Columbia Noir #2.

One of the noirs is Joseph Newman‘s 711 Ocean Drive (’50), which until today I’d never had the slightest interest in. (I just rented it on Amazon.) Edmond O’Brien, Joanne Dru, Otto Kruger and Don Porter. Bookies, wire services, greedy gamblers, horse races, etc.

In any event I was surprised to notice that HE’s own Glenn Kenny provides the commentary track on the disc.

From Bosley Crowther‘s N.Y. Times review, dated 7.20.50:

“It is not the bookmaker (O’Brien) who is the villain in this film. It is the suave and elusive syndicate gangster (Kruger) who makes the poor little free-enterprise ‘bookies’ pay tribute to him. And in its illustration of this vermin, 711 Ocean Drive is no more original or revealing than 100 previous gangster films. He is the same evil fellow you have seen countless times before, and the story of his badgering of the hero is as familiar as the palm of your hand.

“The hero, whom O’Brien plays in a cocky, truculent way, is, indeed, something of a champion of the highest American ideals. All he wants to do is run his operation and make love to a syndicate gangster’s wife — a thoroughly acceptable ambition, since the latter is beautiful, fragile, well-bred Joanne Dru.

“It is Kruger as the boss of the syndicate who is the snake in the grass — he and Donald Porter as his henchman — a pair of contemptible racketeers. And the ultimate extirpation of O’Brien after a chase through Boulder Dam seems not so much a glorious triumph for law and order as a notch for the syndicate.

“In short, this little picture, conventionally written but well photographed, does no more than any gangster picture in reminding us that gangsters are crooks.”

November 27, 2020 8:26 pmby Jeffrey Wells
14 Comments
Mostly Out Of Woods By Next Summer?

With United jets transporting the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine to hubs starting today and the Moderna vaccine close behind, it’s been reported that actual injections of the serum could begin as soon as 12.12.20. Health workers first, and then the frail and sickly, and then your semi-sturdy old farts (70-plus) followed by 60-plussers and so on. If you’re healthy and 32 years old, you might be looking at a wait.

A few weeks ago slightly over 40% of respondents told CNN pollsters they wouldn’t be getting the vaccine — brilliant! Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will require two shots spaced 14 or 21 days apart. This will give recipients about a year’s worth of immunity, and then they’ll need to repeat the process.

November 27, 2020 8:00 pmby Jeffrey Wells

26 Comments
Arrogance

HE: Wait…$40 for a large portion of garlic mashed potatoes?

Erewhon: That’s correct.

HE: But it’s just, like, mashed potatoes.

Erewhon: But with garlic and other sprinklings. It’s very good.

HE: No dish of mashed potatoes is worth $40. If I was to order a large plate of mashed potatoes at the swankiest gourmet restaurant in town, I seriously doubt they’d charge $40. $15 maybe. $20 if they wanted to be assholes. They wouldn’t dare charge $30…c’mon.

November 27, 2020 5:24 pmby Jeffrey Wells
69 Comments
Ron Howard Agrees

Hillbilly Elegy director Ron Howard has endorsed a Ben Shapiro tweet that says the film has been trashed primarily for political-cultural reasons. That’s largely true, but I also believe that Amy Adams‘ performance as J.D. Vance‘s drug-addicted, drama-queen mom is a tough element to hang with. It’s been on Netflix for over two weeks now — what’s the general verdict of the HE commentariat?

(More…)
November 27, 2020 4:01 pmby Jeffrey Wells
5 Comments
Never Saw It, Kinda Reluctant To

There’s no question that (a) dying is a part of life, (b) we’re all gonna get there and (c) there’s nothing like a little wit and levity to brighten our awareness of the inevitable. And yes, Dick Johnson Is Dead has ratings of 100% and 89% on RT and Metacritic, respectively.

The user scores on these aggregate sites, however, are somewhat lower — 7.4 on Metacritic, 8.1 on RT. And that’s where the real truth lies.

Never, ever trust critics when it comes to films like this. They’re not allowed to be honest about their deep-down feelings about anything, and they know it and so do readers. Which is one of the ways in which Hollywood Elsewhere is different.

I watched my father and mother approach death and deal with the physical and mental decline aspects, and they weren’t especially happy about it, I can tell you. At the very end my mother just said “fuck it” and refused to eat or even talk with me or Jett when we last visited her. She just wanted it to be over.

I’m sorry but I’d rather contemplate life and all its myriad intrigues, expectations and pitfalls than the absolute finality of “lights out and adios muchachos”. And I really, really don’t want to submit to a meditation about old-age dementia.

If a deep dive into old age is required, give me Stephen Walker and Bob Cilman‘s Young At Heart (’07). I loved this film, and so did my mom when I finally managed to show it to her.

I’m not refusing to watch Dick Johnson Is Dead. I’m actually nudging myself in that direction by the very act of writing this riff.

But at the same time I’m a bit like Terrence Stamp in The Hit — philosophically or even serenely accepting of death on a certain level, but when the proverbial John Hurt figure pulls out the gun and says “we’re gonna do it now, Willy,” my reaction would be “not now…it’s tomorrow…we have to get to Paris first…you’re not doing the job…not now!”

Keith Watson’s Slant review: “A drawback to Johnson’s deliberately gimmicky style—which includes glitzy visions of Dick in heaven surrounded by notable personages as diverse as Frederick Douglass, Sigmund Freud, and Bruce Lee—is that it doesn’t allow us to access her father as a person. We feel his warmth and his abiding love for his family, but we learn relatively little of his personal history beyond the highlights.

“Dick’s attitude toward his own death is so breezy and his relationship with Johnson so frictionless that the film can at times feel remarkably undramatic.”

November 27, 2020 3:16 pmby Jeffrey Wells

10 Comments
Excellent Translation

You have not laughed…nay, you have not lived until you’ve listened to the bilingual Tatiana pronounce The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.

“Laughed” in a hearty, approving way, I mean. As in “please mispronounce more movie titles this way.” As in “thank you so much.”

When Tatiana mentions the title of this 2018 Coen brothers anthology western, here’s roughly how it sounds: “Thuh Ballot of Bhastuhr Scrahhgz.”

May I say that The Ballad of Buster Scruggs plays nicely the second time? Once you’ve gotten past the initial disappointment, it’s very pleasurable to sit through.

My initial reaction: “Diverting, amusing, first-rate chops, 132 minutes, good but ‘minor,’ etc. I’m calling it the Coen’s ‘death film’ as quite a few characters get killed in it, and some with the same exact wound.”

November 27, 2020 1:32 pmby Jeffrey Wells
12 Comments
As Sung By The Police

“Don’t talk….don’t talk that…don’t talk that way to me.”

(More…)
November 27, 2020 12:45 pmby Jeffrey Wells
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