Day: September 25, 2021

Why are they being vague about whether or not they’ll demand his testimony? Are they afraid of alienating Trump’s supporters? He’s an anti-Democratic bully-boy and sociopath who’s been steadily wounding and weakening the rule and fabric of democracy in this country. And right now he’s just a bloated Palm Beach asshole with a big mouth. Subpoena his ass, grill him, make him sweat, give him hell.

Now that Joel Coen‘s The Tragedy of Macbeth has opened at the New York Film Festival and drawn polite raves from 90% of the critics, it’s time to come down to earth and examine what people really think.

Friend of Jordan Ruimy: “I was very cold on this…the whole time watching I was thinking BORING. The performances are very subdued…Denzel has a couple of genuinely moving moments… but Frances McForman’s Lady Macbeth part is truncated and even the ‘out damn spot’ scene was heavily edited…the cinematography and sets have a stark theatrical look, which struck me as fake…\lots of artifice in general which I usually like but not this time…I’m frankly surprised by the over-the-top high praise…[the film] felt completely unnecessary… I’m sure the cast and crew had a great time doing it but why?”

[HE interjection: Because Frances McDormand wanted to play a 60ish Lady Macbeth, and so she asked her husband to direct a stage version and Joel, wanting to oblige, decided he’d prefer shooting it on film.]

Critic friendo responds: “What does ‘unnecessary’ mean? Why is a movie ‘necessary?’ This is a tale of corporate scheming and ruthlessness that fits very well into the spirit of our time. If this guy found it boring, so be it, but I wasn’t bored for a minute. The movie is visually transfixing. Denzel is terrific in it — emotional and alive.”

Guy who attended Tavern on the Green after-party: “Opinions were all over the map. I’d say two-fifths [or 40%] of the people I talked to were highly enthusiastic, and all in the same way — caught up in the film’s amazing look, and in Washington’s performance. Of the remaining three-fifths [or 60%]**, I’d say half of them thought it was decent but not better, and half actively disliked it. So it’s not for everyone. But I actually think it’s a commercial movie. At least, to the extent that a movie of Macbeth can be. (Even the Polanski version, I believe, was a box-office bomb.)”

** What he’s basically saying is that 30% of the people he spoke to, or close to one-third, hated it. And this was a crowd of swells, remember — invitees who probably felt it would be impolite to enjoy free food and drink while trashing the film. So you can probably raise that 30% to 40%.

Several weeks ago a brief clip from Adam McKay‘s Don’t Look Up (Netflix, 12.10) appeared online. It was an Oval Office moment in which astronomers Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence are telling White House adviser Jonah Hill about an impending global disaster, and Hill is going “man, you guys are, like, freaking me out!”

The below clip is a longer version of the same scene, and features cynical dialogue from Meryl Streep‘s “President Janie Orlean,” who is also Hill’s mother. Funny stuff, but isn’t it time to give viewers a taste of another scene?

The costars include Hill, Rob Morgan, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Ron Perlman, Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Cate Blanchett, Himesh Patel, Matthew Perry and Chris Evans.

You know what this is starting to remind me off, tonally and whatnot? Armando Iannucci‘s In The Loop (’09).

I haven’t seen Erin Elders‘ The Cleaner (1091 Pictures, 10.12), but I will. It appears to be some kind of mid-range noir about a financially struggling owner of a cleaning business (King Orba) who accepts a $1K payment from a singer (Lynda Carter) to find her estranged son, but eventually gets caught up in some bad shenanigans.

Exec producer Luke Wilson costars along with Shelley Long, Eden Brolin and Shiloh Fernandez.

I hadn’t actually heard of The Cleaner until I received an emailed invitation at 10:11 am this morning to see it this evening at the historic casino on Catalina Island, under the auspices of the Catalina Film Festival. The ferry (comped) leaves San Pedro at 5 pm, the screening begins at 7 pm, there’s some kind of after-party (although without the presence of Orba, Wilson, Carter or Long), and a ferry returns to San Pedro at 11:55 pm.

Yes, I was invited less than seven hours before the ferry departs San Pedro. “That’s insulting!” I muttered to myself. Then my mood changed.

I suddenly decided that I loved the idea of travelling 26 miles across the sea to see an iffy film noir and then returning to the mainland in the black of night…I loved the last-minute craziness, and there’s something perversely entertaining about being invited this late. I would’ve actually preferred being invited at noon or 1 pm — “please get yourself down to San Pedro in less than four hours!”

I especially loved the portion of the invite that said “we can take care of your DAY TRIP to the island via the San Pedro port,” which seemed to imply that I’d have to pay for the late-night return.

My reply to p.r. agency: “JEFFREY WELLS expressing thanks for invite & interest in seeing the film, but why am I being invited only hours before the ferry departs? Isn’t that a bit sudden? And why the Catalina Film Festival in the first place? And why are you emphasizing that the producers will cover the ‘DAY TRIP’, which seems to indicate that I’ll have to book my own passage back to San Pedro? And who’s King Orba? And how come King Orba isn’t attending the after-party, not to mention Wilson, Carter, Long and the others?”

Honestly? Orba seems like a nice guy and a reasonably appealing actor. He has a pleasing, mellow-type voice. I’m actually interested in seeing this.

I’m not sure how to process the line in which Carter offers him “one thousand dollars” to find her son. It might be a joke a la Mike Myers demanding a ransom of “one million dollars” in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (2011), or it could be sincere.

The agency has offered to send me a link for an embargoed review, available to post on 10.11.

…for being male, cisgender, gender-conforming, heterosexual, a fertile parent, tall and reasonably attractive, able-bodied, healthy, not fat, a product of an upper-middle-class upbringing, urban, qualified in writing, editing and column-writing, literate, English-speaking, a former Episcopalian, descended from Anglo-Europeans and therefore white.

I realize that these traits usher in all kinds of presumptions about me being a bad person with the mark of Satan on the back of my neck. All I can say that I’m sorry…not for who and what I am, but for your asinine presumptions. [Originally posted on 3.28.21]

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