“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 HornadayWashington 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 HensleighDirector (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
Easily the most obliging, “whatever man”, comme ci comme ca merchant Covid policy sign I have seen anywhere, ever. Snapped today (12.5.21) in Mountainside, N.J. 4:20 pm update: I’m driving around; heading back to Connecticut soon. That’s all she wrote until tomorrow morning.
We all understand that critics are total fools for Jane Campion‘s The Power of the Dog. (I’m a half-and-halfer — excellent craft, dullish story, pertplexing characters.) Joe and Jane Popcorn, on the other hand, are mostly negative — bored, appalled, “seriously?” This is partly because critics tend to be more thoughtful in their appraisals, and partly because they’ve been professionally instructed to admire all things Campion. Ditto the film industry. Campion is locked to win the Best Director Oscar early next year.
Longtime Kansas Senator, former Senate Majority Leader and 1996 Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole has passed at age 98.
Dole was a classic Republican, or the kind of Republican that has all but disappeared from the Washington landscape. Another way of putting it is that Dole was a rational human being. I’m presuming Dole was disgusted by ex-President Donald Trump, and especially by what happened on 1.6.21.
Dole served in the House of Representatives for eight years (1961 to ’69), and represented Kansas in the U.S. Senate for 27 years (1969 to ’96). He served as Senate Republican Leader between ’85 and ’96. Dole and Jack Kemp unsuccessfully ran against Clinton-Gore in ’96. He also ran as Gerald Ford‘s vp nominee in the 1976 election — another losing effort.
Over the last hour I’ve been trying like hell to find a clip of former Sen. Al Franken imitating Dole (he did it at least once on Bill Maher‘s Politically incorrect in the ’90s), but I’ve failed. Norm McDonald‘s Dole was okay but not as good as Franken’s.
I gradually came to respect Lin Manuel Miranda‘s Tick Tick…Boom (Netflix, now streaming). I was even emotionally affected by it...
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More »Yesterday a Facebook friend chose to process the Kyle Rittenhouse “not guilty” verdict through a racial lens, using the whole...
More »Here’s a re-posting of a classic HE essay titled “Friends of Varinia.” It originally appeared on 2012, and was reposted...
More »Charlton Heston passed on 4.5.08 at age 84. The poor guy had been grappling with Alzheimer’s Disease for the previous...
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