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March 24, 2022 9:56 pmby Jeffrey Wells

Six and a half weeks ago the 2022 Oscar nominations were announced, and to everyone’s surprise Parallel Mothers star Penelope Cruz, whom every handicapper had written off weeks earlier, landed a Best Actress nomination. And now, people are saying, she appears to be surging and may even win the Oscar come Sunday.

Maybe.

I’d love to see this happen, of course. As everyone knows (and as I reminded on 2.8.22) Hollywood Elsewhere stood by Cruz for weeks and weeks, alone and resolute against the stiff winds of seeming indifference…the only name-brand columnist who waved weekly flags for her deeply rooted performance.

All the other award-season Yodas were either Doubting Thomases or cautious fence-sitters…damp-finger-to-the-wind equivocators. If you want to make it in this business you have to have heart.

March 24, 2022 9:12 pmby Jeffrey Wells

It’s not a secret that Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is an arch-conservative, Trump-supporting wacko. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, therefore, that Thomas texted Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows numerous times on 1.6.21, calling Joe Biden’s election victory “the greatest heist of our history” and declaring that then-President Donald Trump “should not concede….this is a fight of good vs. evil.”

Obviously Mrs. Thomas should be subpeonaed to testify, as should Judge Thomas. Will this power couple be subpeonaed? It’s my personal opinion that the leaders of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6h on the U.S. Capitol are, no offense, slow-moving pussies so I guess we’ll see what happens.

March 24, 2022 6:12 pmby Jeffrey Wells


It was presumptuous of Bill McCuddy to say that “we” have all voted for Jessica Chastain for the Most Makeup Best Actress Oscar, or that we’re at least rooting for her to win. I’m not saying she won’t win, mind -- her Tammy Faye Bakker was a pretty good performance, all things considered -- but I didn’t care for McCuddy’s tone.
March 24, 2022 5:48 pmby Jeffrey Wells

A week ago I reported that I’d seen the first five episodes of Elizabeth Meriwether‘s The Dropout, and that as good as Amanda Seyfried‘s performance as the discredited tech fraudster Elizabeth Holmes was and is, “I kept asking myself ‘who would be stupid enough to go into business with this creepy character…a woman who, had she been born in the 1940s, could have played an alien on The Twilight Zone episode ‘To Serve Man’? Or Ray Walston‘s alien girlfriend in My Favorite Martian?”

“Meriwether’s dialogue is reasonably pro-level for the most part,” I said, “but I can only reiterate that I couldn’t believe in the story because I found it impossible to believe in Seyfried’s Holmes. She’s just too looney-tunes, too ‘off the planet.'”

I’ve since moved past that reaction. I saw episode #6 last night and now I’m mesmerized. I have to admit that the prospect of seeing this bizarre performance artist finally receive her just desserts over the final two episodes (“Heroes“, airing on 3.31 and “Lizzy“, 4.7) seems incredibly delicious. I can’t wait to see her go down, and yet five minutes ago I was afraid to admit this for fear of accused of being accused of harboring misogynist feelings. So just to be safe, I’m going to say…uhm, how should I put this?

March 24, 2022 5:35 pmby Jeffrey Wells

You have to give Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter credit for ruling this particular roost — maternally speaking it’s easily the most despairing and melancholy of the 11 films in question. It’s the first semi-mainstream film to say “some women just don’t have kid-friendly instincts” or “some women are just too caught up in their creative struggles to make room for mundane mothering.” [Chart created by Vulture.]
March 24, 2022 4:34 pmby Jeffrey Wells


According to a 6.1.20 article in the Daily Nexus (the paper of the University of California Santa Barbara), hotshot elevated horror helmer Ari Aster (Midsommar, Hereditary) offered a brief description of his next film. It was in the script stage back then but is now completed, I've read, and titled Disappointment Blvd.. A24 will release it later this year.
March 24, 2022 2:41 pmby Jeffrey Wells

Tom Hagen at Jack Woltz's dinner table -- the 2008 Robert Harris-Gordon Willis version on top, the 2022 4K "restoration" version below. There's nothing particularly "wrong" with preferring the 2022 version -- the oranges, candles, pale amber lampshade and carved wood panelling have good color, but Hagen's skin tone is a little pinkish...sunburn, sweat. In the 2008 version his skin has a warmer shade. More importantly, it blends in with the general color scheme of the frame. This is why I stand with the 2008 version, which Mr. Willis helped to create anyway so where's the argument?
March 24, 2022 12:58 pmby Jeffrey Wells
March 24, 2022 12:32 pmby Jeffrey Wells



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