Jeffrey Wells

Let no one say L.A. Times critic Justin Chang isn’t a man of character. For he’s panned Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, the almost universally praised, odd-couple prep school comedy with Paul Giamatti as a curmudgeonly ancient history professor, and newcomer Dominic Sessa as a bright malcontent student. Chang may be an outlier in this regard, but it takes balls to stand against the majority. I should know.

Chang slams The Holdovers for being insincere (“flat, phony, painfully diagrammatic”) but also, it seems, because of an incident of racial animosity between two minor characters — a snotty white kid named Teddy Kountze (Brady Hepner) and a fragile Korean student named Ye-Joon Park (Jim Kaplan).

Early on Kountze belittles Park, you see, by calling him “Mr. Moto” — apparently a trigger in more ways than one.

Chang: “In reducing Ye-Joon to such an abused prop, is The Holdovers really any better [than Kountze]? Can anyone watch a scene this callous and then be honestly moved by [Giamatti’s] speech about the injustices of American racism, classism and white privilege?”

In short The Holdovers, which is mostly set in December 1970, is guilty of a 2023 woke crime. In Chang’s head, I should add.

…but since Jeff Mclachlan already has, there’s no harm in commenting. Both men were somewhat overweight during filming. Plemons has since dropped a ton of weight (he’s almost skinny now) and Leo has also slimmed down. Plus Plemons never takes his cowboy hat off, and that camoflauges or offsets his facial appearance.

This is some kind of optical photographic distortion. Richard Burton (5’10”) seems too large compared to Clint Eastwood (6’4″). Elizabeth Taylor was only 5’2″ — a stature sister of Kamala Harris.

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Not to mention that slender, physically glowing quality. And yet I was fairly full of despair at 17 and 18. I felt no real hope and excitement about anything until I hit 25 or 26. And then slowly and very gradually, the pieces of the puzzle started to fit together.

That white-ish, elephant-collar jacket adorned with primitive paintings of divebombing bluebirds and whatnot…that plus the douchey whitewall buzzcut, the troglodyte stubble ‘stache and nascent beard, the open-collar white shirt and those godawful brown pants.

Life is nothing if not style choices, and when you wear a light brown double–breasted suit jacket for an SNL hosting gig, you’ve pretty much confirmed that you’ll never, ever “get it.” Amiable aw-shucks personality aside, your future is mapped out, bro…you’ve pretty much cancelled your own ticket.

Posted on 9.7.16:

From Anthony Lane’s 10.19 review of Killers of the Flower Moon, in which he expresses a preference for David Grann’s 2017 book rather than Martin Scorsese’s just-released film:

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I have never forgotten the pain that I felt 15 years ago when an ex-girlfriend told me I wasn’t as slim as I had been a year or two earlier, and that I needed to drop around 10 pounds.

Nothing hurts like this. It’s agony — it cripples your very soul. Which is why there can be no forgiving Emily Blunt for what she said 11 years ago about that fat waitress. Apologies are meaningless at this stage. She needs to be cancelled permanently. Kidding.

I’m sorry but lime green walls, gold window curtains, midnight blue bed boards, orange lampshades and light teal padded benches? The Fifth Avenue Hotel’s interior designer pushes it too far, man.

Glenn Kenny was deeply annoyed by yesterday’s TikTok pan of Killers of the Flower Moon by “benpiketheactor.” And so he lashed out at this balding “brainiac” while concurrently throwing shade upon the potential critical reaction to Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers.

HE reply:

“Benpiketheactor” will most likely embrace The Holdovers and perhaps even adore it for its close-to-amazing resuscitation of a crafty, character-driven ‘70s film, savvy narrative scheme and all. Not a skillful imitation of a good ‘70s film but an actual reanimation of one.

He may not be old enough to speak with authority on this particular matter, but Ben will probably applaud it for reminding audiences what well–written, well–acted, middle–class films were like back then…back when directors and writers actually knew how to craft and deliver third acts that played like THIRD ACTS of CONSEQUENCE.

What has everyone been saying about Alexander Payne’s prep school film since it first peeked out at Telluride? Seven words: “They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.” I can’t envision this TikTok guy not echoing the same.

Verily I say unto you that one day in the not-too-distant future The Holdovers will be paired with Hal Ashby and Robert Towne’s The Last Detail at the New Beverly Cinema.

Jean Seberg looks ten times better in this carefully posed shot than in any particular scene in Robert Rossen’s Lilith (‘64). Her hair is truly astounding.