Jeffrey Wells

Why would average parents trust Disney these days? Disney used to be family-friendly — now they’re Chinese communists pushing radical gender ideology. They’ve become the woke brain police, waving Mao’s little red book.

If you’re primarily a fan of Brian Cox in Succession and not much else, hold on to your hat. Once upon a time and strange as it may sound today, Cox was actually 39 years old, and he blazed a Hannibal Lecter trail that no one who saw Manhunter (‘86) will ever forget.

…are not, I would say, “impressive” in their appearance. Not by any conventional standard.

The percentage of serious standouts by average go-getter criteria —- people who seemed unusually attractive or were exceptionally cool dressers or possessed of a certain X-factor special-tude — seemed miniscule. Most of them looked like Ukrainians who’d been living through bombings. Plain, drained, unexceptional, stressed, diminished, haggard…in some instances like the ragged end of nowhere.

Very few looked like Tom Verlaine, Patti Smith, Darren Aronofsky, Lady Gaga, young James Cagney, young Walter Matthau, Harvey Keitel’s “Sport” in Taxi Driver, Lou Reed, Rosario Dawson, Jim Carroll, Ben Gazzara, Sidney Lumet, Luís Guzman, Alan King, young Joe Dallesandro, Hilly Kristal, Liev Schreiber, etc.

I spent most of Sunday afternoon eyeballing people on First, Second and Third Avenues, mostly south of 12th Street and north of 4th Street, and mostly I was muttering to myself “these people don’t look like finalists or dynamic achievers or upper-echelon types…the older ones look like stooped-over schlubs and the 20somethings seem older than their (apparent) years.”

And fairly horribly dressed for the most part — dreary shorts, nothing T-shirts, sandals and slip-ons…an absence of style, normcore drab. And relatively few looked like workout Nazis…bulky, scrawny, pudgy, drinker bods.

Okay, it was warm and humid and, Sunday being Sunday, nobody was trying to look their best but still…

Mick Jagger ‘78:”To live in this town, you must be tough tough tough tough tough tough tough.” Jeffrey Wells ‘23: “Lower East Siders look creased and worn to the nub nub nub nub nub nub nuhb.”

I’m comparing Lower East Siders to rank-and-file residents of West Hollywood, where I lived for nearly 40 years, and Venice, where I lived for three years, and Westfield, where I grew up, and Wilton, where I went to high school and where I currently live. I’m sorry but the people of these towns all looked (or currently look) better — healthier, less hassled, good genes, a certain spiritual buoyancy, etc.

Sorry but these were my impressions.

I was so full of despair this afternoon, I decided to really sink into the swamp by visiting Spicy Moon, the vegetarian Asian food cafe on East 6th between 1st and 2nd Avenues.

The owner, June Kwan, is the mother of EEAAO’s co-director and co-writer Daniel Kwan.

Few films have made me feel more sick in the soul…a deeply loathed Oscar-winner that truly heralded the apocalypse. If and when the waiter hands me a paper check, I’m going to write “good food but no fan of the film!”…something like that.

Honestly? I didn’t much care for the vegetable dumplings. They tasted like hot mashed-up Brussels sprouts and were filled with a kind of seaweed green gloop. Did I leave a nice tip anyway? Yes, but…

No, Justin Chang — Celine Song’s Past Lives is not “the most affecting love story in ages.”

Song tries to finesse this gently agreeable but wispy, faint-pulse love story into a kind of continent–traversing Brief Encounter, but she doesn’t quite have the chops or…whatever, the somersaulting, pole-vaulting panache.

A recently premiered film that actually deserves this effusive praise is Tran Unh Hung’s The Pot au Feu.

I’m trying to understand why Chang and several other elite critics are so over the moon over this thing. They’re just undercutting their cred by over-praising it…doing themselves no favors.

Having recently been given a legit email address for French Connection director William Friedkin, I’ve just sent him the following:

“Greetings & salutations from Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere. I hope you’re feeling hale and hearty and doing well.

“Cutting to the chase, herewith are two very important questions about the recently discovered removal offer a brief Act One sequence in streaming versions of The French Connection (Criterion Channel, iTunes, etc) as well as in a DCP shown at Santa Monica’s Aero theatre on 5.12.23.

“The deletion of this sequence was apparently the doing of The Walt Disney Company, although it may not have been. It was apparently motivated by the speaking of a racially ugly and vulgar term by Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle character

“One, did you sign off on this deletion? According to an HE comment-threader, Criterion has issued a statement that the currently censored cut of your 1971 film, provided to them by Disney, represents a “Director’s Edit” and was therefore apparently (or at least may have been) approved by you, the auteur behind this Oscar-winning film.

“Is this true? Did you, William Freidkin, request and/or convey approval of this deletion to Disney, the rights holder? Was this your call?

“Or was this censoring decided upon by Disney with your approval or disapproval being a moot point?

“Two, if you DID convey your approval of this edit to the powers-that-be at Disney, could you please explain to me and the tens of millions of fans of this film why you would approve such a thing, nearly 52 years after TFC’s theatrical release?

“And if you DID NOT approve of the censoring of The French Connection, could you please convey your reaction to Disney’s apparent decision to remove the sequence in question?

“Thank you and cheers to you and your wife.”

Reports about the Canadian forest fire smoke turning the air in the tristate area (New York City Connecticut, New Jersey) into a region that vaguely resembles Blade Runner 2 and is blanketed with air quality that’s worse than the most polluted Indian cities…okay, they haven’t been inaccurate.

But if you’re from Los Angeles, which has long grappled with occasionally dense smog (especially in the ‘70s and ‘80s) and infrequent forest fire smoke, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal.

That’s what I was telling a friend…”this is just a typical bad-smog day in Los Angeles with a little Malibu fire overlay…no one’s idea of healthy, but ya gotta roll with it…flush it out…man up.”

The sun is smaller with a muddy-orange hue and yes, there’s an eerie atmospheric visual thing going on, and no, I wouldn’t recommend jogging or long hikes until it all starts to blow away on Sunday.

But overall HE has been much more fascinated than spooked. “I don’t trust air that I can’t see” is too blustery, too Lee Marvin or Robert Conrad but I have, as a rule, eaten this shit up and shrugged it off for decades. You should try breathing Hanoi air on a shitty day. Tough guys only.

40 years of living in Los Angeles has taught me that truly sparkling, blue-sky days are relatively rare. Having hiked in Switzerland and Colorado and Vermont and Mill Valley, I know what radiantly clear air feels and smells like. And I will breathe it again.

Monday, 10:50 am: Healthy skies.

I ordered a soft vanilla swirl cone with chocolate sprinkles from a dessert truck guy. Me: “How much is that?” Dessert guy: “Ten.” Me: “Ten fucking dollars for a cone and it’s not even real ice cream? Fuck, man!” I turned and walked away.