Jeffrey Wells

A bronze wall plaque inside Loews’ Lincoln Square (where I saw Celine Song’s Past Lives in the late afternoon) commemorates the late Loews’ Capitol theatre (B’way at 50th or 51st). Built in 1919, the 5000-seater gave up the ghost in September 1968. For some reason the plaque says it was torn down in ‘67. 2001: A Space Odyssey opened at the Capitol on 4.3.68.

Wikipedia also has it wrong about the Capitol’s Cinerama conversion. The first Cinerama film to show there was the now completely forgotten The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, which opened in August ‘62.

Shame upon Criterion! No honor in streaming censored classics! Blow it out your ass, Becker!

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Harrison Ford is profiled in the current Esquire. Written by Ryan D’Agostino, the longish article is titled “Harrison Ford Has Stories to Tell.” About halfway through Ford articulates a feeling about the emotional, spiritual and even psychological nourishment that the best films provide.

It is this very nourishment factor, of course, that 95% of big-screen attractions don’t provide. Movie theatres used to be regarded by certain devotees (i.e., “film Catholics”) as churches, but over the last 15 or 20 years they’ve become gladiator arenas. They cater to animals.

Posted a few hours ago on HE;

The censored version of the 1971 Oscar-winner is currently streaming all over (Criterion Channel, TCM, iTunes) and was shown at Santa Monica’s Aero theatre on 5.12.23.

Three days ago (Saturday, 6.3) I posted about the censoring of a six-second sequence in William Freidkin’s The French Connection, apparently by rights holder Disney over concerns about Gene Hackman’s ruthless cop character, Popeye Doyle, using the N-word. The next day I refreshed and summarized same (6.4).

This is obviously a huge deal, and yet no columnist or critic has said a DAMN THING since last Saturday. Are they afraid of complaining about the deleting of an ugly word in a classic film? Most likely, yeah. Are they holding themselves in check because they feel obliged to be “good Germans” in the woke sense of that term? You betcha.

There’s also the possibility that they don’t want to give me any credit for raising a stink, and that personal animus means more to them than calling out woke censorship as it affects what is arguably the finest urban-cop thriller ever made.

Until this morning (6.6), that is, when Breitbart’s John Nolte posted a piece about same. Draw your own conclusions. Mine, as noted, is that others (including certain filmmakers) are too chicken to say anything. That or their pettiness knows no bounds.

Am I the only driver in the tristate area who has this rear bumper sticker on his vehicle? I’ve been studying rear bumpers in New Jersey, Connecticut and New York State for over a year now, and I’m pretty sure it’s just me. I never saw a JFK bumper sticker in Los Angeles either.

It’s possible, I suppose, that Danbury prosecutors could have refused to accept this situation and persisted in seeking appropriate punishment (i.e., stiff prison sentence, sizable fine) for the perpetrator in question, but at the end of the day he’d still be dead.

From the 2023 Toronto Film Festival media accreditation application:

And let’s not forget the AP’s contribution to the current miasma.

I was recently urged by two friends to see Tina Satter’s Reality (HBO, 5.29), an 82-minute transcription drama about the June 2017 interrogation and arrest of Reality Winner, a contractor who bravely leaked classified info about Russian interference in the 2026 Presidential election.

Based solely on FBI transcripts, Reality is about an interaction between Ms. Winner (Sydney Sweeney) and a pair of kindly, soft-spoken FBI agents (Josh Hamilton, Marchant Davis). It’s mildly compelling in the sense that it’s certainly watchable and not boring, but at the the same time I wouldn’t call it earth-shattering. It’s engrossing as far as it goes. The first half-hour is completely banal, but it finally gets going…sort of.

I believed every minute of Reality (naturally) but Sweeney could be playing any 20something woman responding to any interrogation about anything of grave concern. She speaks to the FBI guys in what could be called “limited candid”…truths, half-truths, sidestepping, etc. Sweeney also speaks in a typical half-slurry vocal-fry manner, as many 20something women have been doing for the last 15-plus years. Her performance is perfectly fine but I didn’t believe she was fluent in three languages, as the actual Reality is. She seems too banal so I don’t honestly get the breathless praise.

I emerged from Reality, however, with a profound respect for what Ms. Winner did, which was to funnel classified proof to The Intercept about Russian interference, etc.

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I finally watched WHE’s Maltese Falcon 4K Bluray, which popped on 4.4.23. I’ve seen John Huston’s 1941 adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 detective yarn at least a dozen times (probably more), but the new 4K easily rules above all…darker than the Bluray but smooth and fine and wonderfully detailed with the most glorious mineshaft blacks your eyes have ever beheld.

It’s like monochrome dessert, this disc…pure wowser.

In damn near every close-up of Humphrey Bogart’s face you can easily see the glued-down foundational cheesecloth that secures his hairpiece. I really love this stuff — spotting any traces of cheesecloth, make-up, facial base or eyeliner that 1941 audiences never saw.

I also love the unmistakable reflection of studio lights in Bogart’s left eye…four, to be exact. There may be more than four reflected in his right eye; hard to be precise.

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From David Poland’s “What Becomes A Film Writer [in] 2023,” posted on 6.2.23:

HE to Poland: You bypassed Delbert Mann and Paddy Chayefsky’s Marty (‘55)…why? And David Lean’s 1957 Oscar–winner is titled The Bridge on the River Kwai. (Pierre Boulle’s original French–language novel (‘52) was titled “The Bridge Over The River Kwai.”)

A high-profile, middle-aged husband (45) and wife (41) whose issues led to a recent separation (followed by a subsequent rapprochement) are further rocked by the wife’s discovery last March of the husband’s brief affair with a 25-year-old climate activist who bears a strong resemblance to the wife and is certainly the same physical type.

This needn’t be a terrible Shakespearean tragedy. A rupture of trust, obviously, but more of a passing thunderstorm than Krakatoa, East of Java. Younger men (under 50) are dogs and may act upon this if marital discord is an ongoing issue, and especially if the other woman is 20 years younger.

Be honest — hurtful things occasionally happen in some marriages, but the smart play is to lick your wounds and give it another shot. My Mad Men dad indulged in an episode in his mid 40s, and was busted when the girlfriend wrote a note. Thinking of the kids and contemplating her husband’s dog-like instincts, the wise wife will follow the usual script, which is to make their lives an agonizing hell for a few months and then gradually let it go.

An alleged Clint Eastwood quote, according to a famous actor who ran in the same circles: “Show me a hugely attractive, impressively accomplished, stupendously beautiful woman, and I’ll show you a longtime husband or boyfriend who’s tired of fucking her.”