Jeffrey Wells

The 60th anniversary of the JFK assassination will be upon us before we know it (concurrent, by the way, with the 11.22.23 opening of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon) and I’m asking myself something.

Why after all this time has no one ever suggested that Lenny Bruce may have been on to something when he suggested that Jackie Kennedy was simply, immediately terrified about being shot herself (as anyone would be) and was following a blind instinct to avoid a similar death by getting the hell away from the line of fire by climbing out of the back seat and onto the limousine trunk?

That has always seemed to me like a very natural and default kneejerk response — haul ass in order to save your own terrified, freaked-out ass.

And yet every last person who’s ever analyzed what happened during those fateful seconds in Dealey Plaza…they ALL say she was trying to retrieve a piece of her husband’s skull that had been blown onto the trunk. And maybe she was, but why has no one ever suggested that Bruce’s interpretation was at the very least a reasonable possibility?

If so, Jackie wasn’t behaving in some cowardly or ignoble fashion. She’d just seen half of JFK’s head — very close, only inches away — explode into blood and skull and brain matter and vapor — soaking her gloves bright red and all that cranial flotsam spraying upon her own face. Naturally she came to a split-second realization that she might be next and immediately thought about saving herself from a similar fate and, not incidentally, staying alive in order to care for her two children.

Would that have been such a terrible instantaneous reaction?

I know the ruins of Rome’s ancient Circus Maximus quite well. This is where all the chariot races happened, of course, and where, according to the script of Ben-Hur, Charlton Heston rode to victory several times while he was still bunking at Jack Hawkins’ palazzo, prior to returning to Judea.

The great Circus Maximus differed from Jerusalem’s chariot-race stadium (where Heston competed and won with Stephen Boyd being dragged and stomped to death) in one highly significant way. The large oval Jerusalem racetrack had a huge centerpiece structure, ornamented by huge bronze sculptures of four kneeling warriors.

The Roman stadium, by all accounts, had no centerpiece or middle island, or at least none that obstructed views of the races.

And that’s the logic problem with the Jerusalem stadium, to wit: most of the spectators, or those sitting on either side of the massive center structure, can’t see the other side of the racetrack. And that includes Frank Thring’s Pontius Pilate and other elite Roman royals who attended the Judah Ben-Hur-vs.-Messala race on that fateful day. They were only able to see one half of the damn track, which of course makes no sense from any perspective, including that of the stadium architect.

What was the Ben–Hur production designer thinking? I’ll tell you what he was thinking. He was thinking two things: (1) The huuge center island with the four huge kneeling guys looks cool, and (2) to hell with architectural logic.

What am I missing?

I honestly hadn’t noticed it until Facebook‘s Robert Chandler posted about it yesterday. Be honest — don’t “say” you knew all along unless you really did.

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I’m definitely not predicting that Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid will snag a Best Picture nomination early next year. It’s way too unconventional for those dumb-ass, easy-lay SAG-AFTRA voters who loved EEAAO, but it is the kind of unhinged, wackazoid, Fellini-esque family psychodrama that deserves such an honor.

I’m serious as a heart attack. I was expecting hell but it kind of knocked me flat. Not altogether but close. The craziest, trippiest and least predictable film I’ve seen since I don’t remember what.

It’s a nightmare comedy that’s really out there and ooh, man, does it swing for the fences! At the very least it’s a solid triple. Speaking as a confirmed LQTM-er it means something, trust me, that I laughed out loud four or five times.

I can’t call this 179-minute crazytown film “pleasant” but aside from a couple of sluggish spots it’s truly fascinating and exciting as fuck for the most part. Not a perfect film but unmistakably brave and intelligent and immaculately conceived and constructed, and certainly all of a piece.

It struck me as mining similar turf as that which the Coen’s A Serious Man lies upon, only way more surreal. Is it God or your mother who’s out to torture you to death, or are you the bad guy, consumed by cowardice and self-loathing?

During the super-imaginative first 60% to 70% I was thinking Beau would be a great film to watch with a little lysergic acid diathylamide in my system, but I wasn’t thinking along those lines during the last third, which is alternately loopy and sexual and fiercely guilt-trippy (please, mama!) and intense.

Even when it’s not fully working, it’s a brilliant tour de force on a Fellini Satyricon level…hoo-hoo and cuckoo…through the looking glass & down the white rabbit hole…a truly no-holds-barred, psychologically warped Wizard of Oz mescaline nightmare, unleashed and unloosed…a fine madness…demonic, crazy-ass shit and much of it half mind-blowing and half-hilarious.

Paunchy, balding and unshaven Joaquin Phoenix whimpers and weeps and moans his way through the whole thing, but like a hemophiliac with blood pouring out of his arm. Patti Lupone is amazing, . blistering — instant Best Supporting Actress noms. And it’s great to have Parker Posey back in the swing of it!

This is a landmark feat of imaginative wackazoid filmmaking. Yowsah!

Buried under Renfield’s pornoviolent overkill approach is a half-amusing idea about Dracula’s long-suffering, insect-eating servant (Nicholas Hoult) looking to free himself from an agonizing toxic relationship with his narcissistic, fang-toothed, blood-sucking master (Nicolas Cage).

The trailer was fairly amusing; the feature is foul, profane, over-acted, bludgeoning crap.

I lasted exactly 47 minutes, and I almost hate myself for not walking out sooner.

Director Chris McKay, working from a screenplay by Ryan Ridley and a story by Robert Kirkham, had no faith in the comic seed of this thing, and decided that the only way to go was to beat the shit out of the story and pulverize the audience concurrently. It’s one of the most sickening, soul-deadening, simian-level…I take that back as I don’t want to insult apes.

There’s really and truly something wrong with McKay and the people who helped produce this thing. Depraved, I mean. They’re helping to stink-bomb a once-proud or at least respectable industry. They should be indicted and prosecuted. I’m serious.

The great Pedro Almodovar on Strange Way of Life, a Brokeback Mountain-ish, seemingly tongue-in-cheek short that will debut next month in Cannes:

The brilliant title of this post was thought up by “Filmklassik”, not me.

The iPhone camera somehow diminishes the yellow and violet blossoms. The colors don’t quite pop like they do with the naked eye.

Spoiler whiners are little babies whose sole…okay, primary concern is subject matter (i.e., “then what happens?”).

You’ve gone through college and decades of living and struggling and you still don’t understand that subject matter is oatmeal?…a thing to start with but also a form of confinement if you allow it to run things? It’s the lowest and most rudimentary form of absorption and processing that a film or streaming-drama viewer can possibly know. For peons only.

But to the whiners subject matter is their Lord and Ruler…a flag, a way of life, a Gregorian chant. To 95% of viewers, subject matter is damn near everything.

Around 11 pm last night somebody told me what had happened on Succession, and urged me to watch episode 3 straight away. Firstly I thanked them, and secondly it only whetted my appetite.

Having been tipped off didn’t affect my enjoyment of any of the elements (story, acting, dialogue, visual strategy) IN THE SLIGHTEST WAY. Do you know why? Because I’m not an infant. Because I’ve achieved a semblance of an adult perspective in my life.

A teenaged friend once spoiled the ending of Nicholas Ray’s King of Kings (‘61). Not just the crucifixion part but the resurrection stuff…all of it. I’ve never forgiven him.

“The singer, not the song”…shut up! Bastard! I don’t want to know you!

However, HE’s basic limited spoiler avoidance policy (i.e., always wait two weeks after a film opens unless everyone else has already spoiled it) remains in place. Same policy regarding shocking plot turns on extended streaming series (i.e., mum’s the word for two weeks unless it’s been spoiled by everyone else right away, in which case it’s fine to jump into the pool).

HE’s Cannes Film Festival policy is to exercise restraint whenever appropriate, but if everyone else spoils I’m not going to hold out.

Or do I mean “mainstream kiss of death”?

Answer: That recent Facebook post about Ari Aster ‘s Beau Is Afraid by IndieWire ‘s Eric Kohn.

If you know how Kohn assesses and writes and what his often generous reviews sometimes really signify, reading that sentence was like hearing the sound of a condemned man’s neck snapping.

Honestly? I first smelled trouble when I saw the face of Armen Nahapetian, who plays Joaquin Phoenix’s titular character at age 14 or so, in an early one-sheet. Nothing I could put my finger on, but, to paraphrase Bill Maher, I just knew.

Kohn’s self-description in his Super Mario Bros. review: “An optimist who searches for the potential of movies to thrive wherever they can”