Jeffrey Wells

I had to go to Bakersfield yesterday — a 2 1/2 hour drive from Santa Barbara. This was followed by an agonizing four-hour drive down to Los Angeles, thanks to a Caltrans crew blocking two lanes in the vicinity of Gorman — your California state taxes at work. Hundreds upon hundreds of vehicles inching along for two full hours…crawling along at 2 or 3 mph. I was studying Google Maps for a way out of this torture, and there was — a small winding road that I could have taken that might have hastened things. But I didn’t have the boldness of spirit to risk it. So I sat there on Interstate 5 with all the other sheep…baahhh! I took care of some business in WeHo and then turned right around and drove back to Santa Barbara around 8 pm — a 100-minute journey. Eight hours on the road, dawn to 10 pm.

Yes, I’m aware that Jennifer Aniston‘s notorious Emirates airlines ad is four months old, but I hadn’t seen it until it aired this morning on MSNBC. A few minutes later Bernie Sanders‘ latest ad was shown on Morning Joe. I’m not saying Hillary Clinton doesn’t support or believe in Sanders’ vision, but which ad do you believe more closely reflects Hillary’s core values?

“I think the idea we should be voting for Hillary Clinton, as women, comes from the feminist value of supporting other women at all opportunities. I agree with that, and I’m a feminist, but I don’t think it’s feminist to vote for Hillary just because she’s a woman, if I don’t agree with her policies more than the other candidates. The right thing to do is elect the President who will do the most to make the United States better for its people, and I think that’s Bernie Sanders.” — GenY/Millenial Sara Johnson speaking to Uproxx contributor Pheonix Tso. Posted earlier today, the article is called “Some Insight Into Why Young Women Support Bernie Sanders.”

An HE state-of-the-race riff titled “Old Academy Farts, As Always, Are Calling The Shots,” posted on 1.4.15: “At this point, everyone wants to know which film is going to win Best Picture,” MCN’s David Poland has written. “Anyone who tells you they know the answer is pulling their own chain. [But] it is looking more and more like Boyhood vs. Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything with the latter two splitting, allowing Boyhood to win.

“Birdman is divisive, especially amongst older voters,” Poland wrote. “There are a number of reasons why Selma is unlikely to win and two years in a row of ‘historical dramas focused on race’ is amongst them, whether we like it or not. Grand Budapest Hotel is a bit too light and magical and Whiplash is too thin, however entertaining. [And] Nightcrawler is just too brutal to win.”

Concurrent HE comment: “I’m still waiting for a definitive sign that Boyhood is something more than a critics’ film, or more precisely a Steve Pond film. I’m not saying it isn’t that. Richard Linklater‘s Best Director campaign may indeed result in a win, but somebody needs to point out the solid indicators that say Boyhood‘s popularity is as deep and wide as the Jordan river. As much as I like and truly respect that film, I’m honestly questioning — unsure of — its strength amongst the fartists.”

Initially posted on 12.24.10: I was eleven or twelve when I jettisoned the idea that I’d have to pay for my sins in the afterlife. But every time I watch Bryan Desmond Hurst‘s A Christmas Carol, and particularly Michael Hordern‘s big Act One scene as Jacob Marley’s ghost, the concept of suffering in death for one’s lack of kindness, charity and compassion in life, childish as it seems, is revived. Hordern’s performance half-scares and half-transforms, if only for the moment.

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Nearly every aggressively attuned, self-respecting film critic, it seems, is hating on Ben Stiller‘s Zoolander 2. And yet the Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic ratings are poor but not abysmal — at least they’re in the double digits (26 and 42% respectively). And here I am up in Santa Barbara, clueless (having missed last night’s Zoolander 2 all-media in Los Angeles) and a bit anxious and feeling left out. Semi-positive reviews have come from N.Y. Daily News critic Gersh Kuntzman, Us Weekly‘s Mara Reinstein and Time Out‘s Kate Lloyd. I might drive down to L.A. today to take care of some things; maybe that’ll help.

In a post-New Hampshire primary forum on Politico, Bill Scher (senior writer at the Campaign for America’s Future, co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show “The DMZ,” a contributing editor at Politico magazine) is saying “there’s no question that Hillary Clinton has lost the white left of the Democratic Party to Bernie Sanders.

The question that remains is: How far left has the entire party moved, outside of the lily-white states of Iowa and New Hampshire?

“The exit polls show that nearly 70 percent of the Iowa and New Hampshire Democratic electorates self-identified as ‘liberal,’ a jump of more than 10 points in each state since 2008. In the next caucus state, Nevada, liberals made up only 45 percent of the Democratic pool in 2008. That’s more fertile territory for Clinton, but will that number rise as well? And if so, does it inevitably buoy Bernie? Or can Hillary still make the case for her progressive bona fides to a more racially diverse electorate less familiar with Sanders?

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Donald Trump’s The Art Of The Deal: The Movie, a Funny or Die presentation with Johnny Depp as Trump and costarring Alf, Alfred Molina, Jack McBrayer, Michaela Watkins, Stephen Merchant and Patton Oswalt, popped today. Obviously satire but not really; based on Trump’s own book; directed by Ron Howard.

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes didn’t Freudian slip, didn’t gaffe — he simply allowed the sand in Sanders to become a sandwich. Maybe he was hungry at that moment. It was nothing, but yesterday in some people’s mind it was a “thing.”

Tonight Sylvester Stallone turned it on — the charm, the self-deprecating humor, the older-guy perspective, the recollections — and the Santa Barbara Film Festival audience ate it right up. And so did I, frankly. It was a high. You could feel it all over. Sly’s 90-minute discussion with moderator Pete Hammond was largely focused on Rocky (’76) and Creed (’15), and that’s what everyone wanted to hear about anyway. It was an Elmer Gantry revival meeting, a gathering of the flock.

When Hammond suggested a brand-new Rambo film in which Stallone would wage war on ISIS, the crowd applauded heartily. And then Stallone gestured as if to say, “You like that idea? Okay, give it to me, yeah.”

Stallone was having a rough time with some of the film excerpts — “Stop it, you’re killing me,” he said as Hammond introduced another set — and I was personally disappointed that clips from First Blood, Judge Dredd and Demolition Man weren’t featured. But the vibe was like an extended family gathering. Everyone was happy; they even enjoyed his Rhinestone singing duet with Dolly Parton. Stallone is clearly no fan of that 1984 film — he even joined Hollywood Elsewhere in dismissing (the late) director Bob Clark.

Rocky costar Carl Weathers presented the Montecito Award, and Stallone’s thank-you speech…well, listen to it.

I’m thinking of two films in which a bad guy (gangster, assassin) strikes up an odd kind of friendship with an unassertive law-abiding type, and by the end of the film the law-abider has manned up and found some kind of inner steel, largely because of the influence of the baddie. The films, both first-rate, are John McNaughton‘s Mad Dog and Glory (’93) and Michael Mann‘s Collateral (’04). There must be a few more. Would Delmer Davies‘ 3:10 to Yuma (’57) qualify?

I’ve never forgotten a certain corruption metaphor that was visualized in Ken Russell‘s The Devils (’71). It was the sight of Christopher Logue‘s Cardinal Richelieu being wheeled around on a dolly so that he didn’t have to exert himself. That left an indelible impression, I’m afraid, and one result is that ever since I’ve regarded people who avoid walking for whatever reason as degenerate sloths. People who buzz around on Segways, for instance. (I literally seethe every time I see somebody on one of those things.) Or women in high heels who refuse to walk two or three blocks to a party or a premiere because it hurts their feet to walk any kind of distance. I understand why they insist on three-block Uber rides, but I hate it all the same. HE solution: women who are committed to wearing sexy pumps need to carry them in their handbag (or give them to me and I’ll carry them) and wear sensible shoes before and after. Go ahead and call me unreasonable but I can’t get past the Cardinal Richelieu thing.