Jeffrey Wells

Right now I’m doing the old LAX-to-JFK Virgin America suffering thing. Seat 8C, aisle. 4:46 pm Eastern and another two and a half hours to go — ETA 7:30 pm. And then the real fun starts wth luggage carousel, Air Train, subways, lugging bags up steep steps, etc. You know what reduces the ennui of flying? Percocet. A friend sold me a few last night.

In a 12.17 Hollywood Reporter round-table discussion moderated by Stephen Galloway and Matthew Belloni and titled “Amy Schumer, Aaron Sorkin and Four More Top Scribes on Sexism and How to Deal With Steve Jobs’ Widow,” Schumer talks about last February’s Schumergate episode: “The things that you’re afraid they’re going to say are so much worse than anything they actually say. But you’ve already put your nervous system through that fear.

“With Trainwreck coming out, I was like, ‘Everyone’s going to say she’s not pretty enough to be in this movie.’ And then only one dude wrote that, and people really attacked him, and then he redacted that and wanted to date me. I’ve been waiting for this rainstorm of hate, and it’s never really come.”

Schumer isn’t far off but what I felt was more of a spiritual kinship thing. Her Trainwreck performance melted me down, and I became a total fan. As I wrote last July, “I was persuaded that the movie version of ‘Amy’ is who Schumer really is deep down, and that realization touched me like very few comedies have in my entire life. I’ll never say a word against her again.” And for expressing this I was called a phpny and a liar.

Read more

Yesterday afternoon I pulled into the WeHo Gelson’s (Santa Monica & Kings Road) and hung a right and then a left. There were two idling cars in their parking spots, youngish women at both wheels, presumably looking to exit but opposite each other and apparently concerned about who should go first. So neither moved. An old guy behind me honked and yelled “c’mon!” Then the woman closest to me (late 20s, brunette, new car) lurched slightly backward and then stopped, apparently worried about not having enough room behind her. But she was fine — all she had to do was back up and then turn and go. She was obviously the churchmouse type so I reversed two or three feet to give her more space. The old guy didn’t like this and honked again. But the woman still sat there. She turned in her seat and looked at me. Another honk. I got out and walked over to her vehicle (the window was rolled down) and said, “Want some help? I can guide you out.” Woman: “Can you back up a bit?” Me: “I’ve already backed up and there’s a guy honking behind me. You’ve got plenty of room. You can do it…really.” She sighed and frowned and then VERY slowly began to back out. It took her a good two minutes so make it into the middle lane and leave. I could offer a gender generalization but I’d just get into trouble on Twitter again. But try to imagine a self-respecting dude causing a Gelson’s logjam like this.

Steven Soderbergh at peak strength. My kind of L.A. action flick, my kind of father-daughter film, my kind of half-and-halfer (revenge flick, dark comedy), my kind of Peter Fonda movie, my kind of director-screenwriter (Soderbergh, Lem Dobbs) audio commentary track…one of the most exquisitely right, droll, socially resonant crime films ever made, and an all-time upgrader of The Hollies’ “King Midas In Reverse.” I’m sorry but one Limey is worth at least…I can’t decide on the less-good film but it’s worth at least ten of it.

Read more

Late Wednesday afternoon 112 motion picture scores were announced by the Academy as eligible to win the Best Musical Score Oscar, and of course the one score I’ve been really and truly knocked out by — Ryuichi Sakamoto‘s sparely applied, solemn string music for Alejandro G. Inarritu‘s The Revenant — didn’t qualify. That’s because Sakamoto wasn’t the only composer on the film (he was joined by Bryce Dessner and Alva Noto), and Academy rules state that a score “assembled from the music of more than one composer shall not be eligible.” Oscars for original and adapted screenplays are sometimes handed to co-writers but the music branch insists on sole authorship. This is the second disqualification for a musical score composed by more than one person for an Inarritu film. Last year Antonio Sanchez‘s all-percussion score for Birdman was disqualified because portions of classical music were also used in addition to Sanchez’s drumming. Here’s a sample of Sakamoto’s Revenant score.

TheWrap‘s Jeff Sneider is reporting that Warner Bros. has canceled 12.23 press screenings of Point Break. A WB email said that “due to unforeseen circumstances we are no longer able to offer the all media screenings as planned.” Sneider notes that “early buzz on Point Break has not been kind” and that Warner Bros. “has taken the rare step of setting the Point Break review embargo on opening day — specifically 12:01 a.m. Pacific on 12.25 — indicating that the studio may not believe reviews will benefit the movie.”

Everything I did as a teenager was wrong or awkward or unsuccessful or insufficient on some level. Dealing with disciplinary action was a constant. I scowled a lot. I hated my home life (alcoholic dad, domineering mom, self-loathing, a sense of imprisonment). My grades were mostly shit and for good reason, I figured, as I hated what I was being taught and I couldn’t care less about college or structure or anything but escape from the dull middle-class gulag I grew up in. I couldn’t land a girlfriend or even a date to save my life. The only happiness I knew was from listening to music and hanging with my friends and getting bombed on beer. I spent many hours each week narcotizing myself with television. And I mainlined movies. I saw (studied) as many as I could back then. They were my curriculum, my major, my lifeline.

Read more

I’m sorry but this feels like a tank. The problem (or perception of same) is mainly due to that odd title. If this is a movie about guys acting bravely and heroically in the face of horrific heaving seas (and it certainly seems to be that), you don’t want the filmmakers telling you they’re that — you want to watch the film and discover this for yourself. (Right?) And since this is about a single 1952 episode, shouldn’t a singular “hour” be used instead of “hours”? Many historians agree that the Cuban Missile Crisis was Kennedy’s finest hour — not “hours. “Based on the 2010 book of the same name, the film recounts a real-life Coast Guard operation in 1952 in which four officers of a lifeboat crew risked their lives to rescue 33 oil ship workers who were left stranded at sea when one of the worst storms in Massachusetts’s history hit the East Coast and snapped their tanker in two,” blah blah. Directed by Craig Gillespie (Million Dollar Arm, Fright Night), pic costars Eric Bana, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, Holliday Grainger and Graham McTavish. The Finest Hours pops on Digital 3D and IMAX 3D on 1.29.

Today Vanity Fair posted a first-look shot of Natalie Portman as the nation’s First Lady of a half-century ago (1.20.61 to 11.22.63) in Pablo Larrain‘s Jackie, which has been shooting for…what, the last two or three weeks? And then next year or the year after Portman will portray Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg under director Marielle Heller, or so it was reported last June.

Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy in Pablo Larrain’s Jackie.

Five years ago Jackie was going to be directed by Darren Aronofsky with his then-wife Rachel Weisz in the lead role, but then they broke up. Aronofsky is producing the Portman-Larrain with his Protozoa Pictures partner Scott Franklin along with Chile’s Juan de Dios Larrain. Fox Searchlight will probably distribute and Portman will be campaigned as a Best Actress contender — all pretty much set in stone.

I’ve posted my 2010 reactions to Noel Oppenheim‘s script once or twice before so why not a third time?

“Jackie follows the former Mrs. Kennedy’s experience from the day of JFK’s assassination in Dallas on 11.22.63 to his burial in Arlington Cemetery three days hence. I’ve read enough about those four dark days to understand that Oppenheim’s script is basically a tasteful re-capturing of what happened, and that’s all. It’s an elegant, almost under-written thing — straight, clean, dignified. The dialogue seems genuine — trustable — in that it’s not hard to believe that Jackie or Bobby Kennedy or Larry O’Brien or Theodore H. White or Jack Valenti might have said these lines in actuality.

Read more

“So Ben Carson opened the night with a moment of silence and then never really got out of it, except when he showed off everything he memorized from Wikipedia earlier in the week…Donald Trump thinks that the nuclear Triad is a Chinese gang in Los Angeles…Ted Cruz looks like a cross between Count Chocula and Joe McCarthy…Marco Rubio is a well-spoken young man, but he reminds me of Tracy Flick… Chris Christie needs to lose another hundred pounds to be just fat, but he’s real good at reminding us three hundred times that he was right friggin’ there to deal with 9/11…Jeb Bush, who is always being bitch-slapped by Donald Trump, reminds me of every uncool dad that ever lived.” — Rod Lurie‘s Facebook assessment of last night’s Republican debate.