Jeffrey Wells

I’ll catch an occasional film at a nearby AMC plex, but I never seem to remember to arrive 20 to 25 minutes late so I can avoid the torture of watching bubbly, extra perky Noovie personalities Maria Menounos and Perri Nemiroff, not to mention Nicole Kidman’s “we come to this place” AMC movie spot. Aaaagghh!

Each and every time these three lightweights and their respective shpiels send me into a pit of total depression.

It makes you wonder which paying customers out there are shallow and stupid enough to feel even faintly amused by this crap?

Pet Kidman peeve: “That indescribable feeling we all get when the lights begin to dim…” Indescribable on what planet? It’s easily describable. It’s the feeling of illogical, stupidly hopeful anticipation. Most of us know or at least strongly suspect that whAt we’re about to see will be an overlong, submental piece of shit, but when the lights go down we still revert to our seven-year-old selves and think “maybe…maybe.”

She Said is a very trim, smart, efficient, adult-angled journalism drama in the tradition of Spotlight and All The President’s Men. So what went wrong? Too downish? Joe and Jane don’t care that much about the appalling sins of Harvey Weinstein?

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I’ve assembled this list with full respect and total affection, but here are the nine Scorsese films that have left me feeling at least somewhat gloomy, faintly angry, unsatisfied, vaguely bored, brought down and under-nourished (and not necessarily in this order):

Hugo, Silence, Bringing Out The Dead, Kundun, The Age of Innocence, The Aviator, Shutter Island, Cape Fear and New York New York (“an honest failure”).

All the others are total winners.

 

When off-key singers have murdered the “happy birthday“ song, I’ve also been reduced to tears. But the singing wasn’t that bad earlier today.

My intuition is that the Harry Styles-Olivia Wilde relationship, which began during filming of Don’t Worry Darling in October of ‘20, was strongest in the early stages (like all relationships) but faltered when various pressures and complications began to weigh heavily. (Not to mention the ten-year age difference.) My sense was that the current had all but petered out by the time of Darling’s debut at the ‘22 Venice Film Festival. A two-year relationship means there was genuine spirit and substance. No harm, no foul.

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It’s morbid and a bit grotesque to even ask, much less speculate, about which big-name director is allegedly facing The Big Sleep, and that’s not what I’m doing here. I’m just sorry if the rumor is true, and I really hope it’s not a certain fellow I won’t name.

Update: It’s not Clint.

In his 11.15 review of Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, NewYorker critic Richard Brody says that Spielberg’s core filmmaking aesthetic is about “[putting] the emotional world of prime-time television into the form of classic Hollywood cinema.” Which is interesting.

But as with all concise definitions of complex journeys, there are exceptions. 96% of Schindler’s List, I would say, is enticingly theatrical — it’s the ending that feels television-ish. Ditto War of the Worlds — Tom Cruise‘s son having survived intense combat with the Martians plus Gene Barry and Anne Robinson joyfully welcoming the family into their Boston brownstone at the finale.

What other instances of Spielberg films that generally play by theatrical rules until their endings?

The Manhattan crowd (i.e., of which I’m a part) won’t see Damien Chazelle’s convulsive Hollywood period drama until Wednesday. Margot Robbie’s performance as a Clara Bow-like actress is said to be the standout element.

Closely followed by (and in this order) The Insider, Network, Broadcast News, She Said, The Post, Ace in the Hole, Almost Famous, Zodiac, Between The Lines, Jack Webb ‘s –30-, Good Night and Good Luck, His Girl Friday, Nightcrawler, Truth, Frost Nixon, Sweet Smell of Success, Veronica Guerin, The Day The Earth Caught Fire, The Paper…21 so far. Which others?

It started with this. Stand-alone features only so The Wire doesn’t count.

6:24 pm: I’m in my seat (E9) for a 6 pm showing of Wakanda Forever…God help me. I intend to tough it out no matter what.

Trailers put a deep scowl on my face. Movies for ADD morons. Nobody hates animation and those highly paid digital animators more than myself. If the ghosts of John Calley, Irving Thalberg, Daryl F. Zanuck or Dore Schary were sitting beside me and watching this shit…words fail.

I’m clutching my leather computer bag to my chest for warmth — November jacket weather outside and the AMC guys have the a.c. on.

9:50 pm: I lasted with Wakanda Forever for 90 minutes. I. Could. Not. Stand. Another. Minute.

I started to disengage when it got into the backstory of the Yucatán aquatic blue people. I knew I had another hour-plus to go. I just couldn’t do it.

Friendo #1: “The blue Yucatán people is the worst part. They should have lost it. The whole movie is obviously too long.”

Friendo #2: If you bailed at the 90-minute mark, you missed the best part.”

HE: “Good! Fine!”

I accepted the death of Matt Damon‘s “Colin Sullivan” in The Departed, but I wanted Leo DiCaprio‘s “Billy Costigan” to live. Up to no good and loyal to Jack Nicholson‘s demonic “Frank Costello,” Sullivan earned that bullet in the head. But Costigan had performed cunningly and bravely — he deserved to live. Plus William Monahan‘s screenplay got that famous Chinese laundry saying wrong — in the film Costello says “no tickee, no laundry” but the actual line is “no tickee, no washee.”