Jeffrey Wells

Coincidence Incident

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Last night around 10-something I was chilling at the arrivals area at JFK’s Terminal 1, idling in a black, snappy-looking Lincoln SUV.

A 40ish blonde woman had just popped the trunk of a newish black coupe that was maybe 15 feet away, and a middle-aged bearded guy in a cream-colored sweater and a dark baseball cap was loading his suitcase.

I was saying to myself “wow, that guy with the cap and beard sure looks like Luca Guadagnino….oh, but it can’t be! Too much of a coincidence.”

But my curiosity had been aroused. I’ve had Luca’s Italian cell since that introductory lunch we shared near Spezia in early June of ‘17. So what the hell…I texted a message: “Are you wearing a cream–colored sweater and a baseball cap?”

Immediate reply: “Yes! Where are you?” HE: “Right behind you.” Hug, smiles, joyful greetings.

Sometimes the world is actually as small as we imagine it to be.

You can believe or not believe in coincidences, but they happen anyway from time to time.

I’m on my way into town and the NYFF to catch my second viewing of After The Hunt. Repeating once again: Don’t trust the fiendish wokey critics.

HE Agrees With Manohla Dargis’s Rave Review of “One Battle After Another”

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…except in two respects.

One, the political tone of her review — the theological undercurrent — sounds like it was penned by the critic for Ramparts or even The Berkeley Barb in the late ‘60s. So she’s clearly in the tank for Paul Thomas Anderson’s empathy for (or excitement over) lefty, insurrectionist, down-with-whitey politics as well as the propulsive cinematic chops.

And two, Dargis doesn’t even allude to the charged political climate out there — to the fact that (a) within the last two weeks lefty nihilists have fired bullets at government-allied, conservative-minded figures (Charlie Kirk being the most tragically prominent) and (b) — hello? — the fact that OBAA is a film about lefty revolt, insurrection and bullets.

Waiting For So Many Months to See Ron Howard’s “Eden”

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…and yet when it finally began streaming last weekend, I “forgot” to watch it. Because the reviews have been so shitty.

Friendo who watched it yesterday: “Eden is no one’s idea of good.”

HE: “Owen Gleiberman called it ‘terrible.’”

Friendo: “There’s a surreal scene in which Sydney Sweeney’s Margret Whitmer, all alone in a cave, goes into labor just as her cabin is being robbed by Ana de Armas’s boy-toy lovers.

“On the brink of birth a pack of dogs arrive and begin to attack Sweeney. Cut to the two robbers escaping with canned foods, and then just as the baby drops Sweeney screams at the dogs until a rescuer artives with a gun and starts shooting them. All of this happening at once — a scene that lasts nearly ten minutes. The dogs!”

HE: “My bad for not watching it. I knew it would give me annoyance and frustration, and my spirit wilted. But I’ll sit through it later today or tonight.”

The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves.
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Venice Misery Flick #1

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When I first glimpsed an image of an overly muscled-up Dwayne Johnson in a black short-hair wig in Benny Safdie’s The Fighting Machine (A24, 10.3), I immediately tumbled head over heels into a pit of black depression.

Because as much as I respect and admire people who keep themselves in shape, I hate dude bods with swollen, gleaming, well-oiled muscles and bulging veins and whatnot, and especially the sports culture that celebrates this kind of aggressive brawn and pumped-up machismo.

Johnson, a competent actor as far as it goes, is playing former wrestler and MMA fighter Mark Kerr, who peaked in the ‘90s and is now 57. God help me but I’ll have to watch this sure-to-be-bruising tribute film on the Lido.

IndieWire Has Crossed The Line

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I respect Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo as much as the next film lover, but the recent IndieWire articles about this shocking, 50-year-old portrait of fascist cruelty and sadism are…how can I put this?…a little diseased and flirting with over–the–top perversity, seemingly at the behest of executive editor Ryan Lattanzio.

I don’t want to ever even glance at another IndieWire article that discusses shit-eating in movies…is that clear? Nor do I want to read about movies that have depicted golden showers in ‘70s gay bars a la Cruising. Ditto the phenomenon of fist-fucking (also featured in Cruising) as well as any mentions of Zoo, that 2007 Sundance film about a real–life guy who died from a perforated colon after getting fucked by a horse…fair enough?

You Can Thank The Foam-At-the-Mouth Wokesters For This

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Over-the-cliff woke shit has all but destroyed the Democratic brand among a plurality of voters, as a new N.Y. Times voter registration survey implies. The Democrat registration fall-off is “staggering,” according to Times reporter Shane Goldmacher.

When I say “over-the-cliff woke shit”, I’m partly referring to the purist progressive mentality represented by your scolding, deeply-in-denial Hollywood Elsewhere nutters like Glenn Runciter and Victor Laszlo.

We all hate wokesters and their “white-savior complex” derangement (i.e., all POCs and women are saints) and especially their having cancelled the lives and careers of so many fine fellows and lassies (Sasha Stone among them) between ‘17 and ‘24. We hate the “all white folks are bad” mentality and the disenfranchising of young white males. We hate incessant trans shit and men in women’s sports. We hate that these twisted fucks have been messing around with gender identity issues among minors. We hate drag shows in elementary schools.

Honestly? The best thing for the Democratic Party is to jettison these loons. Should wokesters be exterminated like rats? Or should they be rounded up and thrown to the lions in the Colisseum or, better yet, tossed into Viking-style hunger pits filled with salivating wolves?

All hail sensible liberal-centrist moderates pols. All hail Rahm, Gavin, Pete.