Jeffrey Wells

If you want to know how radiantly aware and plugged-in Blake Lively is, read this excerpt from Ben Affleck‘s Details interview with Mark Harris:

“When I was doing The Town, I’d tour the actors around Boston,” Affleck tells Harris. “I was with Blake [Lively], and I saw Matt’s childhood home. And I said, ‘Oh yeah, that’s where Matt grew up.’ And she said, ‘Who?’ And I said, ‘Matt Damon.’ And she said, ‘Oh my God! You know Jason Bourne?!’ She really didn’t know. And I thought, ‘There it is. The first age of people who are adults who missed the whole Matt-and-Ben propaganda campaign!’ Mostly, it just made me feel old.”

Lively, born in August 1987, was ten when Good Will Hunting came out and also when Affleck and Damon won their Best Screenplay Oscar, so she wasn’t paying attention. But she never once heard or read about their collaboration and friendship in the years that followed? And when she got hired to be in The Town (which came out in ’10), she never went online to learn about Affleck’s past? Even if she’s not engaged or curious enough to do online searches, her agent or manager never gave her the rundown? Breathtaking.

Ben Affleck has offered a “thank God that‘s over” recap on the bad old Bennifer days in a Details interview with Mark Harris. I can relate. I can look back at my life in ’02 or ’03 and feel good about this or that thread being absent from the current fabric. But when you’re “there,” you’re there. You have to play what’s dealt.

Harris: “By 2003, you were the star of two potential franchises, Daredevil and The Sum of All Fears, that didn’t go forward. We probably knew more about your romantic life than you would have preferred. And then Gigli. I don’t think a lot of people would have said, ‘By 2012, this guy will have directed three very good movies.'”

Affleck: “In our culture, we get very much into shorthanding people. And I got shorthanded as That Guy: Jennifer Lopez, movies bombed, therefore he must be a sort of thoughtless dilettante, solipsistic consumer blahblahblah. It’s hard to shake those sort of narratives. If you were looking at that one-liner on me in 2003, which was definitely the annus horribilis [laughs] of my life — it’s funny how that rhymes with Sacha Baron Cohen‘s pronunciation of ‘ah-noose’…

Harris: “Well, you were kind of in that place.”

Affleck: “Exactly! I made a bunch of movies that didn’t work. I was ending up in the tabloids. I don’t know what the lesson is, except that you just have to find your compass.

“I liked Sum of All Fears. Daredevil I didn’t at all. Some movies should have worked and didn’t. At a certain point, it’s just up to the movie gods. Anyway, this image becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I just said, ‘I don’t want to do it anymore. This is horrible. I don’t want to be in this spotlight, this glare, in this way. It’s tawdry, it’s ugly, it’s oppressive, and it’s inane. So I’m going to try to get away.'”

Every now and then it hits me that the term “movie godz” really is swimming and swirling around out there, even if some people spell it wrong.

“And most of the way I did that was by not acting. I said, ‘I’m going to steer myself toward directing. I’m going to do something that takes me toward a place where the work that I do is reflective of what I think is interesting dramatically.’ People bring up 2003, and I get it. Jennifer Lopez, and Gigli, and all this shit just kind of blew up. But, you know, in 2003, Barack Obama was a state senator in Illinois! Okay?”

JFK: “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” HE commenter: “What kind of submissive socialist shit is this? He’s gonna tell me about priorities with all the tom-catting he’s done, and all his family money? I’m not supposed to watch out for myself? I need to offer up my mind, my strength and my imagination to my country while my mortgage and ability to feed my family hangs by a thread? Fuck that.”

David O. Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook won another audience award yesterday. The 20th Hamptons International Film Festival was the bequeather on the heels of last month’s Toronto Film Festival audience award. It appears as if Hamptons and Toronto film lovers need to be straightened out, possibly by In Contention‘s Kris Tapley, Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone plus any other Silver Linings pooh-pooher who want to join in.

What do Hamptons-residing filmgoers know anyway? Just a bunch of well-to-do lah-lahs lying around on their divans and drinking Merlot. Perhaps we need to set up a community Skype chat in which Kris and Sasha can explain what they’re missing or what’s not good enough about Russell’s film? Followed by a q & a with Hamptons film lovers? One way or another the air needs to be cleared and the rubes need to be schooled.

Janet Tobias‘ No Place on Earth, a documentary about caves in the Ukraine that sheltered Jews during World War II, took the Hamptons’ documentary audience award.

Dr. No (’62) will always be my favorite 007 film, in part because Sean Connery has a leaner frame and a narrower face in this than in any 007 film, and because he’s not wearing a toupee. (The first rug appeared two years hence in Goldfinger.) Please notice the black windowbox bars, which create the 1.66 aspect ratio. 1.66 is the correct a.r. for this and From Russia With Love, as they were framed according to British standards. The series went 1.85 with Goldfinger.

About a half hour ago Deadline‘s Mike Fleming reported that veteran publicist Lois Smith, 85, died today at 2 pm in Hebron, Maine, where she had gone to honor her husband, Gene, who was being honored by his alma mater, Hebron University. She fell and hit her head and suffered a brain hemmorhage, Fleming reports. Hugs and condolences to friends, family, colleagues and former clients. I’m very sorry.

Lois was one of the co-founders of Pickwick p.r., which began in 1969 and later merged with Maslansky/Konigsberg to become PMK, which was the big high-powered agency in the ’80s and ’90s with all kinds of hotshot clients. The big PMK triumvirate was Smith, Pat Kingsley and Leslee Dart (who now runs 42West). It was always more pleasant to deal with Lois on stories than Kingsley, who was PMK’s bad cop to Lois’s good cop. But Smith really wasn’t a “cop” at all — she was too alpha-minded and compassionate for that. And she was always calm and collected whatever the story was, and she never barked at me or threatened and she always took time to talk to me as a human being and not as an enemy reporter.

Lois was always fair and honest with me. She sometimes told me stuff I didn’t want to hear, but she was a good person. I liked her. I’m sorry she’s gone.

Lois Smityh (r.), daughter Brooke Smith.

Incidentally: Joe Leydon has pointed out that in their story/obit, TheWrap initially ran a pic of actress Lois Smith (East of Eden, etc.) instead of the publicist. TheWrap currently has a correct photo running.

Today is a nice lazy Sunday with sunny skies. I recorded a podcast this morning, and I’m doing a little column-writing now. The usual weights-and-treadmill ordeal awaits, and then two movies — Summer Window, a 2011 German film with Barbara‘s Nina Hoss, at the American Cinematheque at 5:30 pm, and then Bernardo Bertolucci‘s The Sheltering Sky (’90), which I haven’t seen for a good 15 years, at Santa Monica’s Aero.

Meanwhile in other regions of the city, people are actually paying money to see Taken 2 with Liam “paycheck” Neeson, and The Paperboy, which opened limited. I don’t know what to say about this except that different people have different tastes and priorities. I know for a fact that I live in a more enlightened (or at least enlightenment-seeking) realm than those who are taking out their wallets and paying money to see Taken 2, which has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 20%, but what of it?

Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil and I kicked it around this morning. Les Miserables and the mysterious “Snuggle 4.” The Zero Dark Thirty vs. Argo situation (i.e., similar covert-mission plots, Middle Eastern milieus, hoodwinking Islamic authorities). Feelings and conclusions about Spielberg and Tarantino. Here’s a stand-alone mp3 link. New Saul Bass-styled Oscar Poker art by Mark Frenden.

According to a 5.3.12 article by Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute, the actual corporate-elite-vs.-working-schlub pay ratio in the US is 231 to 1, and not 475 to 1 as the below graph (which has been circulating for roughly a year now) alleges. So wealth distribution is actually a lot fairer and more equitable in this country than previously believed…hah!

What is the average low-information voter’s response to this data? Is it “Jesus, this country has gone all to hell…we ought to vote on behalf of our own economic interests and get rid of all corporate-fellating Congresspersons and try to make things a little fairer”? No — the typical low-information voter’s response is, “Jeez, I wish I could be one of those guys making all that big dough. Well, maybe if I vote for Romney my chances will improve.”

“From 1978-2011, CEO compensation grew more than 725 percent, substantially more than the stock market and remarkably more than the annual compensation of a typical private-sector worker, which grew a meager 5.7 percent,” Mishel reports.

A year ago Politifact‘s Truth-o-meter reported that the above graph was “done as a class project by three students — Adam Choate, Dana Rowzee and Jerrod Tinsley — in a graduate class back in 2005.” The 475 to 1 ratio is unsubstantiated, in short, but the 231 to 1 ratio is apparently reliable.