Jeffrey Wells

Penned 21 and 1/2 years ago by an Austin-based film lover named “Cue–ball”:

As long as we’re on a Hustler jag, please reconsider an HE piece titled “Sara and ‘The Hustler’“, posted on 9.27.21.

If you’re a hotshot CEO and you’re “ doing” a woman who works for you — a married, silver-haired HR exec — rule #1 is that you don’t engage in PDA inside a crowded sports arena during a rock concert. You confine your get-togethers to hotels, motels and dark, smokey places…duhhhhh!

An annual $100M production tab (according to Deadline’s Matthew Belloni) means The Late Show with Stephen Colbert costs $8.3M ($8,333,333) each month, resulting in an annual loss of $40M or $3.3M ($3.333,333) per month.

I’m not suggesting that CBS’s decision to pull the plug wasn’t primarily political, but these numbers obviously make no sense.

Colbert’s annual haul is said to be $15M with an alleged per-episode rate of $89K. He can’t host that show for, say, $40K or $50K per episode? That’s not exactly chump change.

If I was running that show my basic message to Colbert and everyone else would be “at the very least this show breaks even…take it or leave it.”

Posted last night by the redoubtable Bob Hightower in the wake of yesterday’s brief Connie Francis obit-slash-tribute — “Not-So–Prudish Girl From New Jersey”:

HE replies:

I’m not “condemning” Francis for having recorded “Nixon’s The One” in 1968. “Not cool” is simply, merely a frowned–upon thing — not a career damaging felony, but in the eyes of her 30-and-under peers (a major social slogan back then was “don’t trust anyone over 30”) certainly a social misdemeanor.

The message of Nixon’s ‘68 campaign was basically “all of this social convulsion stuff has gone too far!”…he was saying “enough with the repulsive, antiwar, pot-smoking hippies and yippies” and was calling for a re-assertion of U.S. pride and traditionalism along with anti-youth-activist repression — in a word “lawnorder”.

A somber, straightlaced, opposite-of-Senator Eugene McCarthy figure, Nixon appealed to the silent majority (law-abiding, tax-paying, Middle American normies) who were saying “enough already!” because things had gotten too crazy with militant antiwar street action and burning cities following the April ‘68 assassination of MLK and the subsequent murder of RFK two months later.

1968 was easily one of the most socially convulsive, politically divisive, tearing-asunder years in U.S. history, primarily due to anti-Vietnam War furor and the concurrent rise of radical left orgs like SDS and the Black Panthers and Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin’s Yippie movement, not to mention the growing social (and sexual) radicalization of college-age, middle- and upper-middle-class youth.

Connie Francis recording that pro-Nixon campaign song was a social identity statement that basically said “I’m with the normies and with Merle Haggard and the Okies from Muskogee**…I’m aligned with your stodgy parents and the billy-club cops and the construction-worker hardhats** and Peter Boyle’s ‘Joe’** and in support of our boys fighting to stop the commies from taking over South Vietnam.”

An overwhelming majority of the left-leaning showbiz community was against the war and was generally in a posture of sympathizing with or at least understanding the tumultuous social changes that were afoot back then, and yet Francis was basically saying “I’m proud of our glorious flag and U.S. traditions (including imperialism abroad) and so I’m with Bob Hope and Anita Bryant and Morey Amsterdam and Pat Boone.”

The U.S. was a free country back then and so Francis was fully, naturally and obviously entitled to her opinions, but you can’t say that in the context of ‘68 her views and political alignments weren’t, at the very, VERY least, “uncool.”

** Yes, I’m aware that Haggard’s “Okie From Muskogee” popped in July of ‘69 and that those World Trade Center construction workers beat up hippie protestors in ‘70, and that John Avildsen’s Joe opened on 7.15.70, but the resentful working-class feelings that drove these social expressions were fully felt and shared in ‘68.

Is it really because of dropping revenues, or is it partly to do with Colbert being a Trump hater?

Besides ignoring the great Dolores Claiborne, what else was I doing in 1995? I’ll tell you what — I was watching all the other goody-goods.

HE’s top five films of ‘95 are Heat, Se7en, The Usual Suspects, Dolores Claiborne and Crimson Tide.

#6 through #10 are Swimming With Sharks, Leaving Las Vegas, To Die For, Before Sunrise and The Bridges of Madison County.

And then, in this approximate order: Leavibg Las Vegas, Get Shorty, Apollo 13, Living in Oblivion, Operation Dumbo Drop, The Brothers McMullen, Casino, Mighty Aphrodite, Sense and Sensibility, The American President, Toy Story, Nixon, Richard III, Dead Man Walking, Empire Records, The Basketball Diaries, Dangerous Minds, Clockers, Kids, Clueless, Beyond Rangoon. (31 films in all)

Braveheart won 1995’s Best Picture Oscar, but I can’t in all honesty call it one of my faves of that year. I haven’t re-watched it once in the 30 years that have elapsed.

“Sometimes bein’ a bitch is all a woman has to hold on to.”

Because I was lazy and cowardly I chose to avoid Taylor Hackford, Kathy Bates, Tony Gilroy and Gabriel Beristain’s Dolores Claiborne back in the late winter or early spring of ‘95. It really wasn’t cool that I shut this worthy film out, but I finally watched it last night and holy moley mother of God…it’s exceptionally good!

Shot roughly 23 or 24 years before the dawn of the #MeToo movement, it might be the best “most men are cruel and abusive animals, and especially the alcoholic ones” movie I’ve ever seen.

I didn’t experience even a twinge of my usual “okay, here we go again with another serving of rote anti-male diminishnent”…I believed every scene, every line, every plot pivot. It may be the best Hollywood-produced feminist film ever made. I trusted every frame.

It’s almost certainly Hackford’s finest effort, and Beristain’s shifting color schemes (Fuji amber for flashbacks, cold grays for present tense) are truly mesmerizing.

Gilroy’s dialogue is so well-honed and soothingly concise and bracingly articulate.

The co-lead performances by the 46-year-old Bates, whose titular tour de force should’ve won a second Best Actress Oscar in the wake of her startling Misery breakout, and the 32 year-old Jennifer Jason Leigh are keepers. Ditto the supporting David Straitharn, Judy Parfitt, Christopher Plummer and John C. Reilly.

Adapted from Stephen King’s same–titled, best–selling 1992 novel, this Castle Rock production is an exceptionally well-crafted melodrama (almost a kind of realism-based horror film) of the highest calibre…you’re never unaware that you’re chest-deep in a totally classy, #MeToo-ish truth testament made by grade-A people. Because the film is so deftly assembled and therefore persuasive and compelling, Gilroy’s altered adaptation (King’s book was one long first-person confession by Claiborne) isn’t as downerish as it sounds on the surface. And yet it’s basically about small-town confinement, suppressive conditions, domestic misery and exceptional spousal cruelty and abuse, dysfunctional family trauma, incest and blessed revenge.

The final half-hour really pays off in a way that top-tier films used to pay off in the old days (i.e., before the horror of Marvel and D.C., before Stalinist-woke narratives, before streaming multi-part sagas for couch potatoes).

As I wrote last February, an early draft of After The Hunt “planted expectations that Julia Roberts‘ lead performance might stir convos about a Best Actress nomination and perhaps the ultimate gold trophy itself. She’s playing one of those well-sculpted, sturm und drang roles that older actresses have always pined for.”

From Samantha Bergeson’s 7.16.25 IndieWire story:

Posted on 2.17.25:

Earlier today I read an early draft of Nora Garrett‘s After The Hunt screenplay, a #MeToo rape accusation drama that feels like a splicing of Todd Field‘s TAR, David Mamet‘s Oleanna and Ruben Ostlund‘s The Square.

It’s the basis of an upcoming Luca Guadagnino film that MGM-Amazon will release on October 10th — a whipsmart, dialogue-driven, pressure-cooker thing with Julia Roberts toplining.

Strong supporting performances from Andrew Garfield, The Bear‘s Ayo Edebiri, Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloe Sevigny will presumably round things out.

World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy recently reported that Hunt had test-screened in early December. He also sketched it out as one of those jarring, controversial, hot-button melodramas that stir the soup among educated audiences.

HE is guessing Hunt will debut six months hence at the Venice Film Festival.

Garrett’s page-turning screenplay (which a friend found on Reddit) vaguely summons the downswirling mood of Frank Perry‘s DiaryofaMadHousewife…if Perry’s 1970 film had been set in the realm of elite academia and concerned a middle-aged female professor (Roberts) on the brink of tenure.

Guadagnino (Queer, Challengers, CallMeByYourName) made some changes to Garrett’s Swedish-flavored scenario before filming it last summer in London and Cambridge.

That’s as far as I’ll go description-wise, but the screenplay did plant expectations of Roberts’ performance possibly stirring convos about a Best Actress trophy. She’s playing one of those well-sculpted, sturmunddrang roles that older actresses have always pined for.

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The Toronto Int’l Film Festival destroyed itself when it began to go wokey–wokey in ‘19 or thereabouts, and then it was further crippled by Covid. I for one was happy to see TIFF gradually slide down the slope…good!

For the last four or five years TIFF has been a shadow of its former self, and everyone kind of despises it for having become a festival of second–tier, sloppy–seconds, Venice–and–Telluride–rejected or leftover attractions.

Initial TIFF 2025 rundown:

Nicholas Hytner’s The Choral

Agnieszka Holland’s Franz

Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet

Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound

Paul Greengrass’ The Lost Bus

Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life

HIKARI’s Rental Family

Derek Cianfrance’s Roofman

Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s She Has No Name

Clement Virgo’s Steal Away

Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Galas (in alphabetical order):

The Choral | Nicholas Hytner | UK

World Premiere | Gala Presentation: Homebound | Neeraj Ghaywan | India

North American Premiere | Gala Presentation: Hamlet | Chloé Zhao | UK

Canadian Premiere | Gala Presentation: A Private Life | Rebecca Zlotowski | France

North American Premiere | Gala Presentation: Roofman | Derek Cianfrance | USA

World Premiere | Gala Presentation: She Has No Name | Peter Ho-Sun Chan | China

North American Premiere | Gala Presentation: Special Presentations (in alphabetical order):

Franz | Agnieszka Holland | Czech Republic/Germany/Poland

World Premiere | Special Presentation: The Lost Bus | Paul Greengrass | USA

World Premiere | Special Presentation: Rental Family | HIKARI | USA/Japan

World Premiere | Special Presentation: Steal Away | Clement Virgo | Canada/Belgium

World Premiere | Special Presentation: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery | Rian Johnson | USA

World Premiere | Special Presentation: The 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, presented by Rogers, runs September 4–14, 2025.

The full Festival schedule will be released on tiff.net on Tuesday, August 12.

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I’ve somehow missed a pair of three–month–old quotes from Marty Supreme dp Darius Khondry, one in which he said that he and director Josh Safdie have “pushed the negative to increase the grain” (i.e. an apparent assurance of an Egyptian grainstorm), and another in which he divulged that Marty Supreme contains “140 different characters”

14 characters means a film will be fairly verbose, but 140? A film with 25 characters means it’ll be a lot like Robert Altman’s Nashville (which has 25 characters) and 50 characters would be Nashville on Adderall. Double that and you’d have Nashville injected with “hoo-hoo!” Daffy Duck serum. Bump that up to 140 and you’d be going beepity-beep-beep and whoa-baby “hoodily-hoo-hoo!” and homina-homina-homina start to finish.

We all know that Josh Safdie is a human pogo stick on speed to begin with, and so what Khondji has conveyed should strike cold fear into the hearts of cineastes everywhere.

This plus a likely prospect of Timothee Chalamet and his 139 costars inhaling and re-inhaling hundreds of billions of Egyptian mosquitoes into their lungs between lines, and I’m scared…genuinely terrified of this film. I’m certainly exhausted just thinking about it.