Jeffrey Wells

Bosley Crowther’s reaction to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in his 6.16.60 N.Y. Times review is mostly one of distaste for the grisly stuff, which he regards as low-rent. He then masks his snooty prejudice by feigning boredom.

At age 54 the veteran critic was entering his harumphy, fuddy-duddy phase, I suppose, but how could this sophisticated movie maven…how could he have just sat in his seat like a heap of mashed potatoes during the startling, jittery editing of the shower-murder scene, compounded by Bernard Herrmann’s screechy violin score, neither of which he even mentions? Was he on painkillers?

And yet in the wake of Psycho’s striking popularity and financial success, Crowther’s opinion evolved. On 12.25.60 or six months later, he announced that Psycho was among his ten best of the year.

Andrew Sarris’s highly adniring Village Voice review didn’t appear until the August 11th issue — almost two full months after the Crowther verdict. Why would it have taken this long for the Voice to register an opinion? The downtown paper couldn’t even publish a review sometime in July?

Portions of Sarris’s 8.11.60 review:

Crowther reconsiders:

On Friday afternoon I asked Mark Kane, a friend since ‘80 and a devoted fan of Bruce Springsteen from way back, to write about the approach of Scott Cooper’s Deliver Me From Nowhere (20th Century, 10.24), a film about the making of Nebraska:

Kane: “Obviously, I love Bruce Springsteen.  I feel connected to him on many levels, and it’s been that way since 1975.  I buy all of his music and listen to it over and over.    

“That said, I’ve become a little uncomfortable with his increasing deification.   It reminds me a little, although the analogy is far from perfect, of what Noah Cross said in Chinatown: ‘Of course, I’m respectable…I’m old.’

“I guess there’s no getting around the fact that Bruce is old too. I don’t think we have many heroes these days, but Bruce seems to fit the bill. And yet rock and roll, as I understand it, wasn’t about being respectable.  It was about something much different, perhaps even the opposite of being respectable. 

“I also felt Bruce was a good guy, perhaps better than just good, but he wasn’t perfect.  He was a guy trying to figure it out, just like we all were, and that was one of the things I loved about him.  The evolution of his music showed him trying to figure it out. I could relate.

 “Which brings me to Nebraska, which came out in 1982 after The River.  At that point, it was another example of Bruce doing his thing.  Sure, it was different than his other records but it wasn’t that big a leap to follow Bruce down that dark and dusty road.  After all, Dylan had evolved and we all kept up.  So had the Beatles.   

“The songs on Nebraska were good, and some bordered on great: “Atlantic City”, “Nebraska”, “State Trooper”, “Open All Night”, “Highway Patrolman”.  Everyone has their favorites. 

“My brother-in-law, a banjo player who isn’t much into commercial rock, was a big fan of Nebraska.  I remember him saying that it was the one that made him impressed with Springsteen.  Movies have been inspired by the record.  The songs have been covered by many other artists, Johnny Cash, The Band, etc. Ryan Adams has covered the entire record.

“Nebraska isn’t a ‘respectable’ record.   It’s an outlaw thing.  A recording of someone exorcising demons.  The narrators of those songs are fucked up.  So it’s a brave record.  The lo-fi production values (it was recorded at home) seemed risky. And given the trajectory of Springsteen’s career at the time, just after The River and right before Born In The USA, it was a detour that was surprising and perhaps a little dangerous career-wise. 

“Interestingly, Nebraska sold well, soaring high on the charts and becoming certified Platinum.  It continues to be revered.

“Which brings me to Deliver Me From Nowhere. I haven’t worked up much enthusiasm so far. The trailer tells us that Springsteen has become such an icon in our society.  The movie, as far as I can see from the trailer, is part of the myth-making. 

“But the dialogue in the trailer is Hollywood-reverent in a way that makes me somewhat uncomfortable.  Jeremy Strong’s (Jon Landau) dialogue in the trailer is…well, I admire his commitment, but it seems kind of silly (‘He’s going to repair the world’).

“I’m sure Jeremy Allen White’s Bruce will be very good.  But if I want to see young Bruce Springsteen, I can rent the No Nukes concert video of his performance only, which is truly awesome.  I’m not sure I want, or need, to see someone playing Bruce Springsteen at this point.  There are still too many ways for me to see Springsteen himself at every stage of his career.   

“I also have my memories.  Perhaps that is the most important thing.  I don’t want the movie to interfere with my memories of what I thought and felt about Springsteen when Nebraska came out. 

“In his concerts, Springsteen told us about his relationship with his father.  I’ve read the interviews through the years about what he was trying to accomplish with the album.  I know about his struggle with relationships.  I’ve heard this story before.   It’s old news to me in one sense. 

“Perhaps the movie will be surprising in ways, but it will still be a movie with an actor and not the real thing.  In some ways, this isn’t a movie for me.  I guess it’s for a different generation.  That’s okay.  

“This is similar to the upcoming quartet of Beatles movies.  I’m not that interested in seeing actors play the Beatles.  A Hard Day’s Night is always streaming and it’s great to rewatch and admire it, and them.   

“Of course, I’ll probably end up seeing Deliver Me From Nowhere.   I’ve always assumed that there would be a movie made some day about Bruce.   But for some of the reasons above, I wish it hadn’t been made because Jeremy Allen White won’t be as good in my mind as the original, not even close, and it just interferes.”

In his just-published Clint Eastwood book, author Shawn Levy dismisses Breezy (’73), a gentle, deftly handled romantic drama about an affair between William Holden’s 50ish real-estate salesman and Kay Lenz’s free-spirited bohemian, with “ew, just ew” (actually pronounced “eeyooh”).

I really don’t like that kind of thinking or judging about a nicely honed, well-written film that isn’t even vaguely lewd, so here’s what I wrote this morning about the jailbait aspect:

“I think somewhat older guys (10 years older or less) should keep their distance until a woman has hit 20, or her junior year in college.

“That said, there are 30 states in which the age of consent is 16, and 7 states that determine consent can be given at 17. (Connecticut is one of the former.)

“Breezy happens in California (primarily the flush environs of Laurel Canyon and the surrounding hills), where the age of consent is 18. If you accept the film’s narrative about Lenz’s Breezy being 17, Holden is definitely outside the legal zone when their relationship becomes intimate.

“Then again the social perimeters of ‘70s culture, especially in the affluent regions of Los Angeles, were more liberal than in today’s post-#MeToo era, in which taking down or shaking down inappropriately frisky or even half-interested older guys is par for the course. In today’s culture adult males are deer, and every younger woman is armed with a rifle and ready to shoot at the drop of a hat.

“But it wasn’t like dudes in the ‘70s weren’t mindful of the dangers of jailbait. Holden’s real-estate shark is a fairly crusty and guarded type and obviously a social conservative, and yet he doesn’t have a line in which he even ALLUDES to the fact that the age of consent is 18. Does that make any sense?

“Plus it really doesn’t figure that Breezy is 17. She tells Holden that she graduated from high school a year prior to their meeing. It would have been fairly unusual if she’d graduated at 17, but let’s bend over backwards and say she did. It naturally follows she would be 18 when she meets Holden.

“On the face of it, this kind of age gap (roughly 40 years) is unappealing, granted. But it’s the singer, not the song. Eastwood directs and cuts it just so, and Jo Heim’s’ script is nicely sculpted with just the right amount of restraint.”

Posted earlier today by gfoshizzle:

“Hey Jeff — I watched Grand Prix yesterday. For whatever it may be worth, it STILL is the quintessential car-racing film. Just a technical masterpiece from John Frankenheimer. I caught F1 in IMAX on the 23rd and enjoyed the hell out of it. But GP reaches for and finds a deeper place when it comes to super-fast, 180 mph racing and the competitive human spirit. The racing scenes are absolutely remarkable in their construction — you really do feel the speed in the final product. I had seen scenes of it before but had never sat for a full viewing, so glad I finally did. Thanks for recommending it.”

HE to MGM marketing (LBJ era): This 1966 poster art is shameless bullshit The mood of Grand Prix is tense, pensive, anxious, even melancholy at times. “I have a rendezvous with death” = nobody’s having a rollicking good time.

[SPOILERS HEREIN] Jurassic World Rebirth is a competent diversion, but I was bored. No awe or shock left in this 32-year-old franchise. Same old chain-jerkings, reptilian jolts and snarls, CG crap. You can’t go home again.

Well, you can if your audience is young enough and gripped by primitive expectations. My three and a half year old granddaughter would be wowed by Rebirth.

The predicting game we all play is “which characters will be eaten?” It’s understood, of course, that the proverbial white yuppie hardhead (Rupert Friend) will be chomped. And don’t you dare call this a spoiler! Bottom-line shitheads always end up in dino stomachs.

We know that 40-year-old Scarlett Johansson (talented veteran, no longer young and peachy but in good shape, looks great in her tight T-shirts) will survive to the end. Ditto the kindly, saintly Mahershala Ali.

But we’ve all been trained by the woke playbook to expect that the other significant black dude, Bechir Sylvain (good looking, buff, smooth manner), will survive also because POCs don’t die in these films — only venal scumbag whiteys. So it’s quite a surprise when Sylvain is swallowed. HE to movie: “Wait, wait…did you just kill a handsome, muscle-bound black dude? That’s not right!”

We know the Mexican / LatinX family (dopey dad, two pretty daughters, dumb-as-a-rock boyfriend) won’t get eaten, even though it would be shocking (and therefore perversely satisfying) if one of the pretty daughters were to die howling and shrieking. Or at least the dumbshit boyfriend.

But no — despite this family’s rank stupidity they aren’t consumed. I really wanted the moronic dad to be ripped apart and chewed to death…(“die! Eat that stupid fucker!…die!!”)…but no.

Okay, there’s one quiet, pastoral scene in which the scientific explorers on the proverbial dino island (the natural settings are in Krabi, Thailand) stand next to and stare at a pair of towering, passive, cow-like brontos with absurdly long skinny tails — this is the only majesty-of-dinos scene that really grabs you.**

But they’ve simply gone to this well too many times.

The people in the theatre were “tee-hee”-ing, chuckling and “hoo-hoo”-ing like it was a comedy.

Sick to death of hearing John Williams’ “Jurassic Park” theme, which is dutifully adapted and recycled by Alexandre Desplat.

Excellent CG, but I didn’t believe a frame of any of it. Fake acting, the feigning of extreme fear, stupid or reckless behavior. Go fug yourselves.

A team of scientists (led by Johansson and Friend) are looking to extract blood vials from three species because their blood has properties that can combat or eradicate heart disease, blah blah.

** But director Gareth Edwards ruins this scene by craning upwards a couple of hundred feet to show that these two brontos are part of a huge grazing herd…dozens! HE to Edwards: Why not hundreds? More is better, right?

Flat narration over a sprawling sea. What about this or that? Can’t figure it out. Nolan dialogue isn’t meant to be understood. Brackah-brackah-brack.

The huge shadow of a Trojan horse cast upon a beach. Long shot of same beached, half-buried horse being approached by several men.

Where is Odysseus? Is he dead, lost, searching around…what?

A bald, bearded and tattooed Jon Bernthal speaking with an American accent and gesturing in a semi-exasperated, guy-sitting-in-Yankee-Stadium-bleachers sort of way…Bernthal! Tom Holland’s Telemachus looking like a total twat…bad haircut!! “Where is my father?”, other urgent words to that effect. Holland looks anxious. Bernthal rolling eyes, vaguely annoyed.

Back to the wide sprawling sea and a dude (presumably a bearded, muscle-bound Matt Damon) floating on a slab of wooden ship wreckage. Cut to black…finito.

HE sitting in third–row seat: “That’s it? That’s all?”

It’s nothing, nothing, nothing.

“Something of a victory”, according to N.Y. Times reporters Ben Sistasio abd Julia Jacobs.

It’s not accurate to say that Combs has “walked”, but he’s certainly dodged heavy penalties and a long prison sentence.

I confess to not having read the fine print within Trump’s “Big Beautiful” bill — a Poor-Screwing, Medicaid-Gutting, Tax-Slashing, Debt-Increasing Enactment which the Senate has passed but has yet to clear the House — but Elon Musk’s five-alarm, total-war resistance is theatrically striking to say the least…very emotional and absolutist.

Located in Montvale, New Jersey, the Garden State Parkway’s James Gandolfini service area feels like a place of semi-solemn observance — well north of Satriale’s pork store in Kearny, northeast of Saddle River, northwest of Gandolfini’s birthplace of Westwood, just south of the New York State line.

It’s not quite on the level of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello or JFK’s Hyannisport or FDR’s Hyde Park, but it’s a place that seems to culturally matter…”take your hat off, they serve hot dogs here.”

Gandolfini was a very young boomer (born on 9.18.61**, technically a member of Generation Jones, a cusp between boomers and GenXers). Way too young to have been a ground-floor Beatles or Bob Dylan fan or to have even sniffed the hippie thing…came of age in the early Reagan era…B-52s, Blondie, The Police, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”.

Gandolfini was 37 when season #1 of The Sopranos began filming in mid ‘98, and only 51 when he died in Rome of a heart attack on 6.19.13.

** Six weeks after Barack Obama.

Blue skies, hot temps, no breezes.

Posted on 2.13.23:

Norman Lloyd‘s falling finale would’ve been better if Alfred Hitchcock hadn’t relied on that fake-looking process shot.

If I’d been in Hitchcock’s shoes, I would’ve had Universal’s prop department build a special wind-up mechanical dummy, one capable of moving its arms and legs a bit. Then I would’ve mounted the downward-facing camera on the railing of the actual Statue of Liberty torch, and then I would’ve simply dropped the dummy and filmed the long fall.

Then, in the editing phase, I would’ve shown Lloyd losing his grip and starting to fall, then a quick shot of Robert Cummings‘ horrified expression, and then cut to the falling dummy and stay with it until hits the pavement below. I would also have recorded the sound of a pair of tied-together watermelons slamming into the pavement from a height of, say, four or five stories.

Happy 104th #NormanLloyd
Saboteur, 1942, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Robert Cummings and Norman Lloyd.
"Statue of Liberty" scene.
pic.twitter.com/T4NDXyQWUD

— Sergio Rodríguez (@Sergiofordy) November 8, 2018

THR’s Ben Svetkey stating that Denis Villeneuve “has no sense of humor” is trade press code for “he looks like a bit of a dweeb and has almost certainly never catted around.”