Jeffrey Wells

Nearly Tasting “Dog” Defeat

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Friendo #1: “I didn’t think I could root any harder than I already am for The Power of the Dog not to win [the Best Picture Oscar]. But now, if it loses, it will just be unimaginably sweet.”

Friendo #2: “I never thought it could win because people don’t actually like it that much. But I don’t really want to see CODA win either. Apple bought it for $20 million, and it made $1 million. There is just something really awful about that. Maybe King Richard will win.”

Friendo #1: “I’m not quite sure what you’re saying about CODA. Apple bought it for $25 million, and it made no money because it never played in theaters. Just like The Power of the Dog.

“The difference is that CODA is the better film. The Power of the Dog is well-made, but it’s thin and fatally woke. Sam Elliott, in his ham-handed way, was actually right about it. It’s an attack on masculinity. I wasn’t personally offended by it, but I think it’s didactic.”

Friendo #2: “It bothers me because Apple is the most powerful company in the world. The #1 most powerful, and they’re selling CODA as ‘the little movie that could.’ I like it. It’s fine but it bothers me that they’re going to buy an Oscar, if they wind up doing that. And what will ultimately mean is more subscribers for them! I just don’t want the Oscars to go that way. I don’t really want Netflix to win either, despite that I think they’re a good company and that the movies are good. I just don’t want the Oscars to give up on theatrical.

“I know I probably have to let it go — adapt or die but still. Apple in particular bothers me. Amazon is the same. It just feels hopeless.”

Friendo #1: “Oh, I don’t want to see the Oscars give up on theatrical either! But I don’t agree with you that ‘Apple is buying this Oscar.’ They’re laying out the money for an Oscar campaign, the same way that Netflix does, and the same way that Harvey set the template.

“But CODA is ‘the little movie that could’ because…people love it! You can’t buy that. That’s why it could win. And people, by and large, don’t like TPOTD.

“But yes. Bring back theatrical!! For adult films. That’s my crusade.”

Friendo #2: “I’m not on Team CODA! It is a TV movie at best. It is not a Best Picture of the year.”

Pete Davidson Is Gonna Quit This

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Sooner or later, Pete Davidson is going to politely excuse himself from all the Kanye-vs.-Kim sturm und drang. He’s a groover and a soother, not a domestic family squabbler.

I’m sure Pete suspects fears suspects deep down that he might get drilled by a drive-by shooter. “Ye” is fucking crazy — we all know that so do the math. Some obsequious suck-up friend of Ye’s could handle the shooting the same way the Norman barons killed Thomas Becket after Henry II said, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Henry didn’t say “kill the guy” — he just complained about him bitterly. That’s all it took.

Plus Pete is a spaceman now. It was confirmed today that the King of Staten Island star-cowriter will be onboard during the fourth Blue Origin flight, which will depart on Wednesday, 3.23. He may not disengage from Kim next week or next month, but he will sooner or later.

What are the odds, by the way, that Pete will experience a William Shatner-like cosmic revelation while staring down at our blue planet from the Blue Origin peniscraft?

Her Name Is Marina Ovsyannikova

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Hollywood Elsewhere salutes the brave woman who flashed the truth on Russian TV earlier today. Her name is Marina Ovsyannikova. Stiff salute, hats off, balls of steel.

https://twitter.com/YaroslavConway/status/1503449531756818438/photo/1

Latinos Pulling Up Rope Ladder…”Sorry”

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“The Hispanic voter is starting to look a lot like what happened with the Italian voter. Didn’t the Italian voter become much more of a Republican block? And that could happen with Latinos. If the Democrats lose [the changing Hispanic voter], they’re in a lot of trouble.” — Bill Maher to Ben Shapiro.

“Babybubdo,” a YouTube watcher: “My husband and I watched this Ben Shapiro-Bill Maher discussion yesterday and I have to say, it was so wonderful to see two people, with totally different views, actually talk to each other and not at each other. This is the epitome of respect, no matter what your viewpoint is, and is a great example of how things or situations get worked out. I wish this was a weekly show.”

Michael Mann, Ansel Elgort, Tokyo Underworld

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Michael Mann‘s Tokyo Vice, a limited HBO Max miniseries, begins on April 7. Somewhere around six or seven episodes, I’m guessing. (Does anyone actually know?) It’s great to have one of the greatest filmmakers of the ’80s, ’90s and aughts back in the saddle.

Oh, and if I read one more numbskulled, lame-ass reference to Ansel Elgort having been through a controversial passage in his career due to Gabby’s hurt feelings (sorry, girl, but love affairs can sometimes leave bruises), I’m going to get angry. Move on, let it go, life is rarely a bowl of cherries, etc.

Boilerplate: “Loosely inspired by American journalist Jake Adelstein’s non-fiction first-hand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat, the crime drama series, filmed on location in Tokyo, captures Adelstein’s (played by Ansel Elgort) daily descent into the neon-soaked underbelly of Tokyo in the late ‘90s, where nothing and no one is truly what or who they seem.”

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2022 TCM Classic Film Festival Highlights

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The 2022 TCM Classic Film Festival (4,21 thru 4.23) contains four stand-outs — (a) a black-and-white 3D presentation of the 1953 version of I, The Jury, (b) a new restoration of George Stevens‘ Giant (sorely needed after the atrocious 2013 Bluray version), (c) the Warner Archive restoration of Angels With Dirty Faces, and (d) a 1950s title that I can’t mention but will be announced by the festival sometime in early to mid April.

Here’s my November 2013 review of the awful Giant Bluray; the new restoration presumably represents a much more attractive rendering.

The quality of this I, The Jury trailer is atrocious, and the film itself looks terrible. But I love the idea of 3D black-and-white.

Here’s an 8.22.53 N.Y. Times review by Howard Thompson:

“Although an expansive cast of guys and dolls headed by Biff Elliot snarls through Victor Saville‘s handsomely mounted production with pontifical adherence to Spillane protocol, this United Artists release is erratic, flaccid entertainment, and a lukewarm tribute to a trademark.

“For Mr. Spillane, as everybody knows, writes hot stuff. And his sleuth spokesman, Mike Hammer, is a ruthless bedroom-bar commuter, wreaking terrible vengeance on his foes and pacifying a succession of sizzling beauties along the way, often to a pulp. Not here, however.

“Denied a harvest of sadism and sex by the screen’s censorship code, Mike Hammer emerges as a pretty dull operator. While Harry Essex‘ scenario and direction net our hero some random bashings, dalliances with a quartet of cooperative peaches and seven fresh corpses, the tale remains, as it originated, mere standard, bottom-drawer whodunit. Nor are the participants any less stereotyped in their barrage of inane, bitten-off smart talk: a phoney art collector, a testy police captain, the small and big-time underworldlings and, of course, the undulating ladies.

“A frenzied, rather sturdy attempt at camouflaging never quite comes off. But Mr. Essex does manage to keep these synthetic people generally on the hop, slink or prowl. And the photography is excellent, heightened throughout by the endeavor’s sole surprise — a sensible, unobtrusive use of three dimensions as an angular canvas that rarely nudges the text out of focus.

“Franz Waxman‘s moody, atonal jazz background also rates a nod. These technicalities, however, are squandered.

“Exactly why the producer chose Mr. Elliot, an open-faced youth whose demeanor suggests a college sophomore, to play the toughest private eye in fictional history is a real mystery. Among the others, Preston Foster, Peggie Castle, Margaret Sheridan, Alan Reed and John Qualen try just as hard. But minus the mustard, I, the Jury tastes more than ever like pure baloney.

Lacking Restraint

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I was neutral about either CODA’s Troy Kotsur or The Power of the Dog’s Kodi Smit-McPhee possibly winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. I was okay, I mean, with either one prevailing.

But after examining the cloudy Alexander McQueen tux that KSM wore to last week’s Oscar luncheon, I’ve become a committed Kotsur guy.

Martyrdom or Not?

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It appears that within a few days time Ukraine President Volodymyr_Zelenskyy will face an agonizing, high-pressure choice.

When Russian troops are outside his rubble-strewn, bullet-ridden compound and demanding his surrender, should he do so or should he go down like William Holden and Ernest Borgnine at the end of The Wild Bunch?

The latter is the more romantic choice but not the most constructive. I hope he chooses the path of survival — of continuing the fight even under the conditions of capture and possible humiliation. As difficult as it might seem within the mindset of a strong and defiant leader, living to fight another day is the only sensible, practical choice.

I Thought Campion Understood

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…that her Best Director Oscar is the only lock, and for social-political reasons at that. To me it seemed obvious weeks ago that no one really loves or has been profoundly touched by The Power of the Dog, and that the Best Picture Oscar has to be given to…well, CODA probably, despite its average-ness.

But yesterday Campion erred. Film Twitter has taken offense because she dared to compare her plight to that of saintly POCs (as represented by Venus and Serena Williams).

10:45 am update:

Normcore Bill at Le Petit Four

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Early this afternoon I was in Le Petit Four, the longstanding Sunset Strip eatery. I was meeting with a couple of guys about a restoration of a classic ’50s film (can’t divulge specifics until next month), and about halfway through our chat Bill Maher, accompanied by a youngish Snow White-resembling brunette, walked in from the rear entrance. I caught his eye or he caught mine, and we exchanged a hint of alpha. He and Snow White sat in the inside rear area, maybe 15 or 20 feet from our table.

I’m not the hyperventilating sort who reflexively greets a celebrity if we happen to find ourselves in the same space. But I am quite the fan of Real Time with Bill Maher and yesterday I had seriously enjoyed listening to Maher’s “Sunday special” chat with The Wire‘s Ben Shapiro, and we did have a semblance of an email relationship about 20 years ago (just after Politically Incorrect was yanked over Bill’s “9/11 wackos were not cowards” line), and I was invited to fly to Las Vegas around the same time to catch his show, etc. And we did chat at a private party or two around that time.

So I felt there was an ever-so-slight basis to maybe walk over and offer a quick “yo” and duck out.

But as I was mulling this over, I was contemplating Bill’s “normcore” outfit — dark green-plaid shirt, black baseball cap, dark jeans, black athletic shoes. And I have to say that as one New Jersey guy contemplating another (Bill grew up in River Vale, and I was mostly raised in Westfield), I was vaguely….uhm, taken aback?

Anyone can wear anything they damn well please on a Sunday afternoon, of course, and it’s none of my damn business to criticize someone who happens to be in a normcore mood…please. The polite thing to do right now, I realize, is to sidestep the issue and move the fuck on. I was just a wee bit surprised, is all. I’ve always thought of Maher as an East Coast uptown guy with sartorial inclinations not that different than my own.

Anyway I decided to throw caution to the wind and walk over for a quick hello. Right away I sensed this was a bad idea. I mentioned that I’d listened to the Shapiro chat while driving home from Santa Barbara yesterday, but for some reason I couldn’t remember Shapiro’s name (weird). I was nervous and choking. I knew right away that I had erred because Bill didn’t say a word — he just gazed at me like I was a tree or a gas pump. I thought for a split second that he might be ripped or even tripping on something — his facial expression reminded me of that red-haired kid (Aaron Wolf) who was stoned during his Bar Mitzvah in Joel and Ethan Coen‘s A Serious Man. The same message was flashing over and over…”get outta there, get outta there, get outta there.”

This is why it’s better to just stay in your own corner. I guess this is a kind of follow-up to the “not talking with David O. Russell in Santa Barbara” story from a couple of nights ago.

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