Jeffrey Wells

I believe that certain establishments that offer free wifi are careful not to offer super-strong signals. They want to offer customers and guests satisfactory wifi for email and browsing, but they don’t want them to enjoy it too much or else they’ll hang around all day. So they set the wifi access at “sufficient” or “good enough” levels in order to subtly discourage people like me who need stronger wifi in order to upload photos and videos and whatnot.

I know what I sound like, but remember William Burroughs‘ definition of paranoia: “Knowing all the facts.”

I’m writing this because I had a horrible wifi morning at the Regency hotel (Park and 61st). I was sitting there fuming at management in the same way that Charles Grodin gets angry at that Miami Beach restaurant in The Heartbreak Kid when they tell him they have no pecan pie.

I went all Grodin on the world following an interview with Another Year Best Actress hopeful Lesley Manville, as well as a group chat session with Manville, costars Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen, and director Mike Leigh. Unfortunately the video footage I took of our sessions is underwhelming. Is it okay to call it wretched? No, no — underwhelming will do.

I’m an ardent admirer of John Curran‘s Stone (Overture, 10.8). It really is some kind of mind-bender that steps outside the box. You think you recognize the elements and know where it’s going to go, and then it does something entirely different. So to help the cause I thought I’d copy and paste the embed code of David Poland’s interview with director John Curran. Except a message popped up saying “video unavailable.” Brilliant.

On CNN’s Parker Spitzer show, Social Network screenwriter Aaron Sorkin called Sarah Palin “an idiot” — yes! He also called her “a remarkably, stunningly, jaw-droppingly incompetent, mean woman.” Sorkin also reportedly said that “the Democrats have moved to the center, but the Republicans have moved into a mental institution. I’ll take the Democrats.” Can’t find an embed code — here’s the clip.

Zack Snyder directing Warner Bros.’ Superman reboot means that the end result will most likely be a little short on depth and sensitivity, which they might have had if they’d gotten, say, Matt Reeves to direct. Snyder at the helm means a fastball right down the middle — a totally generic, impact-for-impact’s-sake, extra-large-tub-of-popcorn Warner Bros. superhero flick with a swaggering attitude. Knowing Snyder and his self-inflating tendencies, it might even be another origin story…God! Somebody kill this franchise.

I’ve talked with director Tony Gilroy twice over the past week or so at swanky Manhattan parties, and both times I’ve asked what’s next. The second time (i.e., two nights ago) he indicated something was up without getting specific. But he told me he’d fill me in on stuff when and if an announcement is made. Now Deadline is reporting he’s just signed as director of The Bourne Legacy, the fourth film in that franchise.

Hey, Tony — are you going to be aping Paul Greengrass‘s shaky-cam shooting style, or maybe tone that down a bit? Because front-line, battle-fatigue guys like myself are sick to death of shaky-cam, let me tell you.

Re-seeing Alex Gibney‘s Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer the other night sparked a debate. If you were in a marriage or a serious live-in relationship, which form of betrayal would you consider to be the more painful? If your partner/spouse had a serious emotional affair with someone, or if your partner/spouse had it off a few times with an expensive prostitute or gigolo?

That’s a no-brainer in my book. Going to a gigolo or a prostitute is strictly a payment-for-services-rendered transaction, and therefore no threat to an ongoing relationship. I would imagine that most women would be able to deal with a husband who’s into hookers much more easily than a husband who’s fallen for someone else and has transferred emotional loyalties. I wouldn’t be delighted if my wife or live-in-girlfriend had slept with a pro, but I’d like to think I could deal with it somehow.

What are the most successful and/or enjoyable films ever made involving biological twins, triplets, quadruplets and quintets? I’m not sure if there’ve been any really good ones. The absolute worst, I think, has to be Kissin’ Cousins, the 1964 Elvis Presley film. But if you’re talking short films…

I could get all high falutin’ technical in discussing the new King Kong Bluray, but I’m going to boil it down to basics. The disc arrived five or six days ago, and I watched it later that night. Jett, who’s seen King Kong five or six times, walked in and took a look and said, “That’s it? It doesn’t look any different!”

I slightly disagree. I think the Kong Bluray looks a little grainier than the 2005 DVD did. Because Blurays always make grain pop through a bit more than it does via DVD or film itself. Grain becomes feister, livelier. The bottom line is that while the monks are applauding the Kong Bluray and calling it an upgrade in image quality, common-man types don’t see it this way and could even make the argument that it’s a step down because every scene is covered top to bottom with digital mosquitoes.

As Bluray.com’s Kenneth Brown recently explained, its almost the viewer’s fault if there’s any sense of disappointment. Because the viewer should know better going in.

“Beware expectations when approaching King Kong,” he begins. “More to the point, beware uninformed expectations.

“Merian C. Cooper‘s 1933 production is littered with soft photography, spiking grain, murky visual effects sequences and many an imperfect shot, and Warner’s 1080p/VC-1 encoded transfer stays true to each and every frame. Soft edges and textures may dominate the proceedings, but a fair amount of fine detail is apparent throughout, grain is intact, delineation is as revealing as could be expected and object definition is relatively impressive.

“Likewise, black levels are quite deep, mid-range grays are natural and unimpeded, and whites never struck me as stark or ungainly. And the reinstated scenes? The gory bits of chomping, stomping and crushing that were cut in 1938? I didn’t notice any discernible difference in quality. As it turns out, the negative Warner discovered and used for Kong’s restoration featured the full, uncensored cut.

“If anything, thick fields of soupy noise occasionally swamp the presentation (chapter 16 and 17 being the worst of it), but I have no doubt the film’s source, not Warner’s restoration or transfer, is to blame. Some mild artifacting makes an appearance as well, and stands as my lone point of contention. Even then, each instance is so faint and fleeting that it rarely becomes a significant distraction. Ultimately, I would suggest arming yourself with appropriate expectations. Those who do will find Warner’s presentation to be a real treat.”

I somehow missed a 9.30 Hollywood Reporter story by Gregg Kilday and Matthew Belloni lamenting a lack of minorities among this year’s Oscar hopefuls. “For the first time since the 73rd Oscars 10 years ago, there will be no black nominees in any of the acting categories at the February ceremony,” their story says, “and there are virtually no minorities in any of the major categories among the early lists of awards hopefuls. Will white be the only color on the red carpet?”

In other words, the story seems to imply, is there any way that Tyler Perry‘s For Colored Girls can make it into one or more of the competing Categories — Best Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actress — so we can at least say that the 83rd Oscars won’t be entirely white-bread? That sounds like a fair-minded solution. The problem, of course, is that directing-chop-wise Perry couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a double-barrelled shotgun if his life depended on it.

Heres’ another idea, AMPAS. Nominate Alejandro Gonzalez Inarrritu‘s Biutiful as one of Best Foreign Language Feature contenders, and then you’d have a Hollywood Latin flavor (Inarritu, Javier Bardem) to mix in with the vanilla.

Now that Sam Taylor-Wood‘s Nowhere Boy (Icon/Weinstein, 10.8) is finally opening, here’s an abridged recap of my original 10.29.09 review. I called it “a marginally effective, vaguely muffled chick-flick account of John Lennon‘s teenage years in Liverpool, circa 1956 to ’60. I’m not calling it dull, exactly, but Nowhere Boy‘s somewhat feminized, all-he-needs-is-love story just didn’t turn me on.

“Matt Greenhalgh‘s script is based on a memoir called ‘Imagine This‘ by Lennon’s half-sister Julia Baird. I understand that this was the key issue of Lennon’s youth, but the film didn’t sell me on this, and in fact seemed to be frittering away its time by focusing on it. Lennon’s anguish was primal enough (‘Mother, you had me but I never had you,’ etc.) but my reaction all through it was, ‘Okay, but can we get to the musical stuff, please?’

“Nowhere Boy boasts a relatively decent lead performance by Aaron Johnson. He doesn’t overdo the mimicry and keeps his Liverpudlian accent in check. And yet it’s a somewhat overly sensitive, touchy-feely rendering of a rock ‘n’ roll legend who was known, after all, for his nervy, impudent and sometimes caustic manner, at least in his early incarnations.

“I didn’t believe the hurting look in Johnson’s eyes. All those looking-for-love feelings he shows are too much about ‘acting,’ and hurt-puppy-dog expressions don’t blend with the legend of the young Lennon (as passed along by biographies, articles, A Hard Day’s Night etc.) Emotionally troubled young guys tend to get crusty and defensive when there’s hurt inside, and this was certainly Lennon’s deal early on.

“And Johnson is needlessly compromised, I feel, by a curious decision on Taylor-Wood’s part to create her own, reality-defying physical version of Lennon. She ignores the fact that he had light brown, honey-colored hair by allowing Johnson to keep his own dark-brown, nearly-jet-black hair. Nor did she have Johnson wear a prosthetic nose — one of the oldest and easiest tricks in the book — in order to replicate Lennon’s distinctive English honker. Where would the harm have been if they’d tried to make Johnson look more like the real McCoy?”

A loquacious, full-length trailer for Joel and Ethan Coen‘s True Grit (Paramount, 12.25) , as opposed to the teaser that posted a few days ago. Graying grizzly bear Jeff Bridges, mouthy smart-ass Texas Ranger Matt Damon, straightforward Hailee Steinfeld, and ornery scurvy swine Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper.