Jeffrey Wells

The L.A. Weekly‘s esteemed and highly perceptive film critic Ella Taylor was whacked earlier today, Goodfellas-style. I’m truly sorry, Ella. Brutal world, condolences, chin up.

It’s been said that as ’50s melodramas go Mad Men is richer and more layered than Sam Mendes‘ Revolutionary Road. Now Variety ‘s Todd McCarthy has gone one better in his latest “Deep Focus” column, arguing that Richard Quine ‘s Strangers When We Meet (’60) is also a fuller, more believable portrait of ’50s suburban angst than Mendes’ film. Speaking as an ardent Revolutionary Road fan, I found McCarthy’s words persuasive.

The first six minutes of Bryan Singer‘s Valkyrie are now live on Apple.

Sony Pictures Classics has announced the acquisition of North American rights to writer-director James Toback‘s Tyson, winner of the Un Certain Regard’s Knockout Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and due to have its North American preem at the Sundance Film Festival. I saw Tyson last April in Los Angeles. It’s a much sadder and more touching portrait of Tyson that you might expect.

MTV.com has the trailer for The Missing Person, the Sundance Film Festival attraction with Michael Shannon and Amy Ryan.

The difference between these French Connection frame captures, the top from Fox Home Video’s standard DVD released in ’05 and the bottom from FHV’s forthcoming Bluray disc, is obvious. The desaturated Bluray image looks sickly and anemic; the ’05 DVD looks smoother, warmer, less noisy. Read yesterday’s post about the complaints DVD fans are voicing about William Friedkin‘s decision to create a “pastel”-looking Bluray version, which he reportedly admits does not represent the way the film looked originally.

DVD Beaver frame capture of standard French Connection DVD.

Hundland.org frame capture of forthcoming French Connection Bluray, set for release by Fox Home Video 2.24.09.

The 2008 BFCA Critics’ Choice Awards winners contain one moderate surprise — a formal splitting of the Best Actress trophy between Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married) and Meryl Streep (Doubt), and a third portion of the award going to Kate Winslet by handing the Reader star the Best Supporting Actress award, which was obviously a partial nod to Winslet’s lead performance in Revolutionary Road.

Otherwise it was more of the usual-fine-yawn. Best Picture / Slumdog Millionaire; Best Actor / Sean Penn in Milk; Best Supporting Actor / Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight; Best Acting Ensemble / the Milk gang; Best Director /

Slumdog Millionaire‘s Danny Boyle; Best Original or Adapted Screenplay / Slumdog Millionaire‘s Simon Beaufoy; Best Animated Feature / WALL*E; Best Foreign Language Film / Waltz With Bashir; Best Documentary / Man On Wire.

The famous Magnolia/”Wise Up” sing-along scene is, in the view of Mental Defective League’s Tim Slowikowski, the all-time second best among a list of 15 great pop-song-in-movie moments. Top dog is the “Tiny Dancer” sing-a-long scene in Almost Famous.

For the last two hours (i.e., since 11 am) Hollywood Elsewhere has been filing from a New York-to-Boston Bolt bus. Complimentary wi-fi and AC plugs. Only $17.50. Except the driver didn’t know where she was going out of Manhattan, took the Tappan Zee Bridge west into New Jersey, realized her error, turned around and came back. We’re now on 84 east of Danbury.

This still from Harold Ramis and Judd Apatow‘s The Year One was posted at least three days ago by Entertainment Weekly. The non-vegetarian, all-meat, animal-skin comedy stars Michael Cera, Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Oliver Platt, David Cross, Christopher Mintz-Plasse…mostly the same old Apatow crew. It opens on 6.19.09.

Jeffrey Ressner has an interview piece with Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow in the current issue of DGA Quarterly. There’s no link to the story as DGA Quarterly puts the magazine online only after its expiration date and the arrival of the following issue. The hell with that. HE is taking exception by offering its own link to a PDF of the piece. All hail Hurt Locker!

Explosions and car crashes are the lowest currency of the action genre. It is actually flattering to call them “useless pathetic peddler stuff,” to quote Oskar Werner‘s Fiedler character in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. The only truly decent one was in Spike Jonze‘s Adaptation (i.e., that out-of-nowhere whamming that Chris Cooper receives as he’s backing out of his driveway). Nonetheless Bilge Ebiri has posted a list of the ten best in New York/Vulture. He actually put it up yesterday but didn’t think to alert me until this morning.