Jeffrey Wells

During his 3.14 “New Rules” rant, Real Time’s Bill Maher discussed how various historic terms for those who traffic in performative sexual satisfaction-for-hire have more or less been retired (the terms, I mean) in favor of “sex worker.”

This led to an acknowledgment of roughly 20 such female film performances (prostitute, whore, lady of the evening) that have won Oscars and another 20 that were nominated but didn’t win.

Out of this came a side mention of the Madonna-whore complex, and then a diss about Madonna (Mary Louise Ciccone) having never made “a good one”. Dead wrong — Alan Parker’s Evita (‘96) is completely respectable (80% or 85% of it is actually damn good). Madonna’s all-singing Evita Peron was / is the best she’s ever been. I’ve watched the film several times over the last 29 years. It more than holds up.

“Fate, Luck, Serendipity,” posted on 5.11.17:

The other day Patti Lupone dismissed Madonna‘s performance as Evita Peron in Alan Parker’s 1996 film adaptation (which I’ve always enjoyed and admired). “Madonna is a movie killer,” Lupone said. “She’s dead behind the eyes. She couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. She should not be on film or on stage. She’s a wonderful, you know, performer for what she does, but she is not an actress.”

(Lupone’s performance as Evita in the original 1979 Broadway production is commonly regarded as the summit.)

Except Madonna was never better than she was in Parker’s film. She wasn’t brilliant or staggering, but she gave it everything she had and this, coupled with the fact that Evita itself was a way-above-average musical, makes her performance a fully honorable, good-enough thing. Madonna was more than reasonably decent in the role, at least to the extent that she didn’t get in the way.

Sidenote: I don’t agree about Hayden Christensen‘s performance in Shattered Glass being a high-water mark. I found his manner in that film oppressively phony and cloying, making it impossible to believe that Stephen Glass‘s coworkers at the New Republic would buy into his bullshit.

From a Lee Bollinger interview, posted four days ago (3.11.25) by Evan Goldstein and Len Gutkin, The Chronicle of Higher Education:

…to admit that it took me this long to finally sit down with Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths. I’d planned to catch it theatrically in Manhattan seven or eight weeks ago…can’t explain, don’t ask. Earlier today I streamed it on Amazon for nearly six dollars. Just me, Leigh, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and the others.

I was riveted by it. Brutally honest writing, acting, sculpture. No “story” to speak of but pared to the bone. With the exception of one dialogue-free scene near the end involving Jean-Baptiste’s son (played by Tuwaine Barrett) that I didn’t believe, there’s not even a faint sprinkling of bullshit in any of it.

Jean-Baptiste is guns-blazing brilliant in a way that really slaps you down — her character’s anger…her misery, I mean…seeps right into your bloodstream. No “acting”, no charm, zero excuses. I’m sorry but I found MJB’s unprovoked acidic rantings kind of funny. (Keep in mind that the Wiki page describes Truths as a “comedy–drama”).

How in the world did Jean-Baptiste not land a Best Actress Oscar nomination? How or why was Hard Truths blown off by Cannes, Venice and Telluride?

Every single costar (Michele Austin and David Webber especially) delivers the same cut-the-crap realism as MJB. Leigh, 82, is such a master.

The all-but-forgotten Norman Foster, who has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it performance as a San Fernando Valley abortionist in Frank Perry’s Play It As It Lays (‘72), was indisputably the principal on-set auteur behind Walt Disney’s hugely popular Fess Parker / Davy Crockett shows of the mid ‘50s.

Literally a kind of Steven Spielberg-like maestro behind the biggest Disney franchise of all time, Foster directed all five Parker / Crockett episodes. .

Some may have also forgotten there were in fact five “Crockett” episodes that originally ran on the “Walt Disney Presents” Sunday night anthology show in 1955 and ‘56 — the original THREE in ‘55, followed by TWO episodes in ‘56 (i.e., the river boat prequels).

There were also TWO Crockett theatrical features that were composed of (a) the first three episodes and (b) the final two which costarred Jeff York’s “Mike Fink.”

Born in ‘03, Foster was covertly married to Claudette Colbert between ‘28 and ‘35. He had a decent career as a 1930s screen actor (romantic leads) before moving into directing in the late ‘30s (six “Mr. Moto” films and three “Charlie Chan” features **), ‘40s (including the Orson Welles-produced Journey Into Fear as well as the bizarrely titled Kiss The Blood Off My Hands).

A late-60ish Foster gives a supporting performance in Welles’ The Other Side of The Wind.

To repeat, Foster’s first three Parker / Crocketts were initially broadcast in 1955 on the Disney TV show (Sunday evening):  “Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter”, “Davy Crockett Goes to Congress”, and “Dave Crockett at the Alamo”.  (The final episode killed Crockett off without depicting his actual demise.)

These were quickly fused together and theatrically released as Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier, also in 1955.

Foster also directed the two Crockett prequel episodes, “Davy Crockett’s Keelboat Race” and “Davy Crockett and the River Pirates.” The prequel episodes were also cut together and released as a 1956 theatrical feature.  

Foster also directed Disney’s The Sign of Zorro (‘58).

** Given the revoltingly racist nature of the Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto film series, will Justin Chang and Bowen Yang pool forces in order to get Foster posthumously cancelled?

The wokester campaign to urge the freeing of Lyle and Erik Menendez has pretty much collapsed. L.A. District Attorney Nathan Hochman isn’t buying into the “boo-hoo, I blew my parents away because my dad repeatedly fucked me in the ass.” To which I say, “Eat shit, shotgun murderers!”

A movie about a sexual chow–down affair during the late World War I era between a pair of British dudes, to be played by Josh “stinky feet” O’Connor and Paul “God help us all” Mescal?

O’Connor is on his way up (the talk is that he might even be cast as the new 007) but post-Gladiator II Mescal is unmistakably on his way down. Is there anyone in the civilized world who wants to see this hawk-nosed Irish actor, the quintessence of dead-fall charisma, play ‘60s-era Paul McCartney?

The Forty Elephants may have been an all-female London crime syndicate in 1880s London, but they weren’t so much an underworld criminal gang as a fleet-fingered shoplifting operation, which sounds a lot less malicious than, say, a female Dead Rabbits.

I haven’t yet sunk into Steven Knight’s A Thousand Blows (Hulu) but being a scruffy 19th Century thing it’s obviously not related to the cinematic visions of the late Francois Truffaut and his 66-year-old debut film, The 400 Blows, which excited the imaginations of the young Harvey and Bob Weinstein. (I doubt they were the only young lads with thoughts of an oral-sex marathon.) Not that this has anything to do with the Forty Elephants…wait, I’ve lost the thread.

Posted today (3.8) by Jeff “Insneider” Sneider:

Warner Bros. will release Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride (which reportedly contains “big dance numbers”) on 9.26.25. Here’s the Wiki synopsis:

Jessie Buckley’s “bride” naturally has to exact revenge upon her malevolent murderer…totally necessary, dramatically required. But my blood ran cold and my skin turned to alabaster when I read the words “sparking radical social change”….aaagghh!

…for what I’m feeling right now…I know in my gut that what awaits me later this afternoon will not be pleasant, much less transporting…I’m about to enter a celestial snow colony by way of a futuristic Bong hellscape…creepers! Which RPatz’s lead protagonist feels compassion for. Two hours and 17 minutes of this…God.

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In any other city a cannabis store might call itself High Society, and that would be fine. But on Ludlow Street just south of Houston (a few doors down from Katz’s Quaking Orgasm Performance Deli). a different spelling is required.

I deplored the stealth woke-ism and mediocrity of Kamala Harris, and yet I voted for her last November because she’s a relatively sane and sensible type…a steady-at-the-helm administrator who wouldn’t fuck things up too badly.

Alas, Donald Trump got elected for the most part because wokeys overplayed their hand (DEI oppressions, 1619 Project historical revisions, George Floyd riots & lootings, punitive #MeToo corrections and cancellations, trans intimidation in public schools + bottom surgeries for minors, free-for-all Mexican border policies, men in women’s sports, trashing the reputation of Abraham Lincoln, Kathy Kennedy destroying Star Wars franchise). They did this to themselves, and have no one but themselves to blame. Thanks, Joe!

And so, despite my loathing of Trump’s scoundrel-ish demagoguery and lying criminality, my heart fluttered last night when I heard the words “woke no longer!” The dream I’ve been holding in my heart since 2018 — that wokesters would one day be on the run and searching for tall grass — has finally come to pass.

I hate what Trump is doing on so many other fronts (Ukraine in particular) but lashing wokesters to the whipping post is a good and glorious thing.

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…who has flaming carrot-colored hair and several hundred freckles and who doesn’t even look like a distant cousin, and who also looks like fucking Carrot Top meets Eric Stoltz?

I’m sorry but all my life I’ve been living with a certain idea of what “twin” means. Silly me — forgive my ignorance.