Jeffrey Wells …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.
From this end it feels pretty great to be living a Hollywood Elsewhere-type life — no “barbecues and ball games” or any of that onerous, sword-of-Damocles stuff but…
It is part of my burden, yes, to have to face the daily threat of slimy, slithering reptiles and hissing dragons** who radiate seething hostility at every turn, but as Pike Bishop once said, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
No sublime morning-coffee company with a Porizkova or an Antropova, true, and no THC gummies or slurps of lime-and-guave-flavored beer but I gots my George Gershwin rhythm…physically fit, mentally sharp, no bald spots or jiggling neck wattles, Italian-made black loafers, Zara T-shirts, etc.
And Lordy Lordy the profound gift of a three-year-old granddaughter who constantly radiates joyful discovery and intrigue….
Not to mention daily postings drawn from my inner well…a life of constant discipline, 4K Blurays and travel and film festivals, Cialis and Prevagen and choice Indian restaurants in London and Paris and even Westport, cinematic intrigue and occasional satori transcendence, Bhagavad Gita meditations, a bottomless chest of fond Henry Miller-ish memories and occasional secretions of Socratic wisdom…spiritual nourishment savored in dribs and drabs.
I could go on and on but it feels like a huge relief not having to please or placate or charm or dazzle a high-maintenance woman of Porizkova’s character***…no offense.
Sri Krishna, Henry Miller, Pike Bishop, Socrates or Marcus Aurelius (either or both), George Gershwin, Sutton Wells…quite the cocktail.
** Life forms who seem to actually get off on spewing alien acid blood.
*** https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/which-one-is-crazier/
Three years ago I recalled how the shooting script of Crimson Tide wasn’t so much structurally influenced or character-enriched as significantly flavored by three celebrated pinch-hitters — Robert Towne, Quentin Tarantino and Steve Zallian.
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to name other successful big-budget films whose producers tapped into the talents of prominent screenwriters who were able to inject (take your pick) edgy attitude, thoughtful meditations, humor, personality, cultural hors d’eouvres, etc.
As I scan the early ‘25 cinema horizon, there is nothing that even comes close to depressing me as much as my inevitable submission to Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 (Warner Bros., 3.7). I hate this sight-unseen film so much that dark green ooze is seeping out of my ears.
On the plus side, there’s no film I’m more excited about seeing right now than Michel Franco’s Dreams, which recently premiered at the Berlinale. I knew it would be a must-see when the woked-up Jessica Chastain said she was uncomfortable about playing the wealthy but conflicted lead character.
No distributor has been announced, and I’ve been unable to find a press-screening link.
Anora doesn’t have to win everything. It’s okay — it’s still the front-runner for the Best Picture Oscar.
Brutalist topliner Adrien Brody losing the SAG trophy for Best Actor and A Complete Unknown Timothee Chalamet taking it instead truly warms the cockles of my heart…thank God! I would have been crestfallen if Brody had triumphed. Brutalist haters, unite!
And hooray for Team Conclave taking SAG’s Best Ensemble. Does this mean there’s a chance that Conclave might win the top Oscar prize? Yes, there’s a decent chance of that happening. But it’s not all that likely.
Am I slightly bummed by Demi Moore snagging SAG’s Best Actress award? Yes, that bums me out a bit. Will I get over it? Yes, I will.
…for paying off his college loan for those four years at Syracuse.
For the last two days I’ve been preparing for an unpleasant invasive procedure that I’m not going to describe. The 24-hours-before prep is awful. I don’t want to think about it, but the bitter-licorice-tasting liquid you have to drink is nauseating.
The procedure happened today around noon. I was out for 90 or 100 minutes, and the after-effect of the knock-out sedative is still with me, like a Percocet blanket. When I returned home at 2:30 pm, I just flopped and dropped off.
Plus for the last three or four days I’ve been coping with a cough, sneezing and a runny nose. My voice is significantly deeper and more nasally as we speak. I wish I could sound like this all the time. I almost sound like Lee Marvin in The Professionals.
My health, in short, is at a low ebb, although I did receive good news from the attending physician. Don’t ask.
In Tomris Laffly’s mind, Kevin Spacey should once again be hunted down by villagers and peppered with woke buckshot…condemned, hoisted, lashed and repeatedly dunked in a lake for longer and longer periods until he, like, drowns.
If Curtis Hanson had cast me as Detective Ed Exley in L.A. Confidential, and if, during filming, Kevin Spacey (i.e., Detective Jack Vincennes) had fallen into the habit of patting my ass or whatever, I would have eventually taken him aside, looked him in the eye and said in a friendly, no-big-deal way…
“Look, Kevin…you need to let this go…nobody’s offended and we’re both cool but, you know, you aren’t going to wind up fucking me in the ass. I’m an adult and so are you but stop with the discreet overtures, okay? I’m into fucking girls in the ass, kapeesh? You can handle it, bro. Just pounce on some other dude.”
And if I had paid Spacey a visit in Savannah while he was shooting Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil a few months later, I would have re-explained things.
HE to Spacey: “I know it seems weird that I’m here in Savannah after I told you point blank that I’m not going to be your Crisco bitch, but the same deal still applies. No bending over and squealing like a pig, and I’m saying this as one who was approached at age 18 in the West Village by a 30something guy in a jacket and tie and asked ‘have you ever had your ass sucked?’ I said ‘no thanks’ then and I’m saying it again now. And it’s not a problem.”
Laffly, deep down, pines for the Joe Biden era of instant cancellation and sending offenders straight to the guillotine. Five years (‘19 through ‘23) that sent jolts of fear through the systems of arrogant conquistadors all over…she would have that time again.
The Amazon rental is only in standard definition, but the aspect ratio is 1.37. Plus it’s spoken in Italian (the almost constantly bare-chested, loin–clothed Kirk Douglas is dubbed) with English subtitles.
But you know what? It’s an intelligent film —low-budgety but honorable — unmistakably better than the Steve Reeves Hercules films at the very least.
The story moves along, it’s well-paced, the dialogue (partially written by Ben Hecht and Irwin Shaw) is better than servicable and almost eloquent at times. It’s even haunting here and there…a world of gods and sirens and crude, man-eating giants.
Found unconscious and memory-less on a beach by Rosanna Podesta, Ulysses is immediately regarded as a noble fellow, and Douglas sells this by behaving with restraint and dignity, by radiating a certain inwardness. One senses a man of maturity, thought, consequence.
I knew early on that I’d slagged this film unfairly. It’s really not half bad. It’s regrettable that HD streaming isn’t an option — what I saw last night looked like 16mm.
