Jeffrey Wells

I was almost given a costly parking ticket yesterday. I had foolishly parked the Yamaha Majesty next to a red curb and a fire hydrant, directly in front of the main entrance to West Hollywood Pavilions. I’d parked in the same spot many times, and for my own mystical reasons I’d never considered the possibility that I might be risking a fine.

One, the fire hydrant was painted almost the same bright yellow color as a nearby pair of metal posts, and it didn’t look like a hydrant as much as an object d’art of some kind. Time and again I’d considered the yellow hydrant and posts and thought “those look very nice” but not once did I say to myself “that’s an actual fire hydrant so I’d better park somewhere else.”

So if you ask me it was basically the fault of the City of West Hollywood for making things look too pleasant and attractive and spiffy.

Two, the bright red paint on the curb was also pleasing to the eye (yellow-red contrast) and again this was WeHo’s fault. The designers distracted the eyes of Average Joes. Most of us are inclined to obey the law, but it’s unfair, so to speak, to use camoflauge and vivid colors to throw people off. Not to mention the attractive cactus plants between the yellow posts and the hydrant.

Luckily I came out of Pavilions and greeted the ticket guy before he’d begun writing me up. I didn’t argue with him, and I certainly wasn’t dumb enough to insist that I was innocent, or to accuse West Hollywood of distracting law-abiding citizens with bright, attractive colors. I just said it hadn’t occured to me that I was breaking the law because the hydrant didn’t look hydrant-y enough.

“But you’re also parked next to a red curb,” he said. “How could you possibly miss that?” I said I didn’t know how, but that somehow it hadn’t occured to me.

Then we started talking about the rumblehog, and he wanted to know the manufacturer and model. Then my “Pete Buttigieg for President” bumper sticker, followed by a discussion of my 1960 “Kennedy for President” sticker. And this and that and before you knew it the ticket guy decided not to ticket me, and I told him I was very grateful.

51. What are two rights of everyone living in the United States?

(a) Freedom of expression except on Twitter.
(b) Freedom of speech except on Twitter.
(c) Freedom of assembly.
(d) Freedom to petition the government.
(e) Freedom of religion.
(f) The right to bear arms.

Every now and then I’ll have a passing interest in this or that fanboy film — emphasis on “passing.” But for a while, the James Gunn factor meant something. It lent a certain edge and intrigue. I used to regard his fanboy flicks as clever and amusing and certainly worth catching. I was a huge fan of Super (’10) and Guardians of the Galaxy (’14). Then I saw Guardians 2 and had a half-meh reaction. Then I felt enormous sympathy and compassion when Gunn was thrown into the Disney doghouse over some old tweets.

But I didn’t have the slightest, fleeting interest in seeing Gunn’s The Suicide Squad (Warner Bros., 8.5), which opened two nights ago and has semi-tanked. Okay, “underperformed.” I didn’t read about it, watch the trailer, read the reviews…nothing. It’s sitting right there on HBO Max, and I couldn’t care less.

The Suicide Squad earned around $12 million yesterday in 4,002 theaters plus $4.1 million on Thursday night. By Sunday night the tally should be in the mid-to-high $20 million range, according to Deadline‘s Anthony D’Alessandro.

D’Allessandro on 8.4: “Total global opening we’re pegging is at $70M; $30M from 4,000 U.S./Canada theaters and $40M from abroad. Stateside, unlike previous Warner Bros./HBO Max movies, there will be Thursday previews starting at 7PM. It would not be shocking should Suicide Squad approach $40M domestic.”

D’Alessandro current: “Some continue to wonder whether the delta variant is the contributing factor here in further upsetting the grosses for Suicide Squad, a movie which won over critics at 92% certified fresh; the best reviewed in the DC villain ensemble trilogy.

“It’s an easy excuse to make in a marketplace where some studios continue to fool around with the dynamic window. Warners isn’t sorry about sticking with their HBO Max/theatrical plan after recent New York Times headlines about restaurants struggling, and WSJ reporting a dip in travel despite an earlier summer boom. Granted, there is a mixed message out there about the surging variant, particularly since we haven’t returned to lockdown, and kids are heading back to college to stay in dorms. We continue to live and manage life with the virus. Of those I’ve spoken to in the industry, no one is really expecting the vaccine card mandate in NYC or LA to effect business.”

You have to hand it to The Critical Drinker — this is about as succinct a description of the terrible impossible hell of Hollywood movie “product” today (outside of the realm of true-class, potential-clear-light movies celebrated at film festivals) that anyone’s recently put into words [starting at 2:41]:

“We’re kind of drowning in a sea of entertainment these days, There are so many TV shows, movies, miniseries and fuck knows what else, that people don’t know what the hell they’re supposed to be watching now. And any original property that does comes out, is up against so many competitors that the chances of success are about the same as a homeless man getting into a high-end strip club.”

Herewith an official capsule synopsis for James Gray’s Armageddon Time, which has been waiting for Robert DeNiro’s availability and will finally start shooting in October or thereabouts: [Thanks to Jordan Ruimy for image capture.]

More than any other admonishment or influence, this horrific photo (snapped 11 years ago by Sasha Stone) made me stand up straighter and think more seriously about good vs. bad posture. One glance and I was immediately flashing back to Charles Bukowski’s book about working as a bent-over mail carrier.

From 8.7 HE comment thread (“Best Real Time Debate in Months”):

In a reaction piece, Daily Beast‘s Marlow Stern has claimed that the notion that CRT is being taught to kids is “false” and that “you can really only find it in law schools.”

Correction: Anastasia Higginbotham’s “Not My Idea” is being taught in schools. And hers is not the only such book.

I was 19 when I inhaled the first joint of my life, and after five or six tokes (I was sharing with three or four others) I was completely ripped. I had no choice but to succumb to all the classic effects — giggling fits (I don’t think I’ve ever laughed quite as hard or as hysterically), dry-mouth, time drop-outs (falling into a deep dream state as through a trap door and then abruptly returning to reality, not knowing if 30 seconds or 45 minutes had passed) and of course the munchies.

Barbra Streisand apparently never experienced any of this, which indicates caution in her bones. Caution and hesitancy. God had simply ordained that she wouldn’t be open to easing up or letting go…floating downstream into that sparkling cosmic Revolver dream state…”it is being”, John Lennon, newspaper taxis…the realm that kept on giving…her Brooklyn-honed mentality said “nope” and that was that…never again.

Ben Shapiro vs. Malcolm Nance on Critical Race Theory, and I was riveted. Delighted actually. It lasted nine and a half minutes, and I wished it could have gone on for 20. This is the kind of crossed-swords dispute that Bill Maher‘s show needs more of. Shapiro “won”, by the way — it was the first time I’d watched him debate while saying to myself, “This is reasonable, he’s making sense,” etc. Shapiro’s CRT definition struck me as spot-on, and Nance (who was a little unfair and dismissive with that statement about his great-grandfather) agreed with it.

Now that Leos Carax‘s Annette is playing in theatres, I’m a bit put off by the positive reviews. More than 60% of the critics on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are giving it a pass, and that’s not cool. But I’m mainly perplexed by the the genteel tone of the pans. Nobody hates this film, in short, and that doesn’t feel right. Because if there’s one movie I’ve seen this year that really pushed the revulsion button, it’s Annette.

You can admire or love Annette, of course, but if you don’t approve mild naysaying is not the way to go — trust me.

In his New Yorker review, Anthony Lane delivers what feels to me like a kid-gloves pan. He says that Annette “is a folie de grandeur, alas, without the grandeur,” and that it “strikes one false note after another,” and that “there’s nothing in Annette” — a sung-through musical, for the most part — “that’s quite as overwhelming as Adam Driver’s roaring rendition of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Being Alive’ in Marriage Story,” etc. See? He wont do the mean.

CNN’s Brian Lowry: “Let the record show that no drinking took place while watching the movie for this review. But by the time it was over, that didn’t seem like a bad idea.” Not bad, still too restrained.

Time‘s Stephanie Zacharek: “Driver’s height and brawn are used to menacing effect here. He’s never been so believably unlikable, which is certainly an achievement, if it’s the kind of thing you want to see.” Better!

For me, reviewing Annette required absolute fuck-all bluntness. I titled the review”Revulsion and Contempt.”

“Only the most perverse, anti-populist critics will even flirt with being kind to, much less praising, Annette when it opens stateside,” I wrote. “Once you get past the strikingly surreal visual style and the fact that it was, like, made at all, there is only the self-loathing rage of Adam Driver’s Henry McHenry character, and Carax’s seething disdain for easily led-along audiences.

“Annette is ‘brave’ and wildly out there, but this is arguably the most morally repellent musical ever made in motion picture history. Driver’s Henry, an envelope-pushing comedian who performs one-man shows that aren’t in the least bit amusing, is astounding — one of the most flagrantly revolting protagonists I’ve ever spent time with in my moviegoing life.

“Henry is a kind of sociopathic Jack the Ripper figure, and Annette is a misanthropic rock opera about rabid egotism, demonic personality disorder, black soul syndrome, rage, alcoholism, murder, self-loathing, self-destruction.”