Originally posted on 7.5.09: The Toronto Star‘s Peter Howell has listed his ten favorite road movies. Here’s his list coupled with my critiques/reactions, followed by my own top ten:

Howell: 1. It Happened One Night (Wells reaction: Moderately appealing but Frank Capra is thoroughly over by any reasonable 21st Century standard); 2. One Week (Wells reaction: What?); 3. Two-Lane Blacktop (Wells reaction: I bought the Criterion DVD only to realize what a meandering and enervated thing it is, and seriously lacking in visual intrigue); 4. Y tu mama tambien (Wells reaction: perhaps not a top-tenner but a very fine film); 5. Thelma & Louise (Wells reaction: Driving your car over a cliff is a romantic-nihilist-crap finale, but if you’re going to use this don’t gussy it up with slow-mo photography and a personality clip reel); 6. Easy Rider (Wells reaction: definitely a top-tenner); 7. The Sure Thing (Wells reaction: A likable tits-and-zits ’80s movie, nothing more); 8. The Motorcycle Diaries (Wells reaction: 100% agreement); 9. Duel (Wells reaction: Not sprawling or meditative enough to qualify as real road movie); 10. The Cannonball Run (Wells reaction: pure garbage — a choice that insults and degrades the genre).

From Walter Salles’ The Motorcycle Diaries.

Wells: 1. The Grapes of Wrath (first because of the compassion and humanity and assertive political current); 2. The Wizard of Oz (the great grandfather of all road movies); 3. Sideways (“I’m not drinkin’ fuckin’ Merlot!” — the kind of line that the Cannonball Run creators didn’t have the creative edge to even consider using); 4. Badlands (“This is the last time I get together with the hell-bent type”); 5. The Last Detail (again — compassion for sympathetic trapped characters + humor + melancholy resolution); 6. Apocalypse Now (a river is a road and vice versa). 7. Little Miss Sunshine (greatest 21st Century road movie thus far); 8. Easy Rider; 9. The Motorcycle Diaires. 10. Rain Man. Honorable Mentions: Planes Trains and Automobiles, Midnight Run, Five Easy Pieces, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Y tu mama tambien, Road Trip, The Straight Story, Fandango.

The generic road-movie definition calls them stories that happen over the course of a journey. As Howell writes, “The characters in transit have to experience some change to their attitudes and outlook, or else the trip is wasted. They have to not just go somewhere, but more importantly, they have to arrive.” Agreed.

Howell’s kicker — “And if they can do it with a smile, all the better” — is where he and I differ. To hell with smiles as ends in themselves. Remember those smiley buttons from the ’80s? The face of emotional fascism. Smirks and frowns are far more trustworthy.

Originally posted behind HE Plus firewall on 4.15.19: My father was the last guy in the world you wanted to watch a movie with. Or at least he was when I was young. He was the Ultimate Moviegoing Killjoy.

Every so often he’d take me to a film, but for some reason he so hated watching films in the usual way (i.e., from the beginning) that we’d never arrive before the film started but always around the three-fourths mark. 20 or 25 minutes before the ending. We’d watch the conclusion, wait for the next show to start, and then watch the three-fourths or four-fifths that we’d missed and then leave at the point where we came in.

In short, my dad’s primary interest was less about enjoying a film and more about not arriving and leaving with the crowd.

This, believe it or not, was what moviegoing was actually like whenever we’d catch something together. All through my toddler days and up until I was eight or nine or whatever. It was almost as if James T. Wells, Jr. was trying to suppress any real feelings of absorption or enjoyment I might have felt or developed.

It was only when I started going to Saturday matinees with friends that I began to appreciate what it was like to see a film from the start and then leave when it was over.

I’ll never forget the thrill of walking into a darkened theatre at age five and being fairly stunned by the titanic size of the screen. Even my father couldn’t diminish that excitement.

My dad would also ruin movie-watching at home. He always insisted on the sound being turned down so low that you couldn’t really hear anything. He had extra-sensitive hearing, my mother told me more than once, due to his WWII experience as a Marine Lieutenant. The ear-splitting sound of bombs and shells exploding nearby as he went up against the Japanese on Guam and Iwo Jima. Okay, sorry and due respect, but in his own way he took this trauma, transformed it and passed it along to his kids.

The vibe was so quiet when we watched a film or a TV show you could barely pay attention to the dialogue. What did that guy say? My father would repeat the line. “Why not just watch with the sound completely turned off?”, I once said in jest. The sarcasm wasn’t appreciated. An argument ensued.

As a result of this I’ve never been able to watch a film with too-low sound. All through the ’70s and even the early ’80s even I would routinely go to management and complain about the whispery dialogue and having to cup my ears, etc. Which wasn’t a neurotic thing on my part. Sound levels actually were pretty low back them, as a rule. Theatre managers figured they were saving money on sound system maintenance. It was like the Curse of Jim Wells had spread throughout the land.

The theatrical release date of Chris Nolan‘s Tenet has been bumped for a second time. Warner Bros. originally slated the time-flip thriller to open on Friday, July 17th….nope! Then it was pushed back to Friday, July 31st…ixnay! Now we’re looking at Wednesday, August 12th.

The recent coronavirus infection spike is the reason, of course. Any bets on Tenet getting bumped again into September or October?

George Szalai, the Hollywood Reporter‘s international business editor, may have faced tough questioning earlier today from #MeToo wokesters. Reports of chanting protests and picketing outside THR‘s London offices could not be confirmed, but there was no question that Szalai had given great offense for failing to mention an alarmed response to the 2020 San Sebastian Film Festival’s decision to premiere Woody Allen‘s latest, Rifkin’s Festival.

Both Variety‘s Jamie Lang and Deadline‘s Tom Grater mentioned “raised eyebrow” reactions. The anti-Woody contingent is apparently irate because Szalai wouldn’t fall in line.

The fact that the Variety and Deadline stories have not only mentioned wokester concern but have used the same term to describe it (i.e., “raised eyebrows”) has raised eyebrows. Both publications are owned by Penske Media Corporation.

A spokesperson for #DeathtoWoodyAllen sent the following statement to Hollywood Elsewhere: “The indifference that Szalai has shown about the urgent matter of Allen’s guilt or innocence in the matter of Dylan Farrow‘s alleged molestation in August 1992 is callous and irresponsible.

“The fact that only #MeToo fanatics believe there’s any truth to Farrow’s and Mia Farrow‘s charge is immaterial. The fact that Szalai and The Hollywood Reporter didn’t even allude to the 1992 allegation or Allen’s reputation in the wake of it indicates blithe disregard for #MeToo and the worldwide…okay, the national community of Allen haters. An investigation is clearly warranted.”

(l. to r.) Woody Allen, Wallace Shawn and Elena Anaya during San Sebastain filming of Rifkin’s Festival during summer of ’19.

from Jamie Lang’s 6.25 Variety story.

from Tom Grater’s 6.25 Deadline story.

HE to NYC Journo Pally: I didn’t get around to watching episode #1 of Perry Mason until a couple of nights ago. It’s an unpleasant sit. Right away I was…well, not repelled but rolling my eyes. Grubby gumshoe, down at the heels, dark vibes, rotely cynical. The writing feels lazy, cheap, second-hand…a long way from Chinatown.

Was the color palette drained or subdued? Actually that’s me — I was drained and subdued. But the images are…I dunno, dim and mucky.

Odious, ugly, distasteful characters being boring, speaking throwaway dialogue (written by series creators Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald), and occasionally bringing pain (or enduring it) in ugly, thoughtless ways.

Inwardly I was moaning “lemme outta here…I can’t watch an hour of this, much less eight episodes’ worth.” But I stuck it out because suffering is part of my job.

This is a period miniseries (set in 1931 Los Angeles) determined to cover you in a noirish atmosphere that emphasizes non-hygienic gunk. Perry Mason, an alcoholic private investigator who’s way too sloppy and stumbling to work as an assistant to J.J. Gittes, is…well, I’ve said it. Living in a fog, a poor judge of character and temperament, separated from his wife and son, a traumatized World War I veteran blah blah.

The story kicks off when grubby Mason is hired by a rich LA businessman to investigate the kidnapping of Charlie Dodson, a baby who turned up dead with his eyes stitched open blah blah.

I really don’t care for Matthew Rhys and that dour, doleful vibe of his, which was a problem in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and is even more of one here. Those dark beady eyes and that small-shouldered frame, those dishrag T-shirts he wears, that tight curly hair and especially that ridiculous two-week beard stubble. Only rummies and hobos walked around with a prominent beard stubble in the 1930s. It’s completely nonsensical that a detective looking to maintain a certain professional appearance would look like that.

Random beefs include (a) Mason taking sex snaps of an obese actor who pays to see his own films in a public theatre?, (b) occasionally sadistic violence, (c) Why is Mason in an odd sexual relationship with that overweight, middle-aged Hispanic woman (Veronica Falcon)? And why would she want to have sex with him? And why does she want to buy his home for $6K? Why would he want to sell?, (d) Mason’s home is next to a small private airport (one of only two elements I liked atmosphere-wise — possibly Van Nuys Airport in SF Valley?) and apparently owns a pair of underfed cows, (e) I also respected the decision to show us the Bunker Hill funicular (also visible in Robert Towne’s Ask The Dust and Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly).

But the idea of sitting through seven more episodes of this sordid series…God!

NYC Journo Pally to HE: “Stay with it. I agree that the first episode is just dumping a can of paint on the floor. But the colors take shape in one of the best second episode turnarounds in recent memory. From there the dense plotting and Chinatown light vibe sinks in. Stay on the case.”

Yes, Joe Biden is several points higher than Hillary Clinton was in June 2016, and it obviously looks good for him. But I’ll never forget that feeling of election-night betrayal when I realized Clinton (whom I voted for but never liked all that much) was going to lose. Over and over during the ’16 campaign pollsters said she was safely ahead of Trump. The projections of Steve Bannon aside, even Trump campaign staffers believed that he’d probably lose. He did wind up losing the popular vote, of course, but he won the electoral college tallies. Which was entirely Hillary’s fault.

I’m not saying Biden isn’t in excellent shape, but he needs to stand up to the statue-topplers. The non-Confederates, I mean.

On 6.20 (only five days ago!) Paul Schrader wrote on Facebook that he’s “troubled by the double standard. We encourage multiracial casting — black Romeos with white Juliets, a female Lear, etc. Yet when a non-Jew plays Shylock or a white plays Othello, this is considered outre and unacceptable.”

HE reply: “Whites may no longer portray non-whites” is fuck-you payback for all the decades (early to mid 20th Century) when whites portrayed other tribes and races with impugnity in films. No one mentions Marlon Brando as Sakini, a native Okinawan, in Teahouse of the August Moon, or Katharine Hepburn as Jade in Dragon Seed, but whitewashing was once par for the course.

Not out of inherently venal reasons, but banal ones. Because Hollywood producers believed that non-white actors would, in many circumstances, diminish box-office returns and that white actors would enhance them.

Don’t forget, however, that as recently as ’07 Angelina Jolie played Mariane Pearl, a French-born woman of Afro-Cuban descent, in A Mighty Heart, and nobody said boo.

How was this different than Mickey Rooney‘s Japanese landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Alec Guinness‘ Prince Feisal in Lawrence of Arabia, Ricardo Montalban‘s Japanese Kabuki actor in Sayonara, Natalie Wood‘s Maria in West Side Story, Kurt Jurgens‘ “Captain Lin Nan” in Inn of the Sixth Happiness and Jennifer Jones‘ half-Native American in Duel in the Sun? Should wokesters retroactively cancel Jolie? Should they at least take her to task on Twitter?

In a tribal sense, whites are regarded as deeply flawed and generally problematic. Certainly by the standards of cancel-culture and BLM wokesters. Perhaps not the root of all evil, but the N.Y. Times‘ “1619 Project” made a case that European-descended white-person culture represents a profoundly diseased and guilty heritage, certainly as far as African Americans and Native Americans are concerned.

White actors can therefore not play persons of color for this reason. They must sit on the sidelines and meditate on their basic nature, and perhaps eventually evolve into something better down the road.

Given the alleged racism on the part of John Wayne, the ultimate conservative swaggering white man, I wouldn’t be surprised if Wayne’s horse-riding statue (at the corner of Wilshire and La Cienega) is someday pulled down or defaced by demonstrators. I’m serious — in a world in which a statue of George Washington was defaced and statues of Ulysses S. Grant and Francis Scott Key have been toppled, Wayne should be easy pickings.

This morning SoCal Edison shut the power off (not just my building but others in the immediate region) in order to install a new telephone pole. I asked a friend if I could use his rear pool house, which has all the comforts — good wifi, a nice TV, a serious bathroom, air-conditioning, etc. “No problem, come on over.”

I was immediately taken by the huge pink flamingo in the pool and the Helmut Newton-ish wooden sculpture. And then I was invited into the kitchen for some interesting chatter and a nice chicken-and-camembert sandwich. The bottom line is that it’s very nice here, but I haven’t gotten much work done.

Two days ago I posted a riff on Jan de Bont‘s Twister. It just, like, came to me out of the blue. I was thinking about the one and only time I saw the 1996 release (at an all-media screening in Westwood), and flirted with idea of watching it again for laughs.

Early this afternoon Variety‘s Justin Kroll reported that Universal Pictures is looking to reboot Twister, and is in negotiations with Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski to direct. Frank Marshall will produce, Kroll said. Uni is “currently meeting with writers to pen the script,” etc.

HE to readership: We all know how this works. I’ll sound like an egotistical blowhard if I demand an associate producer credit, but at the same time it’s a very curious coincidence. I for one suspect that some highly placed Universal hotshot read my piece two days ago and a 75-watt lightbulb went on. In short order Kosinki’s agent was contacted, a deal memo was hastily emailed, discussions with potential screenwriters immediately commenced, etc.

Is it a coincidence that Kroll’s story popped two days after mine? Of course it is! Universal reps, if pressed, will almost certainly claim this, and what could I say? It’s their company, their alleged initiative.

All I know is that the timing of the Kroll story sure seems fishy.

The subject at this Palm Beach County meeting was the wearing of face masks, and the alleged difficulties that humanity’s very own rightwing God might have with them. The stupidity of these anti-mask sentiments is absolutely radiant.

Why are these people being allowed to speak https://t.co/Oh2S0Ggbq9

— Guy Lodge (@GuyLodge) June 24, 2020

Will Smith as “Whipped Peter“?

I’m trying to think of an established, marquee-brand actor of color who would be a worse fit for this role in Antoine Fuqua‘s Emancipation, a fact-based, Civl War-era chase thriller currently being promoted as a Cannes Virtual Market title.

It’s not that the 51-year-old former superstar couldn’t or wouldn’t deliver a respectable performance, but the idea of the loaded, charismatic, alpha-vibey “Will Smith” attempting to merge with the real-life saga of an escaped African American slave, not to mention the subject of an historic photograph that not only showed he’d been horrifically beaten but opened the eyes of the would to the evils of slavery…I’m sorry but I just can’t buy the notion of Smith becoming this guy, no matter how hard he tries or what kind of approach or technique he pulls out of a hat.

Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael B. Jordan, Chadwick Boseman, Denzel Washington, Mahershala Ali, Don Cheadle, Samuel L. Jackson, Idris Elbva, Terrence Howard, Jamie Foxx — I could and would buy any one of these guys as “whipped Peter” without the slightest hesitation. But not Smith.

Working from a script by Willam N. Collage, Emancipation will reportedly begin shooting early next year.

Director-screenwriter Lewis John Carlino enjoyed a 15-year peak career period, starting with his screenplay for John Frankenheimer‘s Seconds (’66 — an adaptation of David Ely‘s same-titled novel) and more or less ending with the widely acclaimed The Great Santini (’79), which Carlino adapted and directed and which starred Robert Duvall.

In between were screenplays for The Fox (’67), The Brotherhood (’68), The Mechanic (’72), Crazy Joe (’74), The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (’76, which Carlino also directed), and screenplays for I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (’77) and Resurrection (’80).

Carlino passed six days ago at age 88.