Jeffrey Wells

A high judicial authority has finally agreed that a certain deranged insurrectionist is disqualified from running for President next year…praise God.

All of HE’s woke racist shriekers are getting the bounce today…Seasonal Aflac Disord, OneLastTime, Glenn Runciter…all the toxic ayeholes with their little sharp sticks.

Clemenza: “Gotta get rid of the bad blood, the uglies…this needs to happen every five years…ten years.”

I don’t agree with any of these “best” calls. What these films are is “not half bad in an interesting, arresting way.“

I finally half-liked Munich when I re-watched it a year ago.

Pale Rider is basically Shane as a ghost.

Magnolia is essentially a morose middle-class thing enlivened by Tom Cruise, the third-act musical sequence and the frog finale.

Casino is watchable, but is gradually asphyxiated by Sharon Stone’s noxious self-destruction and Robert DeNiro’s nonsensical attraction to her. And then Joe Pesci and his brother are beaten to death and buried alive in a cornfield.

For me Kathryn Bigelow caught glorious fire as a director when she made The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. Then she got tangled up in the mania of exposing horrible historical truths (i.e., evil white cops murdering victims of color) in Detroit, and the air just whooshed out of the balloon.

She’s flat-out lied, in fact, about what it’s like to be swamped and smothered by hordes of American tourists in Tuscany’s San Gimignano, which Jett and I visited 14 or 15 years ago.

Campbell, a tour guide, has almost certainly decided that failing to mention how never-ending busloads of Aunt Biddies routinely suffocate the medieval vibe…she’s figuring that omitting this horrid fact is necessary to sell the city itself. Plus she misspells it.

From HE’s 5.17.10 Cannes review of Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy (“Dweebie Conforme”):

In late January a restored 4K version of Roman Polanski Oscar-winning The Pianist will have a seven-day run at the Film Forum (1.26 thru 2.1). This will surely be followed by subsequent big-city bookings and a 4K Bluray.

This means something, methinks.

In the wake of the triumphant reviews and Cesar awards that greeted Polanski’s J’Accuse in Europe two years ago, I was told by reps for Bluray distribs and streamers that they wouldn’t dare stream Polanski’s historical thriller over fears of #MeToo protests, etc. Which seemed especially cowardly on their part and profoundly heinous on the part of Polanski’s detractors. The mere streaming of one of Polanski’s greatest films from the privacy of your own home…what kind of rabid fanaticism would forbid even this?

But the Pianist restoration suggests the winds are shifting.

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…a presumptive Best Picture nominee was the recipient of this much eye-rolling, disdain and fatigue on Facebook threads?

— Daniel Day Lewis’s final line in There Will Be Blood.

Kang the Incarcerated.

Back in the late Bill Clinton era.

To me anyway. In Saltburn, I mean. I’m sorry but when I came upon this photo…bingo. The gremlin vibe. In every scene he’s the evil leprechaun ogre you need to keep tabs on. A Bond villain waiting in the wings.

…but if you over–splooge without restraint, readers will naturally pull back. I’m a sincere, serious fan of American Fiction but not to this extent.

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HE has posted a stinging retort to the nagging pestilence known as “Seasonal Aflac Disord” after he ignorantly stated that George Clooney’s The Boys in the Boat (MGM/Amazon, 12.25) was, in a manner of speaking, superfluous to the cultural conversation.

This was a coded way of saying this 1930s Olympic sports saga is of no interest to under-40s because it doesn’t reflect our 2023 reality, in part due to the non-diverse cast.

HE to SAD: It’s NOT a “snoozefest”, you woke ayehole. It’s engrossing, nicely paced, attractively shot, well-performed by an engaging cast, etc. And it’s set in 1935 and ‘36, not “WWII.”

Repeating: Certain critics on your side of the cultural divide are apparently dismissing The Boys in the Boat for racial reasons — i.e., the cast being entirely white.

They’re not saying this in so many words, of course, but it’s a very safe assumption, trust me.

This is no different than certain critics hypothetically dismissing, say, The Color Purple or Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom over ethnic identity signage.

Racism is racism.

The Boys in the Boat feels familiar and conventional, yes, but it’s very nicely done in every category and is emotionally affecting. It’s Clooney’s best directed film since Good Night and Good Luck.

Imagine being honestly, sincerely persuaded that May December is 2023’s finest film…imagine.

It is HE’s solemn opinion that anyone arriving at this conclusion is in the grip of a serious aesthetic fetish or an obsessive imbalance of some kind.

HE is earnestly supportive of Fallen Leaves (#4) and half-heartedly supportive of Showing Up (#2), Killers of The Flower Moon (#3) as far as it goes, Pacifiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Afire and The Zone of Interest (#5 through #8).