Jeffrey Wells

Over the decades I’ve experienced many dozens (hundreds?) of perfect moments that were so rich and serene and soul-settling — moments in which I said to myself “Jesus, this is perfect in every way.”

The dusky light and settled atmospheres, I mean…soothing meditations and moods of unusual quiet …solace and contentment…pause moments.

I’m thinking of the faint scent of sea water and the sound of crying gulls at 5 am in Cannes…the taste of a special moment after a super-heavy rainfall in Paris or during a hike in the Palm Desert outback below cloudy skies or a cappuccino detour in Venice’s Campo Santa Margherita in the late afternoon or standing on the deck of a tourist ferry as it approaches Napoli harbor just before dawn…

That feeling we’ve all tasted from time to time…the usual rock ‘n’ roll and hustle and bustle suddenly beating a temporary retreat as you say to yourself “I’d kinda like to hang onto this for an hour or two, or maybe even a couple of days or a week even…where would be the harm in that?”

These stop-the-world moments are so special when they drop in…”away from the maddening crowd,” as Dean Martin once sang in defiance of Thomas Hardy…like that 1982 moment when Rutger Hauer’s “Roy” went to sleep and the white doves fluttered and flew off…

I distinctly recall feeling this in the early fall of ‘88 when my ex-wife and I began to drive across those ancient brownish-green country landscapes in southwestern Ireland, and I said “man, I could die here” even though I was fairly young (decades away from my first Prague touch-up) and in the full vigor and prime of life with six-month-old Jett sleeping in the backseat.

…but it doesn’t really come together. I wouldn’t call it a bore or a bust, but it is a shortfaller, certainly in terms of what most of us might expect from a director as skilled and seasoned as Ridley Scott, who knows from battle scenes and 18th Century cultures and atmospheres. I’ll always be a huge fan of 1977’s The Duellists (Scott’s debut effort) and I guess I figured…aagghh, stop beating around the bush and spit it out.

Napoleon isn’t an outright failure but it certainly disappoints. It huffs and puffs but never really grabs hold or pays off, and a big part of the problem is that Joaquin Phoenix’s titular performance is too smug and sullen and oddball-glum. We’re looking at a clearly older guy (the nearly 50-year-old Phoenix is looking more than a bit lined and jowly) and he’s mumble-playing a famous fellow in his 30s and 40s, and it’s like “what’s going on here?” He’s playing one of the greatest genius generals in history like a teenager on mescaline, and it just feels off. Marlon Brando’s Napoleon in Desiree (‘54) was much, much better.

All I can tell you is that the general mood on the sidewalk outside the DGA theatre after the film ended was morose and uncertain. I mostly hemmed and hawed. One guy said he was flat-out bored during most of it. A friend suggested that the title of my review should be “sacre blows” but it’s not as bad as all that. It’s more of a scattershot thing. Yes, the battle scenes are definitely decent — the best are the depictions of the battles of Austerlitz and Waterloo. But even these felt a little so-what and “what’s the point again?”.

Text sent to a friend: “I don’t think it works all that well. Spotty. In and out. Moody and muttering Joaquin…’muh-muh-mum-mum-mum’…my general reaction was one of mild intrigue but with gradually diminishing returns, although Scott does give his all to the Battie of Waterloo. Subtitles will help when it starts streaming as I understood maybe a third of Vanessa Kirby’s dialogue, IF THAT. The colors are all drab grays and subdued greens and downish blues. My soul felt drab and gray.”

I didn’t nod out but I wasn’t riveted. Am I allowed to say I was vagueiy bored? No, that’s not fair — I was semi-engaged and stayed with it and kept hoping for more. But my mind was certainly wandering and somewhere around the one-hour mark I said to myself, “Face it, this isn’t doing the thing or drilling down…not really.”

Joaquin is such an oddball space-cadet Napoleon…impassive, “I’m not sure what to do so I’ll just sulk”…residing on his own stoner planet. And he really is too old.

Still glorious, dazzling, heart-melting, wowser.

My beloved elephant-hide wallet was waiting for me in the Metro North lost & found office — room #100 in Grand Central. I lost it 11 days ago, and they called me yesterday with the good news. I didn’t listen to the message but whatever. And the cash was still there! Unbelievable.

The correct phrase, of course, is “you must lead a charmed life.”

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THR’s Scott Feinberg needs to step out of his DEI sewing circle and come to grips with the fact that outside of the identity fanatics Celine Song’s Past Lives is finished as a competitive Best Picture contender. It’s weak tea (i.e., doesn’t really pay off) and simply isn’t resonating. Let it go.

Scott can also double triple quadruple forget Past Lives’ John Magaro as a Best Supporting Actor hopeful. Not even remotely in the cards. Wimpy character, off-putting floor-mop haircut, too short.

Other ostensible Best Supporting Actor hotshots whom Scott needs to completely abandon: May December’s Charles Melton (Feinberg has the guy in fourth place!) and Killers of the Flower Moon’s Jesse Plemons.

Plus he has to stop shitting on BlackBerry’s Glenn Howerton (far and away the top indie-realm BSA contender as we speak) and The Holdovers’ Dominic Sessa. Howerton and Sessa are currently included in Feinberg’s “possibilities” (i.e., dead meat) roster.

Best Picture-wise Scott needs to elevate the eighth-place positioning of The Holdovers (right now it’s neck and neck with Oppenheimer and Poor Things) and also rescue the brilliant and dazzling Maestro from his seventh-place slot.

Scott further needs to come to grips with the fact that outside the all-non-white-identity-flicks-are-glorious-and-cleansing realm nobody really likes Killers of the Flower Moon. And nobody can figure out why Lily Gladstone’s Mollie Burkhart behaves in such a gentle and non-condemning way with her scurvy, dumb-scumbag husband Ernest, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Plus Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, a one-trick pony, is out.

…and yet it is. We all put our faces on when we go out on the town, and that, in a sense, is who we “are”. I don’t wear an HE face but I do work on the hair until it’s just so. I’ll spare you the regimen but it’s complicated. The idea is to present an appearance of tousled, casually styled 30something hair without appearing to have gone to a great amount of effort.

I wish I could’ve been there…the 70mm capability is a spiritually significant thing,

I feel happy…truly happy now. This feels to me like …well, I wasn’t around but this is probably what VE or VJ Day felt like to millions of Americans.