Jeff Wells

If you’re looking to make a left turn at a stop-light intersection that doesn’t have a special left-turn lane and there are three or four cars with the same goal in mind, you know that only three cars will make the turn.

Four cars never make it — three at the most and sometimes only two.

But the only way three can get through is for car #1 to drive into the middle of the intersection with its left-signal flashing, and also for car #2 to be right behind car #1 with its nose just ahead of the foot-traffic crosswalk, and car #3 right behind #2, usually behind the crosswalk.

When the light turns yellow and opposing traffic is coming to a halt is when everyone makes their move — cars #1 and #2 without breaking a sweat with car #3 barely making it through after the light has turned red.

But the whole system collapses if car #1 doesn’t nudge into the center of the intersection, and this is what today’s traffic rant is about — candy-asses who are afraid to move into the middle.

There are some who will only creep two or three or four feet beyond the white line as if they’re afraid of something bad will happen, and there are others who won’t move forward at all — who just stay in the left lane with their left signal blinking.

Meep meep…will you move ahead, please? Are you aware that if you hang back like a coward you’ll be condemning the third guy to wait for another light change? Show a little consideration and get out there.

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“Bugsy would not have been the densely detailed and complexly imagined film that it is without the pooled-together contributions of producer-star Warren Beatty, screenwriter James Toback and director Barry Levinson.

“But one wonders what might have resulted had the authorial strands been pulled apart and had Mr. Beatty been able to make another of his studies of an American naïf (following Clyde Barrow of Bonnie and Clyde, George the hairstylist of Shampoo and John Reed, the radical journalist of Reds) blundering as best he can through the social upheavals of an era; or had Mr. Toback, with his fascination with sex, power and the romantic fatalism of the gambler; or had Mr. Levinson fully indulged his nostalgia for a lost era of sartorial elegance and tastefully lighted interiors.

“Levinson was the dominant force on the set, and the film duly reflects his fundamentally comic sensibility (even when the material dips into darkness) and affection for attention-grabbing period detail.” — from Dave Kehr’s 12.12.06 review of the Bugsy extended-cut DVD.

Two more observations about Francis Coppola‘s Megalopolis, which was seen last Thursday morning by an elite crowd of 300 or so at Universal City IMAX:

Observer #1: “Megalopoplis is about as non-Joe Popcorn a movie as one can imagine. But it is so startling, so original and sometimes downright confounding that there is a certain strata of moviegoer who will see it out of raw curiosity…especially if critics get behind it and if there is a major PR campaign.

“I don’t know if the print we saw [last Thursday] is finished or not. I hope Francis clarifies the story so audiences have something to hang onto. The first approximately 50 to 60 per cent of the film is much better than the last part because you lose track of the story and become bored.

“It is nonetheless a bold and utterly original film, and for that Francis will get tons of credit from some quarters.”

Observer #2: “There will be many and varied responses to this film. Those who love it for its boldness will be right. and those who dismiss it for the same reason will, if you insist, also be correct. And perhaps the film’s natural, eventual home will be in art museums.

“Megalopolis will require careful and loving handling, which may turn out to be an impossible task in today’s market. But here’s hoping otherwise.”

During last night’s SNL monologue, comedian-actor-writer Ramy Youssef, 33, said he’s not happy about voting for Biden or Trump, and would prefer a woman candidate (HE feels the same as long as the woman candidate isn’t Kamala Harris) or even a trans-woman.

Youssef is half-playing around and half-serious, and so am I. If there was a formidable biomale trans candidate as smart and practical-minded as Pete Buttigieg (i.e., not a woke lunatic), HE would vote for her. But of course, the odds of a formidable biomale trans candidate even getting through the primary process are negligible so what are we even talking about?

…for encouraging social standards that frown upon traditional male energy and identities in favor of politically cautious, laid-back girlyman attitudes, hence the phenomenon of depressed, drifting, girlfriend-less young men, hence “wokefish.”

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…in a more profound and heartfelt way than most present-day “Christians” understand this all-but-superfluous holiday, and I’m bending over backwards in saying this.

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Another indication that woke terror ain’t what it used to be (i.e., back in ’19, ’20 and ’21) is that genius comic Anthony Jeselnik, whose material uses “ironic misdirection, non sequiturs, biting insults, low-key arrogance along with amoral or psychopathic stances,” is alive and well and un–cancelled.

Nobody pulls off the “icy but casual sociopath with a chuckle” thing better than Jeselnik.

His career started to really happen in his early 30s, or around the beginning of the Obama era. He had a nearly four-year relationship with Amy Schumer. I know the #MeToo brigade hates him, and that at the peak of their “cancelling careers and destroying lives” power in the late teens and early ’20s they would have loved to terminate Jeselnik with extreme prejudice, but somehow he’s still thriving.

I know nothing and yes, this is two days old but…

Puck‘s Dylan Byers (3.29.24): “In the aftermath of the Ronna McDaniel hiring-and-firing scandal, the NBC News Group blame game has begun to point back toward chairman Cesar Conde, his hands-off leadership style, and his very transparent ambitions.”

“Ronna McDaniel fiasco reveals chaos in upper ranks at NBC: ‘A head needs to roll’“, by Alexandra Steigrad (3.29.24)

“Media executives and industry experts close to NBC said the Ronna McDaniel fiasco exposed the chaos in the upper ranks at the Peacock network — with one top honcho telling The Post that ‘a head needs to roll.’

“The hiring and abrupt firing of the former chair of the Republican National Committee under intense pressure from NBC and MSNBC talent, led by Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow, revealed the power vacuum at the network, multiple sources told The Post on Thursday.

“’Someone needs to pay for the clear lack of leadership on this issue,’ said one media bigwig, who spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity. ‘A head needs to roll.’

“NBC brass reversed their position on hiring Ronna McDaniel earlier this week, after pushback from talent. But the stunning reversal has exposed gaps in leadership at the network, sources said.

“’There are some serious conversations happening in Philadelphia,’ the source added, referring to the headquarters of NBC-parent Comcast. ‘If I’m [Comcast president] Mike Cavanagh, I’d be like what the fuck!’

“A possible fall guy could be NBC News Group Chairman Cesar Conde, who took ‘full responsibility’ for signing off on the reported two-year, $600,000 deal that landed McDaniel as an on-air contributor at NBC and MSNBC last Friday.

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A few days ago I twitched once again at the sight of the term “sex positive.” I’ve riffed about this once or twice before, but this time it was in a Zack Sharf Variety piece about The Idea of You (Amazon Prime, 5.2.24). It’s about an affair between Solène Marchand (Anne Hathaway), a 40 year-old single mom, and Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the 24-year-old lead singer of August Moon, a super-hot boy band.

Sharf: “Hathaway was drawn to the film because it shows it’s never too late for a woman to come of age. The film is also sex positive.”

I wrote the following a couple of years ago: “‘Sex positive’ sounds a little too nice…a little too much like a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Tame and tidy, not skanky enough. The best heteronormative sex is usually untidy and objectionable in some way — rude, hungry, raw, animalistic, runting, howling, pervy.

There’s an old Woody Allen line (probably from Annie Hall or Manhattan) that answers a question about whether sex is dirty or not. Reply: “It is if you’re doing it right.”

In the mid ’80s I was “seeing” a pretty British woman in her early 30s. She had apparently come from a conservative family, or had somehow gotten the idea from her mother that when it came to the possibility of sexual congress and the “yes or no” moment…she had been told that behaving in a cautious or conservative or even prudish manner was a safe, sensible way to go.

But I’m telling you that one of the hottest things I’ve ever heard a woman say at the moment of surrender came out of this lovely lady — “oh, God, I love it!”

It wasn’t so much the “I love it” (which was fine) as the “oh, God” part that got me. What that meant, I determined, was that deep down she was apologizing to God the Father for enjoying being harpooned. “Oh, God” meant “dear Lord, I’ve tried so hard to be a more virtuous woman and here I am failing again…I can’t help myself…send me to a nunnery.”