Jeff Wells

Eric Clapton first performed “My Father’s Eyes” on the 1992 “Unplugged” album. Written by Clapton and produced by Clapton and Simon Climie, it was released as a single in 1998. This might be my favorite easy-listening white guy soul song of all time.

The Ringer‘s Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins are making trouble for Alexander Payne‘s The Holdovers.

On Fennessey’s list of Best Films of 2023, The Holdovers is #25…well below The Iron Claw, Showing Up and May December.

Friendo: “You gotta be on the front foot about this because these people are attempting to diminish The Holdovers in every way they can, and they do have influence among cinephiles. These arguments are not going away so you should tackle them head on.”

HE to friendo: “There’s no tackling a generational dislike of The Holdovers. Either you get what Payne and Giamatti are doing…either you appreciate the way films used to be made in the ’70s…either you’ve seen The Last Detail and thereby appreciate the care and the craft and roll with it, or you don’t. The fact that dumping on one of the finest films of the year makes you sound like a Millennial shithead…that doesn’t matter to people like Sean and Amanda, and why should it?”

Sean: “A movie that older audiences are feeling warmly towards.”

Amanda: “This is a lovely, well-made film…a set of characters who are thrown together for two weeks and they’re gonna talk through some feelings and go through some things and we’re going to keep moving. I didn’t connect to it and I don’t know why.”

Sean: “There are some people who think it’s a masterpiece of filmmaking but that wasn’t my takeaway. There are younger folks who are pretty much where you are. Thought it was really well made, lots to admire but there’s more here. We can be more audacious in our filmmaking.”

Amanda: “This movie lands but is maybe not that ambitious. Safe is unfair, but The Holdovers feels a little smaller.”

Sean: “What I can’t find in The Holdovers is what is the big idea? I don’t know what it represents more broadly.”

Amanda: “I wonder what my block is here. You know, I like it a lot. I do wonder if I am just responding to some of the larger enthusiasm, particularly awards enthusiasm. The word CODA kept popping into my brain. It’s like, can I, I was going to say something mean? It’s like Pottery Barn. And I say that as someone who owns a lot of Pottery Barn but you can feel the ageing on it is aged as opposed to it being, you can feel the reference and the difference.”

Sean: “Are you evoking Paper Moon? Is this for me or is this for you?”

Amanda: “There’s no Tracy Flick for me to latch onto.”

Sean: “I saw someone greviously or egregiously declare this [to be] this year’s Green Book, which makes me want to gouge my eyes out. But I know what they meant by that.”

What a miserable and meaningless thing it is to “celebrate” the loss of a spent year and welcome the dawn of a new one. Okay, it’s a harmless ritual…fine.

Either way here we are, shouting “whoop-dee-doo!” and smashing a large magnum of champagne as we begin 2024, a year in which the U.S, of A. will either re-elect Muttering Joe or…I can’t say it or think it. Putting The Beast With Body Odor issues back into the White House is a prospect far too terrible to contemplate. But it could happen. (Note: The preceding sentiment is solely owned by by Mr. Wells.)

Sasha Stone and Jeffrey Wells (sitting in a Starbucks cafe) covered several topics earlier today. It went pretty well, despite an antsy woman giving Jeff the side-eye as he spoke in a subdued manner. She seemed to be saying “why are you talking to someone while we’re sitting here quietly with our cappucinos?” Jeff felt it wiser not to respond, but if he had he would’ve said, “Uhm…I wasn’t aware this was a library. I’ve sat next to talking people in a Starbucks before, and I’m certainly not talking loudly. Why don’t you just suck it up and stop glaring at me? Live and lt live.”

Here’s the link to our first ’24 discussion.

Again, the link.

I’m of the firm opinion that Maestro is audacious and brilliant and frequently soaring, but that 68% approval rating from Joe and Jane Popcorn obviously spells trouble. We may as well face facts. If Joe and Jane are cool to a film, you can bet that a sizable portion of Academy members feel the same way.

“They” apparently wanted more of a standard-issue biopic, which is to say more portraying the composing or performing of stirring Bernstein compositions (West Side Story, Candide, On The Waterfront) and probably less in the way of…oh, I don’t know, mano e mano kissy-face stuff?

Another thing is that I somehow never quite grasped until yesterday is the fact that Leonard Bernstein was short, as in 5′ 7″ — a full six inches shorter than Bradley Cooper, who stands 6′ 1″.

Tom Wolfe‘s description of Bernstein in “Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s“:

All of these films except Barbie and Godzilla Minus One are passive or “sensitive” or squishy to a fault…very little investment in straight-up, well-crafted, regular guy stuff…icky…kinda kewpie doll-ish…Jesus.

What about Maestro, The Holdovers, Poor Things, American Fiction, The Killer, The Pot-au-Feu, Ferrari, The Covenant, The Teacher’s Lounge, The Zone of Interest, Oppenheimer, Fallen Leaves, The Pigeon Tunnel, Blackberry, The Burial, Beau Is Afraid, Air, Black Flies, You Hurt My Feelings, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One…what’s up with this guy?

The great Tom Wilkinson has passed at age 75. Hugs and condolences. For me Wilkinson’s two finest performances were the ones that resulted in Oscar noms — the grief-plagued small-town doctor in Todd Field‘s In The Bedroom (’01) and the brilliant, emotionally unstable attorney in Tony Gilroy‘s Michael Clayton (’07).

I’ve watched these two films repeatedly, year after year, and Wilkinson’s work has always been a central motivation. The performances are poles apart emotionally, and yet equally fascinating. I’m thinking about watching Clayton again tonight for tribute’s sake. I just re-watched Bedroom three or four weeks ago — I need some time off in that resepct.

Wilkinson won a Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for his performance in The Full Monty (’97). Honestly? I’ve never seen it because I’m afraid of middle-aged wangs bouncing around.

I’m just sorry that Wilkinson participated in historical fabrication by playing President Lyndon Johnson in Ava DuVernay‘s Selma (’14). Not by his own design, but still. The film fantasized that LBJ tried to pressure Martin Luther King into backing off on the 1965 Voting Rights Act with audio tapes of King’s hotel room indiscretions, which LBJ allegedly ordered J.Edgar Hoover to assemble. Complete bullshit.

Wilkinson was first-rate in In the Name of the Father (’93), Sense and Sensibility (’95), Shakespeare in Love (’98), The Patriot (’00), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (’04), Batman Begins (’05), Valkyrie (’08) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (’14).

Wilkinson won both a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Film for playing Benjamin Franklin in the HBO’s John Adams (2008).

In his latest (12.29) newsletter Jeff Sneider has posted a new For Your Consideration video (12.29) with Scott Mantz and Perri Nemiroff, in which they kick around the leading Best Supporting Actor contenders.

Their current faves are Oppenheimer‘s Robert Downey Jr. (strong impression as despicable Salieri figure), Barbie‘s Ryan Gosling (essentially a superficial goofball performance), Poor Things‘ Mark Ruffalo (hey, I’m playing a pathetic libertine asshole really broadly…ohhh!), Killers of the Flower Moon‘s Robert De Niro (easily the most irritating, one-note supporting performance of the year…his “King” Hale literally gave me a headache during my second viewing of KOTFM), May December‘s Charles Melton (a vote for Melton being a vote of compassionate support for all real-life minors who’ve been sexually assaulted by adults, plus he’s half Korean!) and American Fiction‘s Sterling K. Brown (funny, blunt-spoken gay guy).

And of course, Mantz, Nemiroff and Sneider completely ignore Blackberry‘s Glenn Howerton. Because they’re afraid of sounding like outliers…because they want to play a safe consensus game by favoring corporate-backed contenders.

It doesn’t matter how riveting Howerton’s Jim Basillie is, right? And to hell with that rickety, old-school requirement that at least one Oscar-aspiring supporting performance should hail from the indie sector, n’cest pas?

Mantz mentions that he had Howerton on his list but…uhm, that ship has sailed. “Way back in the day we had Glenn Howerton,” Nemeriff says dismissively.

At the top of his 12.29 column Sneider writes, “In addition to becoming outright boring, much of the entertainment media, which ostensibly exists to serve as the voice of the people who make up this beloved community of ours, instead serves as the voice of the corporations that finance it.”

That is precisely what Mantz, Nemiroff and Sneider are doing by blowing off Howerton in favor of Downey, Gosling, Ruffalo, De Niro, Melton and Brown.

It is HE’s view that Howerton’s performance is just as good as Downey’s, and at the same time is quite funny if you understand asshole behavior. Truth be told, Downey’s Lewis Strauss is a drag to hang out with, and by the end of the film you’re thinking “Jesus, I get it, he’s a dick…enough already.” Yes, Downey brilliantly plays a weasel, but how hard is it to radiate weasel vibes? Weasel weasel weasel weasel weasel weasel…Weasel J. Weisenheimer.

Maine’s Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has given the heave-ho to The Beast, at least as far as her state’s Republican primary ballot is concerned. Bellows’ decision comes a week after Colorado’s supreme court disqualified Trump from appearing on the ballot there.

From Bellows written decision:: “I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”

A message is now being telegraphed to other states that are pondering whether or not insurrectionists deserve to be disqualified from appearing on state ballots: “Safety in numbers, bros! Jump in, join us, the water’s fine”, etc.

On the opening day of Philip Noyce‘s Fast Charlie, costar Morena Baccarin (Homeland, Gotham, The Endgame, the Deadpool franchise) naturally wanted to see the just-opened thriller, in which she costars with Pierce Brosnan, in a proper setting. And so two days later (Sunday, December 10th) she had quite the theatrical encounter. It happened on the third day of Fast Charlie‘s only NYC-area booking.

The bayou-based thriller was berthed at the Kent Theatre (1170 Coney Island Ave.), which is in the Kensington district.

Morena and actor-husband Ben McKenzie had decided to catch a screening over dinner on Friday, 12.8. They invited three family members but soon after discovered that only a single noon screening was scheduled for Sunday — the only showing that Fast Charlie was afforded that day. That’s correct — no late afternoons or evenings.

So come Sunday they all trouped out to the Kent, which is located, Morena says,”in a very old-school Brooklyn neighborhood…not a lot of people hanging around.” It was fairly rainy. They arrived around 11:30 am, and encountered a 15 year-old employee who was just opening up.

Morena: “Hey, we’re here to see Fast Charlie!”

15 Year Old Kid: “Uhm, whut?” (recovers from shock, collects himself) “Uhm, I’m not sure we’re showing it because Fast Charlie has not been a popular film so far. I’ll…uhhm, I’ll have to ask the manager.”

The manager said okay and so Morena, Ben and the gang entered the lobby, bought loads of candy and popcorn and settled into the film. Except the Kent staff had forgotten to turn the theatre lights off when the film began. Ben asked if they would mind doing so. The sound was fine, Morena recalls.

The film was great and they all had an excellent time, and the Kent staff was very polite. No, neither the 15 year-old kid or the manager realized that Morena was Brosnan’s top-billed costar. Or if they did they didn’t let on.

Morena and Ben would’ve preferred it if Vertical had booked Fast Charlie into the Cobble Hill Cinema plex, which is close to where they live. Or at one of the nearby Alamo theatres.

Fast Charlie team to Vertical Distribution: Thanks for an immersive last-exit-to-Brookyn experience that we’ll never forget!

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