Jeff Wells

Received this morning from Bill McCuddy: “Finally caught up with Todd Haynes‘ May December last night…this after reading that Owen Gleiberman and Peter Debruge have it on their Top Ten lists, and then I saw that Vanity Fair‘s Richard Lawson has it at number one.

“I’d heard it was actually bad. It’s not, but where some critics are seeing subtlety- — except for the goofy soap opera music jolts — I saw missed opportunities.

“There are definitely spoilers here so HE readers be warned.

“1. I’d have made Natalie Portman‘s character more obsessed with Julianne Moore‘s character. Parrot her more than she does. Have her dress like Moore earlier in the film.

“2. I’d have had Portman say she’s also a producer on the film and continually reassure the couple (Moore and the much-younger Bruce Melton) that they will be portrayed truthfully and sympathetically, only to have Moore find a copy of the script and realize it’s not that, and in fact borders on a sleazy takedown.

‘3. Late in the second act I would reveal that the movie Portman is supposedly making has actually been put in turnaround or cancelled altogether and Portman went to Savannah anyway. Way creepier.

“4. Instead of sleeping with Portman’s character, I would have had Melton rebuff her, fueling her anger and disillusionment.

“5. I’d have ended the film not with a scene from the real (not in my version) movie but instead from a faux-documentary about what happened when Portman’s character came down there.

“The basic idea that anyone in that Savannah-region hamlet might still gave a shit about something that happened 25 years ago (i.e., a May Kay Letourneau trauma) is a ludicrous premise. In Hayne’s version the whole family is still living with the affair. So is the whole town. They’re still buying her cakes out of sympathy 25 YEARS LATER?! Bullshit.

“The real tension in the movie should be that all the horrific attention they got 25 years ago is gonna come back. It’s long gone and over with in my version.

“Finally, and this is a small nit, but where in the hell did they get the money for that waterfront resort island house? Reading X-rays and baking Gingerbread men? Uh, no. I saw that house in the first few frames of the movie and thought ‘well, at least they sued someone like Fox News and got a lot of money’ but nope.”

If you walk over and look them in the eye and ask them to please cut the crap, the AFI Sight & Sound gang will admit the truth.

They know that Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon is not one of his top-tier films. They know it’s basically a woke movie, a guilt-trip thing. They know that it has no character viewpoint other that “century-old Oklahoma white guys bad.” They know that Scorsese and Eric Roth decided to more or less abandon FBI agent Tom White, the central figure in David Grann’s 2017 book, in favor of Leonardo DiCaprio‘s dumbshit Ernest Burkhart, who isn’t worth the effort.

They know all that and voted Killers as the year’s top film regardless. Because they wanted to proclaim their belief and investment in the redemption narrative. It’s their way of saying “we get it Marty…you did your best under the circumstances and understandably felt that you couldn’t go with White as the champion…we get it and we support you and are on your side despite the fact that if we were voting on merit alone we wouldn’t have chosen Killers….you get that and so do we…plus we absolutely believe in the metaphor of Lily Gladstone‘s identity campaign for Best Actress…all hail our recognition of past sins and our attempt at absolution or at least forgiveness.”

Finally but limited…AMC Lincoln Square, Regal Union Square, Brooklyn Drafthouse. The suburbs are cooling their heels.

The romantic intrigue in Phillip Noyce‘s Fast Charlie (Vertical, 10.8) is the thing. The blam-blam is fine the laid-back, settled-down relationship drama between Pierce Brosnan‘s Charlie, a civilized, soft-drawl hitman who loves fine cooking, and Morena Baccarin‘s Marcie, a taxidermist with a world-weary, Thelma Ritter-ish attitude about things…that’s what holds you. Is he too old for her? (Call it a quarter-century age gap.) Does it matter if he is somewhat? Nobody makes any overt moves, but you can feel the simmering.

Charlie reminded me of Robert Forster and Pam Grier in Jackie Brown, sprinkled with a little Elmore Leonard sauce. One of those smooth older guy + middle-aged woman ease-and-compatibility deals.

Most of us are down with these pairings. Especially if the older guy looks fit and trim (flat abs, decent muscle tone, no jelly belly) and hasn’t allowed thinning hair or bald spot issues to get out of hand, and still has that old sparkle in the eye, which generally translates into a suggestion of sexual vigor.

If you like the older guy for his spiritual and emotional qualities, falling in love with a compatible younger woman (and vice versa) can seem like a good thing all around…thematically such pairings suggest renewal and revitalization…a second chance at life.

But in order to accept or approve of such relationships moviegoers have to be able to imagine the couple still happening five or ten years down the road. There has to be a credible future of some kind.

Read more

Posted within the last 24 hours:

HE-posted on 10.17.20: Wokesters have banished the “f” word as flatly, decisively and eternally as the “n” word and other hateful epithets. I understand that, of course, and I know that the preferred term is “person of size” or, if you will, non-svelte. Many years ago I tried using “calorically challenged” but people looked at me sideways. Their expressions seemed to say “what are you trying to be, some kind of smart-ass?”

Yes, I’ve used the “f” word a few times — Fat Thor, Fatzilla, etc.

In late May of ’07 I was standing on a small bridge in Venice when I noticed a morbidly obese fellow and his wife reclining in a passing gondola, and the combined weight was such that the gondola was almost taking on water.

“Wow, look at that fat guy,” I muttered to Jett, who was standing next to me. I knew I had misspoken. My voice had echoed slightly. Jett’s immediate response was to touch my forearm and go “sshhhhh.’

I’m not so stupid as to not understand that avoiding the “f” word is advisable. I get it. Of course I do. I’m just trying to get along. I am not a harshly judgmental person as a rule. I simply err on the side of offhanded candor from time to time.

The annual American Film Institute best of the year list is about as stolid and measured and steady as these things get. They never go for outliers, always stay within the safe zone, no surprises, always high-fiving the consensus comfies, etc.

Blowing off Napoleon and Saltburn were easy calls, but you’d think that for diversity and fellowship’s sake they might include The Color Purple. Nope.

By including May December on his ten-best-of-2023 list, Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman has broken my heart. He’s crushed it like a grape. To think that a smart sharperoo could watch this campy-ass thing and actually drop to his knees.

I used to love Todd Haynes back in the day, but over the last few years he’s taught me…well, not to hate him but to think negatively.

Posted on 5.21.23:

John Waters on Oppenheimer:

Ten years ago 3.5% of Americans said they identified as LGBTQIA, and today 7.1% are so identifying — a 100% increase, mainly due to Zoomers and Younger Millennials wanting to mingle with the crowd and be trendy.

Boiled down we’re talking one out of nearly 15 people. Which means, of course, that nearly 14 out of 15 Americans identify as straight.

Do this year’s Best Picture contenders represent this approximate gay-to-straight proportion? Of course not. Do they tilt in the direction of gay-themed or gay-seasoned subject matter? No, they do not “tilt” — they lean heavily in this direction. Two-thirds to a third.

If you accept there are twelve top award contenders (and you really can’t count Napoleon among them), you’ve only got four that are completely, unregenerately, hot-dog-with-a-brewski, Travis Kelce, low-thread-count T-shirt straight with nothing the least bit gay or even gay-flirting among them — Oppenheimer, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon and Past Lives. And three of these (Oppie, Holdovers, Killers) are period pieces.

On the other hand eight of the twelve award-season contenders have gay characters or gay sex scenes, or they satirize or belittle straight males.

1. Maestro (famous gay conductor lovingly married to beard wife, with whom he’s sired three children), 2. Barbie (dozens upon dozens of might-as-well-be-gay buff-bod Kens — the only overtly straight males are played by Michael Cera and Will Ferrell and the Matell board members), 3. American Fiction (Sterling K. Brown as Jeffrey Wright‘s gay brother, Clifford Ellison), 4. Poor Things (mostly hetero but with a lesbian oral sex scene in a Paris brothel), 5. Anatomy of a Fall (Sandra Huller admits to having had same-sex affairs outside the bonds of marriage to her late husband), 6. Rustin (charismatic gay civil leader of the ’60s), 7. Nyad (lesbian long-distance swimmer) and 8. The Color Purple (partly about lesbian-tinged relationship relationship between Celie and Shug, based on a book by bisexual author Alice Walker).

Summary: On-screen this season we have eight gay or gay-tinged films vs. four that are flat-out straight. In real life nearly 14 out of 15 folks are non-LGBTQIA.

What does that tell you about where Hollywood is coming from, and to what extent that they’re making films for the vast majority of moviegoers? At least as far as the ’23 award season is concerned? I’ll tell you what it means. It means that within industry culture, it seems safer or cooler to make gayish films or those with a little gay flavoring, It neans that industry culture sees Average Joe straight culture as crude or tedious or troglodyte-ish.

=

Sidenote: You can apparently buy original paperback editions of Matt Bradley‘s “Homo Hill”, a respected, relatively trim account of urban gay life during the JFK era. It first hit the stands on 1.1.63.

If I was told “okay, this is it — who among these four is your immediate, no-going-back choice to take the oath of office tomorrow?…decide right now,” I would say Christie or Haley, no question. Neither has a chance against The Beast, I realize…

What can I add in the way of commentary to the overwhelming terra cotta color scheme? Nothing. George Miller returns to the Australian wasteland…bingo. The dust, the dust…wash rinse repeat. Opening worldwide on 5.24.24, probably debuting in Canb=nes.