Jeff Wells

Jelly Roll Train Doesn’t Stop Here

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If I was walking down a street and I saw Jelly Roll coming my way, I would quickly cross to the other side. Obese, tattoo face, drug history…later.

“In a country riddled with crises — the opioid epidemic, mass incarceration, the mental health crisis and gun violence among them — Jelly Roll’s music is an expression not just of musical tastes, but also of a desperate national hunger for healing and recovery.” — from Crispin Sartwell‘s “Can Jelly Roll Heal the Broken Soul of America?,” posted in the N.Y Times on 7.23.

“I Went To Hell and Back”

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HE to Jamie Foxx: You’re mostly recovered & out of the woods…great. But what happened, bruh? Did you have the sniffles or a fever and then it got out of hand? Were you stabbed by your wife? Did you accidentally swallow a pellet of plutonium? Did gangbangers shoot you down in a hail of bullets?

Oscar Poker: “Barbenheimer” Bait & Switch

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Yesterday afternoon Jeff and Saha discussed the Barbenheimer Bait & Switch — the two films having been sold as one thing only to reveal their true colors during actual screenings.

Hey, maybe it’s me. I mean, maybe I’m a little fucked up or something. But yesterday’s HE comment thread consensus seems to be (a) yes, no film in Hollywood history has conveyed such a high degree of misandrist contempt for straight white dudes (men of color and mixed ethnicity being, of course, not only blameless but glorious), and yet (b) none of this matters because Barbie is a huge hit so all those grumpy misogynist dissers are the problem, not the film itself.

Do I have this right? Toxic gender-hate cinema is totally fine as long as it’s popular?

Again, the link.

I Have To Acknowledge

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…that while Roland Joffe‘s Fat Man and Little Boy (’89) is a far lesser film than Chris Nolan‘s Oppenheimer in several ways, this Trinity explosion scene is decently shot…it looks and feels classically cinematic.

Except for two bonehead errors. One is the ridiculous notion of J. Robert Oppenheimer lighting a cigarette at the exact instant of detonation; second is an absurd suggestion that just as the golden explosion is seen and felt and heard, Oppie would behave like a euphoric Wolf of Wall Street broker who’s just closed a huge sale.

Assertive Fellows Think Alike

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“Barbie is like the deformed mutated rage child of Captain Marvel, the 2016 Ghostbusters and She-Hulk.

“Watching this film was one of the most miserable, demoralizing, unpleasant experiences I’ve ever had as a movie critic [as it] genuinely made me question where [western] society is heading.

“It is pure brain cancer in movie form, and I was genuinely shocked by the sheer, undisguised contempt that film has for 50% of the human population.

“Barbie real]y is a wolf in sheep’s clothing…a lot of parents who have been duped into taking their daughters to watch this, probably expecting the kind of breezy, colorful, family-friendly movie that was advertised, only to find themselves confronted with this spiteful, bitter, mean-spirited pile of misandrist dogshit instead…

“Think of the man-hating psychopaths who are going to be created because of this film.

“If you’re a parent and you’re thinking of taking your kids to see Barbie, the Drinker recommends that you skip this one and literally do anything else with them. Believe me — you’ll thank me later.”

“Undisciplined Barbie Gush“, posted on 7.20: “Never has a major studio film ever conveyed such utter contempt for straight guys…in its peppy and good natured way Barbie constantly belittles men and regards them as delusional little boys with selfish and thoughtless agendas.

“Red-staters will have problems with the basic Barbie attitude. This movie definitely tries to nudge the little girls and boys that will see it into the man-hating, male-pitying side of the discussion.

“If you want to start your little girl (or your little boy) on a path to despising foolish and idiotic straight men, this is the film to take them to — trust me.

“In a very good-natured and heavily ironic and often comedic way Greta Gerwig‘s movie absolutely DESPISES men. It really does — it’s total propaganda to this effect.”

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Disgust Wells Up, Spills Over

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The Warning‘s Steve Schmidt has known Lindsey Graham, the shamelessly Trump-fellating Senator from South Carolina, personally for many years. Schmidt has been completely disgusted by Graham since he became a Trump toady seven years ago. He speaks here about Graham’s slimy, slithering behavior — almost entertaining from a certain perspective.

Run That By Me Again, Please?

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Yesterday afternoon (7.20) Variety‘s Matt Donnelly reported that under the cloud of a possibly enduring SAG/AFTRA strike, Warner Bros. is “strongly considering” bumping Dune: Part Two out of its 11.3.23 release date and opening it sometime in ’24.

Ditto James Wan‘s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (12.20) and Blitz the Ambassador‘s The Color Purple (12.25).

The apparent concern is that Joe and Jane Popcorn will either be unaware of these films or wont be motivated to see them unless the actors promote them via the usual media outlets.

Forgive me for sounding ignorant or for living on my own cloud or desert island, but if I want to see a film it’s NEVER because this or that actor has visited the Jimmy Kimmel Show or done the usual round of junket interviews. It’s because of good reviews or advance screenings or general online buzz.

I realize there’s a whole community of none-too-brights out there who will never see a given film UNLESS the star has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel or done junket interviews, but it seems strange nonetheless.

Before last night’s AMC Lincoln Square Oppenheimer screening the Dune: Part Two trailer played on the big IMAX screen, and it was obvious that the crowd is excited about seeing it. Timothee Chalamet interviews won’t matter one way or the other.

An “industry player” has told Donnelly that the success of The Color Purple “would hinge on a robust awards campaign.” Those who want to see The Color Purple because of its own merits are already convinced, just as I’m convinced that The Color Purple will never ring my bell and that I would’t see it with a gun jammed against my rib cage,

I just don’t want to see Ridley Scott‘s Napoleon (Sony, 11.22) bumped into ’24…please.

Undisciplined “Barbie” Gush

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…as I’m waiting for the big-ass, 15/70 IMAX screening of Oppenheimer to begin at 7 pm…this is the best I can do on the fly…please forgive the repetitions.

Barbie is cheerful, ironic, smart…it’s colorful, pop-pop-pop feminist and male-despising propaganda in a fleet and funny way…it’s clever and snappy enough to make you say to yourself “okay, fine…men are the foolish morons in this thing and there will be no oxygen for steady, fair-minded viewpoints…just give into it, man…whatever. Because it’s zippy and fizzy and a fair amount of fun.”

Barbie really is fun and juiced for the most part…it’s sharp and clever and peppy as fuck and production designed to a fare-thee-well.

Red-staters will have problems with the basic Barbie attitude. This movie definitely tries to nudge the little girls and boys that will see it into the man-hating, male-pitying side of the discussion. Megyn Kelly, take note!

If you want to start your little girl (or your little boy) on a path to despising foolish and idiotic straight men, this is the film to take them to — trust me.

In a very good-natured and heavily ironic and often comedic way (except for the final 25 to 30 minutes, when it turns into one soul-baring speech after another about the burdens of being a woman and the necessity of men accepting their fundamental immaturity and subservient role, and the task of crafting and molding your own identity)…what was I saying?

In a very good-natured and heavily ironic and often comedic way Greta Gerwig‘s movie absolutely DESPISES men. It really does — it’s total propaganda to this effect.

But at the same time it’s giggly and brisk and breezy and funny and, I have to admit, a very well assembled satire of sorts. A woman-celebrating, man-pitying satire. Wheeee!

Never has a major studio film ever conveyed such utter contempt for straight guys…in its peppy and good natured way Barbie constantly belittles men and regards them as delusional little boys with selfish and thoughtless agendas.

But it does so with such brisk and perky energy & with such a persistent sense of nerve and extra-ness…a certain punching-through-the-fourth-wall self-awareness.

And it does have a great final line that is just about equal to the final line in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot so you just have to roll with it and accept the male humiliation and the dominant species of Barbie-women.

This afternoon’s audience was like a midnight crowd at the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the early ’80s, or like the young-girl audience that first showed up to see the first Twilight on opening weekend…a lot of women (and a couple of trans guys!) dressed in pink and giggling and delighted with how the film made them feel. And a fair number of gay gays laughing and giggling and feeling the euphoria.

This is a cultural event, this film…it’s a celebration of the feminine wonderfulness of Barbieland and straight-male mocking and belittling, and a concurrent celebration of feminized gay males.

All The Kens are allegedly straight, you see, except they all look and dress gay. Go figure.

There are phony moments here and there. During her initial visit to the real world, Barbie sits next to an 80something woman and, despite having no frame of reference about older people or age or anything about real-world biology, she says to the 80something woman, “You’re so beautiful.” And the old woman chuckles and says, “I know.” Bullshit, doesn’t work.

My screening was crammed with Millennials and Zoomers…mostly women and a decent smattering of gay men. There was a guy sitting behind me who was giggling like a deballed falsetto Chihuahua…”hee-hee-hee-hee….ooh-hoo-hoo-hoo…hee-hee-hee-ee!”

At the very beginning a hot-pink Warner Bros. logo appears, and this same idiot was DEE-LIGHTED by this…”ooh-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo…tee-hee-hee-hee-hee!!” I almost turned around and said to him, “Do you know what the term ‘easy lay’ means?”

First thing I wrote after Barbie ended: “I have to give Gerwig and Noah Baumbach credit for having created a fleet, zippy, self-acknowledging, hall-of-mirrors Barbie universe that mostly works.

“If you don’t mind the relentless humiliation that is heaped upon the stupid, self-deluding Ken men, the film holds together. It’s fully realized and precisely thought through and is quite the pink creation, quite the work of imagination…

“Even though it regards men as pathetic and immature and basically seven- and eight-year-olds…the Barbie women are the wise and the strong and way, WAY more commanding and visionary and competent….the Ken men are foolish, emotionally stunted infants, and woman know SO much more and are SO much wiser and more mature and they, henceforth, will lead the way. And are destined, it is fully implied, to run the real world once the men are fully deballed and schooled and feminized…”

No Clint Eastwood or Lee Marvin types allowed! And no Cary Grants or Jack Lemmons either! Only buff-bod gay guys who are pretending to be straight, or at least aren’t identified as queer.

CODA Bros!!

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Every person reading this post needs to sit down, take a breath and ask themselves this question: Deep down, am I a CODA bro? Do I place a higher value upon movies that deliver strong emotional goods (i.e., that warm feeling of empathy that spreads throughout your system) than films that feel more intellectually-focused…more brainy-ish?

To put it differently, am I more of a cinematic Dylan fan or am I more into movies that give me a kind of pre-Rubber Soul Beatles high?

During yesterday’s Oscar Poker podcast Sasha Stone said that Oppenheimer was much more Dylan-ish than Lennon-McCartney.

What kind of music or what band is Barbie like? I won’t know until I catch it at 3 pm this afternoon, or roughly three hours hence. Oppenheimer follows at 7 pm. Both at the AMC Lincoln Square.

If I Sounded Like Marjorie Taylor Greene

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…I would seek out a brilliant acting-and-vocal coach, part Evanna Lynch and part Henry Higgins, and beg him or her to please help me get rid of my white-trash, Deliverance hillbilly shitkicker accent. Because if I could sound more like Sigourney Weaver, I could become more acceptable as a national political figure.