Jeff Wells

I feel as if my hair is infested with sand granules, and that I’ll need to take two showers in order to really be free of them. That awful sand-choked feeling…sand in my pants, my socks, my ear canals, my eyebrows…sand in my soul.

We’re talking once again of Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling and Javier Bardem, plus newbies Austin Butler (unrecognizable with shaved head), Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken and Lea Seydoux.

Dune: Part Two pops on 11.3.23. I am completely comfortable with never seeing Denis Villeneuve‘s latest film, ever. No screenings, no streamings….nothing. It doesn’t exist.

…but later with the black shorts and heavy boots.

HE comment thread: “I guess you’re not fully realizing or understanding on some level. The shorts coupled with the shiny, clumpy-ass boots are fucking fatal. Pedro didn’t’sell’ it — he was victimized by this essentially silly outfit. Humiliated. Made to look like a fashion chump.”

“”I’d really like to hear this paragraph recited by Malcolm X. It’s worthy of that. I also think he would have agreed with everything in it.” — Friendo text from a couple of hours ago.

Written late this morning: “Is it rightwing to believe that guys having babies is a bizarre detour and more than a little nutso? Is it rightwing to generally favor meritocracy over equity? Is it rightwing to believe that not each and every white male in the workplace is necessarily sexist and evil and deserving of punishment or censure or being told to sit in the back of the bus? Is it rightwing to believe that bio-women should compete against other bio-women in sports, and that women competing against six-foot-four trans guys is wrong and unfair? Is it rightwing to believe, as humanity has believed for countless centuries, that in the vast majority of cases XX and XY chromosones naturally determine gender, and that for the most part roosters are roosters and hens are hens? Is it rightwing to believe in free speech and against moderates or sane conservatives getting shouted down by the woke mob on college campuses? Is it rightwing to believe that obesity is a bad thing, health-wise, and that the example of people like Lizzo is not a positive one as far as impressionable kids are concerned?”

Actual Malcolm X (in a similar frame of mind): “We been took! Boondoggled! Hoodwinked! Flim-flammed! Sold a bill of goods! Hog-tied! Led astray! Bamboozled! Had a tin can tied to our tails!”

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It was announced or revealed last night during the Met Gala that Vogue‘s Anna Wintour (born on 11.3.49) and highly esteemed actor Bill Nighy (who popped out 39 days later on 12.12.49) are a romantic couple.

It’s always a blessing when people of any age fall in love, however long their relationship is fated to last, but I’d like to ask a question. Wintour was, of course, the real-life inspiration for Meryl Streep‘s “Miranda Priestly” in The Devil Wears Prada. Is there any north-of-60 guy out there who would feel good and comforted by going out with a woman who’s long been characterized as a brutally tough, feisty, high-strung, demanding Type A personality? What are the odds, honestly, of lasting with a person like Wintour? Think about that.

This will never, ever happen again. Foreign-language flicks no longer have the currency they had in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. Plus the oldsters who might pay to see such a film are still too chicken to leave their homes and risk infection…they’ll never come back. The difference between the spiritual act of big-screen movie-watching 50 years ago vs. whatever you want to call movie-watching today…well, it’s just fucking shattering when you think of what’s gone and will never fucking return.

This afternoon the AMPAS Board of Governors announced new campaign promotional rules and regs in order to prevent any further Andrea Riseborough-style guerilla campaigns.

The sore-loser contingent took great exception to the Risebourough insurgency, and so the Academy has announced rules that will make it harder for such a grass-roots campaign to manifest or be effective.

Members “may encourage others to view motion pictures”, and they “may praise motion pictures and achievements.” But they may not “share their voting decisions at any point. And they may not discuss their voting preferences and other members’ voting preferences in a public forum. This includes comparing or ranking motion pictures, performances, or achievements in relation to voting.

This also includes speaking with press anonymously” — a reference to those Honest Academy Ballot articles that Scott Feinberg and Anne Thompson have posted for years.

Note: Academy members have always known they aren’t supposed to talk to journos like Feinberg and Thompson, but they’ve done it anyway, and will almost certainly continue to do so.

Furthermore, Academy members “may not attempt to encourage other members to vote for or not vote for any motion picture or achievement,” and they may not “lobby other members directly or in a manner outside of the scope of these promotional regulations to advance a motion picture, performance, or achievement.”

“Andrea Riseborough + Duelling Concepts of Meritocracy vs. Equity,” posted on 2.15.23:

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Marriages between an exceptional film sequence and a great pop song can make for very special combustions.

I’m talking about the use of one or more songs (either acquired or originally composed) that have enhanced and deepened the emotional value of a non-musical film. And a certain film that, after merging with the right song or songs, acquires a certain dimensionality or legendary quality for itself.

A situation, in short, in which both the movie and the music experience a major mutual upgrade.

Example #1: Berlin‘s “Take My Breath Away” was not only written for Top Gun — it was forever welded to the legend of that film and vice versa.

Example #2: That blues number (I don’t even know the title!) performed by the Mighty Joe Young Blues Band in Michael Mann‘s Thief (’81). I’ve never forgotten that song, and Thief was hugely amplified by it. Performed at The Katz & Jammer club on Chicago’s North Side.

Example #3: Phil Collins‘ “In The Air Tonight” was one thing when it popped in January ’81, but it became a whole ‘nother thing when it was used for that sex-on-a-train scene sequence in Risky Business, which opened two and half years later (August ’83).

HE Picks: (1) “Moon River,” Breakfast at Tiffany’s; (2) Blondie‘s “Call Me”, American Gigolo; (3) Bob Dylan‘s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid; (4) “The Power of Love,” Back to the Future; (5) “Up Where We Belong”, An Officer and a Gentleman…the list goes on and on.

Or someone less agenda-driven?

I’m presuming that this recently posted N.Y. Times want ad for a full-time senior film critic slot (i.e., an invitation for qualified persons to apply) is essentially bullshit. They have a pretty good idea who they’re going to hire, I’m guessing, and it won’t be some sensible centrist type with amiable popcorn tastes. They almost certainly want a woke Maoist. The ad is about Times management needing to demonstrate that they’re an equal opportunity employer.

I wonder if this means that Wesley Morris has passed on the job?

Update: I’m told that the ad isn’t entirely bullshit as the Times hasn’t yet hired a replacement.

Two and a half months ago (2.21.23) I posted a piece about who might replace outgoing N.Y. Times film critic A.O. Scott. It was called “Times Needs To Replace Scott With A Brilliant Moderate Who Eschews Woke Maoism.”

Three things about Sian Heder‘s CODA: (a) It’s an audience-charming confection that dealt sincere cards with a little too much heart sauce, (b) it was obviously more likable than Jane Campion‘s doleful Power of the Dog so I understood why Academy members gave it the Best Picture Oscar, and (c) it wasn’t saved by the Best Supporting Actor Oscar-winning Troy Kotsur but by Eugenio Derbez, who played the Latino singing teacher.

In short I’ve respected Heder’s work as far as it goes, but I never thought of her as being all that hip or edgy. Until last night, that is, when I caught her cameo in episode 4 of Barry (“it takes a psycho“). Now I really respect her. Because the scene she’s in satirizes the syndrome of indie-level directors taking paycheck gigs on superhero movies. (Chloé Zhao directing the much-maligned Eternals, Ryan Coogler helming Black Panther, etc.)

Playing herself, Heder appears in a Hollywood sound-stage scene, directing a Wonder Woman-ish fantasy flick called Mega Girl. Sarah Goldberg‘s “Sally Reed” is helping Ellyn Jameson‘s “Kristen” prepare for a big monologue scene, and she spots Heder almost immediately.

Sally: Hi…hi, you’re Sian Heder.
Heder: Hi.
Reed: I’m Kristen’s acting coach.
Heder: Great.
Reed: CODA is a masterpiece.
Heder: Thanks.
Sally: It’s incredible. I mean I could cry just thinking about it.
Heder: I’m clearly switching gears on this one. On CODA I worked with committed actors to tell a deeply personal story, and now I’m working with models in Halloween costumes fighting over a blue glowy thing.
Sally: Well, that’s exciting.
Heder: Yeah, it’s gonna be a good movie…I think. I think when people see Mega Girl, they’re gonna think ‘whoever made that, made CODA.”

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Jeff and Sasha’s latest Substack chat was recorded in two sections — the first while I sat in a noisy Wilton laundromat, and the second as I lay comfortably on my queen-sized bed at home. I liked chatting from a lying-down position — it made me feel good and reassured. Here’s da link.

Last night I watched the first installment of David Kelley‘s Love and Death, an HBO Max three-parter about the 1980 Candy Montgomery Texas murder saga. I had recently watched Candy, the Hulu five-parter starring Jessica Biel, that premiered in early May of ’22.

At this stage I’m totally Candy Montgomery’ed out.

I tried to roll with the Love and Death teleplay, but as I mentioned last month after watching the trailer, the Jessie Plemons casting got in the way. When Elizabeth Olsen‘s Candy asks Plemons character, Allan Gore, if he’s interested in having an affair, something inside me recoiled and went “no effing way…no!”

Posted last month: “It would be one thing if the actress playing Candy was shlumpy or overweight or less than dynamically attractive. But Olsen, 34, is a double-A hottie and has been so for many years, so why in the real world would she want to have sex with a C-minus guy (at best) who looks like Jesse Plemons? Fleshy and ginger-haired, pale and puffy-faced, tiny pig eyes.”

When Olsen and Plemons, after much hemming and hawing, finally do the deed in a motel room, I couldn’t stand it. Guys like Plemons never score with double-dishies. It just goes against human nature.

That said, I want to offer serious respect to Plemons for recently dropping all that weight…seriously.

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