Jeff Wells

[Originally posted on 12.9.21] There’s a famous bit in The Empire Strikes Back (’80) when the Millennium Falcon won’t turn over and so Han Solo twice slams a console with his fist and wham…it’s working again.

There’s a scene in The Bridge on the River Kwai (’57) when William Holden angrily kicks a non-functioning two-way radio, and suddenly it’s working again.

There’s a scene in The Hot Rock (’72) in which a police precinct captain (William Redfield) is told by a subordinate that a phone isn’t working, and he asks “well, did you jiggle it? Did you…you know, fiddle around with it?”

There’s a scene in The Longest Day (’62) where Capt. Colin Maud (Kenneth More) walks up to a stalled vehicle during the D-Day invasion and says, “My old grandmother used to say, ‘Anything mechanical, give it a good bash.'” He hits the vehicle and it starts right up.

And don’t forget that moment in Armageddon (’98) when Peter Stormare said “this is how we fix things in Russia!” and then whacked an engine with a wrench.

In 2010 my last and final Windows laptop (I had more or less become a Mac person two years earlier) stopped working in some fashion — it was acting all gummy and sluggish — and so I decided to bitch-slap it a couple of times. Instead of suddenly springing to life, the laptop more or less died. Violence, I realized with a start, was not the answer. Times and technology had changed.

I resolved at that moment never to try and William Holden or Harrison Ford or Peter Stormare or Kenneth More or William Redfield my way out of a technical problem again.

Sharon Acker, the actress who, at 30, portrayed Lynne Walker, the moody, vacantly unfaithful wife of Lee Marvin’s lead character in John Boorman‘s Point Blank (’67), has passed at age 87.

Lynne (the sister of Angie Dickinson‘s Chris) was the best role Acker ever had. Her single best moment was when she sat on a couch and explained to Marvin what had happened, why she “couldn’t make it” with him, why she betrayed him with John Vernon‘s Mal Reese, etc.

THR reports that Acker died March 16 (15 days ago) in a retirement home in her native Toronto.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu made a reasonably good impression last night on Real Time with Bill Maher. Only 48 years old and obviously sane and plain-spoken and given to joking and smiling, he would be a much more appealing alternative to Joe Biden than Orange Plague, who might be able to win the Republican nomination but can’t possibly win.

Sununu said last night he would support Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee, but that was only to placate the rural morons.

The Sununu name carries a terrible stain, but it’s the fault of Gov. Sununu’s father, John, who almost single-handedly blocked and ruined the fight against climate change back in the mid ’80s.

There were at least three or four teachers I used to dream about “doing” during class in junior and senior high. Instead of paying attention to their impossibly boring instruction I would dream about unzipping their dresses, watching them bathe, etc. It was my great misfortune that teachers didn’t start “doing” their students in any appreciable degree until the 21st Century.

@michael_mc_crory #1965 #students #reaction #funny #teacher #beautiful #usa #america #unitedstates ♬ original sound – Westfast Live

But the bit doesn’t work because this woman (great scarf, violet-tint hair) isn’t even a little bit “chubby.” So the whole bit falls apart…sorry.

Anthony Bourdain: “Eat at a local restaurant tonight. Get the cream sauce. Have a cold pint at 4 o’clock in a mostly empty bar. Go somewhere you’ve never been. Listen to someone you think may have nothing in common with you. Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride.

“Actually, hold on. I feel like shit. Life itself is shit. My soul is drowning in it. My crazy girlfriend and I have no rules, but she’s making a show of fucking some guy in Rome right now, essentially throwing it in my face, and I feel really stunned and bruised and turned around. You know what? Fuck it — I’m going to hang myself in the bathroom.”

This Lady Gaga incident “happened” four or five days ago during filming of Todd Phillips‘ Joker: Folie a Deux (Warner Bros., 10.4.24). Some kind of uptight conservative Christian woman carrying a Folie a Deux prop (a tabloid newspaper) shouted “you’re going to hell!” (You can barely hear her.) LG stopped, turned around, put her hands around the woman’s face, gave her a big kiss and said “you’re going with me!”

It was all scripted, of course, but during my first viewing of a captioned version I thought for a brief moment the confrontation had happened for real, and under that impression I was momentarily filled with huge admiration for Lady Gaga, the person. If it had just happened, it would’ve been the kind of thing that only the young Pablo Picasso or Salvador Dali might’ve performed.

But of course, it was all written by Phillips and Scott Silver.

Hal Holbrook‘s “Deep Throat” in All The President’s Men: “The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”

Sight unseen, HE is pretty much down with the dry comedic slant of White House Plumbers (HBO Max, 5.1). The absurdist deadpan tone feels like it might be…well, perhaps not quite Dr. Strangelove-ian but in that general ballpark.

Created and written by Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck; directed by David Mandell (exec producer and showrunner of Veep, exec producer and director of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld).

Jacob Fisher of Discussingfilm.net is reporting that Clint Eastwood is closing in on directing a thriller called Juror #2 for Warner Bros.

The plot “follows a juror on a murder trial who realizes he may have caused the victim’s death and must grapple with the dilemma of whether to manipulate the jury to save himself, or reveal the truth and turn himself in,” according to Fisher.

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