Jeff Wells

I’m okay with Los Angeles magazine’s Jeff Sneider calling Bros the third best ’22 flick of the year (it was #29 on my own list). But he’s not allowed to put My Policeman in second place, or right after his #1 pick, Top Gun: Maverick. He can’t do that! My Policeman occasionally really blows, and yes, I’m aware of the redundancy.

[Posted on 10.29.22] “My Policeman (Amazon Prime, 11.4) is a tepid and morose gay tragedy, set in late 1950s England. And Harry Styles‘ rote performance as Tom Burgess, a sexually repressed gay policeman, is not a burnisher. Ditto David Dawson‘s as Patrick Hazlewood, a museum curator who becomes Tom’s lover and a rival for his affections in the matter of Emma Corrin‘s prim and proper Marion, who Tom marries because he needs a beard, which is a shitty thing to do.

“But Marion evens the score down the road. Shittily, I mean.

“Give Styles credit for bravely and energetically committing to some fairly graphic sex scenes with Hazlewood (kiss-slurping, panting, blowing, ass-fucking) but as I said in an earlier post, Styles is hot but Hazlewood isn’t, or at least not hot enough for me.

“There are some pretty guys whom straight guys can at least imagine having some kind of vague intimate contact with. Mick Jagger in Performance was one. In True Romance Christian Slater‘s Clarence Worley says that he could’ve fucked the young Elvis Presley. But one look at Hazlewood and I went “nope.” Cold eyes, dorky haircut, emotionally needy and greedy.

“I had a good laugh, however, when Dawson/Hazlewood hooks up with some anonymous guy and they decide to get down in an alleyway. They’re busted by a pair of bobbies before anything happens, but just before Dawson is about to drop to his knees the recipient drops a magazine on the damp pavement so Dawson won’t chafe his knees and his trousers won’t get wet. Thoughtful.

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2023 is underway and rolling along, Donald Trump has been out of office for nearly two years, and there’s really no reason to delay or pussyfoot around any more. He has to be flattened like a pancake…like a raccoon run over by an 18-wheeler. Charges need to be filed no later than 3.21.23. Sooner would be better.

“America first” MAGA patriot rather have anti-American, war criminal Vladimir Putin as president over President Biden. pic.twitter.com/FCpQa9LGTA

— Republicans against Trumpism (@RpsAgainstTrump) January 1, 2023

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One of the funniest SNL routines from 1979 was “Bend Over, Chuck Berry,” a homophobic but somewhat funny spoof of disco and the Village People in which Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Bill Murray and Garrett Morris, dressed in Village People garb, sang the satiric song.

I’ve tried to find a YouTube clip of this routine for several years, but it’s not accessible. In fact you can’t even buy an audio recording (“this song is not available for free download due to copyright or license restrictions“). It’s presumably been buried because of the anti-gay lampooning, which Lorne Michaels understandably doesn’t want circulating around.

I was beginning to think that Belushi’s hilarious mimicking of fat Liz Taylor choking on chicken bones had also been buried. SNL wouldn’t dare make fun of anyone today because of a weight issue. I found a clip on Reddit (taken from an 11.11.78 broadcast) but it won’t play.

I’m suddenly in the mood to watch some HD versions of those rude, gritty New York City flicks of the late ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. Klute, Panic in Needle Park, The French Connection Serpico, Death Wish, Mean Streets, Dog Day Afternoon, The Taking of Pelham 123, Dog Day Afternoon…that line of country. A version of New York City that no longer exists…gradually replaced starting around 30 years ago…a few remnants here and there but mostly wiped from the hard drive.

Manhattan hardly seemed glorious or heavenly when I first moved there in the late ’70s (“to live in this town you must be tough tough tough tough tough tough tough“), but at least hungry, determined, hand-to-mouth types like myself could afford to live there, and that made it a whole different place.

As the classically scrappy, Sidney Lumet-like depictions of 20th Century Manhattan (urgent, pugnacious, edgy, ethnic, pointed, blunt) are becoming more and more eroded and diluted and sanded down by corporatism and skyrocketing rents, the value of high-personality New York movies like Uncut Gems (which, don’t get me wrong, I found infuriating for its complete lack of interest in exploring anything but how it feels to ride on the back of a gambling edge-junkie tiger)…the ethnic, pushy atmosphere of such films is starting to seem more and more valuable as the social forces, aromas, attitudes and pulsebeats that fed into your classic 20th Century NYC culture are starting to lose more and more of their influence as the corporate, tourist-friendly strip-mall aesthetic creeps in and influences and even to some extent dictates the cultural tone of that town, certainly as far as Manhattan is concerned.

When was New York City really and truly a classic Lumet-like atmosphere? The peak era of feisty Manhattan movies ran from the late ‘40s to late ‘80s. The ‘80s were the last authentic gasp. The corporate clean-up began in the Mayor Giuliani era of the ‘90s.

What are my all-time favorite New York flavor movies? The top two are Lumet’s Prince of the City (’81) and William Friedkin‘s The French Connection (’71). Followed by (forgive the repeats) Sweet Smell of Success, Naked City, Midnight Cowboy, Do The Right Thing, Taxi Driver, Serpico, Manhattan, The Godfather, The King of New York, Dog Day Afternoon, Bad Lieutenant, Detective Story, On The Waterfront, Across 110th Street, Shaft, Patterns, Metropolitan, Saturday Night Fever, 12 Angry Men, Marathon Man, After Hours. But NOT West Side Story — too antiseptic and Robert Wise-y. And NOT Fame. And NOT Breakfast at Tiffany’s or The Devil Wears Prada.

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Kicking off 2023 with grandly familiar 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s snaps…can’t hurt.

Sometime early in the From Here To Eternity engagement, probably in September or October 1953.

If I remember correctly, Kirk Douglas never once takes his shirt off in Billy Wilder‘s Ace In The Hole (’51). He was well-known, of course, for displaying his brawny physique in Mark Robson‘s Champion (’49), which had made him a star two years earlier. So the Ace in the Hole billboard marketing guy said “fuck it, let’s try and sell this cynical, bitter film about heartless journalism as a Champion reboot.”

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Originally posted on 9.28.16: The only thing wrong with this Warren Beatty-Diane Keaton lovers quarrel scene in Reds is that it doesn’t last long enough. I wish I could have captured this in a way that does more justice to Vittorio Storaro‘s cinematography. It’s just my iPhone 6 Plus shooting an Amazon stream with shitty black levels. But I love the acrimonious energy.

I had a couple of spats like this with a girlfriend just a few months before Reds opened in the fall of ’81. Her name, honest to God, was Louise. She had the most beautiful half-Asian eyes.

Friendo: “You should check out Athena, an amazing action thriller on Netflix, set in the projects on the edge of Paris. Co written and produced by Ladj Ly (Les Miserables was among the 2020 Oscar Nominees for Best Foreign film) and directed by Romain Gavras, the son of Costa Gavras.”

To me, a young fellow who looks “well fed” radiates…it’s hard to put into words but for me it’s a vaguely uncomfortable vibe. A feeling of teetering on the edge. The definition of well-fed is hard to pin down, and I don’t want to sound dismissive. It refers to the physical look of someone who’s not fat or plump or chubby, but who seems to enjoy eating. Someone who’s just a tiny bit heavier than he/she ought to be.

My silent reaction when I see a well-fed 20something is that they’re…I don’t know exactly. A tad indecisive? Not louche or indulgent enough to be fat, but lacking the discipline to be seriously lean and taut. There’s nothing “wrong” with looking well-fed, but at the same time there’s something not quite right about it. Well-fed means a bit stocky but a few bowls of ice cream short of being bulky.

These thoughts were going through my head as I watched Truman Hanks in A Man Called Otto. Truman is Tom Hanks‘ youngest son and is playing a much younger version of Hanks’ curmudgeonly Otto in flashback. The problem is that Mr. Hanks is super-slim these days and a 20something son is supposed to be slightly slimmer than his 60ish dad so something feels off.

It also doesn’t quite work when the hefty son is taller than his father. Plus Truman seems a little too nice. If you have a cranky attitude when you’re older, you’re going to have a few shards of that attitude when you’re younger as well. I didn’t buy it.

I’m not trying to be brusque or unkind — just candid. I honestly don’t care for the appearance of well-fed types. I remember looking in the mirror when I was 28 and going into shock when I realized that I had “the look.” It freaked me out. I changed my diet and drinking habits right away.

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