Jeff Wells

One of my favorite HE rants, originally posted on 8.1.14 and titled “Please Stop Being Overly Impressed By Smiles, Kindness and Consideration…Please“:

During August or September of 2013 Jon Stewart‘s Rosewater shot footage in Jordan, and in preparation for this costumer Phaedra Dadaleh, a well-established professional in that region, was hired. On 9.11.13 Dadaleh told a Rosewater promotional site that she was “nervous” meeting Stewart, but her concerns quickly evaporated. “He’s just the most amazing, friendly, down-to-earth kind of guy,” she said. “He just got up, gave me a big hug and immediately made me feel at ease.”

That’s cool, Phaedra, and good for you, Jon. But people on movie sets have been saying the exact same thing about major above-the-line types for at least a century if not longer, and they never get tired of saying it. Time marches on and they just won’t stop wetting their pants when name-brand people are as kind and gracious and friendly to them as regular Joes are to each other in the outside world. It’s always “I was afraid this famous hotshot might be brusque or snide or otherwise a dick or a bitch, but he/she was totally the opposite…and he/she made me feel so good.”

Rosewater director-writer Jon Stewart, costumer Phaedra Dahdelah during 2013 filming in Jordan.

I know the feeling, and I’m not saying that many above-the-liners — Jon Stewart among them, I’m sure — aren’t really nice to begin with. But one of the main reasons that bigtime showbiz types have made it to the top is that they’re really good — practiced — at putting on that warm, kind and affectionate face when the situation calls for it.

And one atmosphere in which you’re almost guaranteed to receive warmth and love and hugs is one in which people are always alpha-vibing each other to death from the early morning into the wee hours until it’s coming out of their ears — i.e., a fucking movie set.

People loving and kissing and hugging each other like mad. Hugs, backrubs, bon ami…and every fucking joke and one-liner is either hilarious or very funny or at least somewhat funny. A lot of people do the monkey submission thing by slapping their thighs and bending over and staggering backwards when they laugh at other people’s jokes on movie sets. I’ve been visiting sets all my life, and sometimes I wind up smiling so much that my facial muscles are aching after four or five hours.

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I’ve only just discovered a YouTube clip of the A&P musical dance sequence that closes Noah Baumbach‘s White Noise. It’s the only portion of the film that really and truly works.

I’ve written about this twice over the preceding two and a half months, but it can’t hurt to re-post. It’s titled “White Noise Finale That Could’ve Been.”

Posted on 10.1.22: “The common consensus is that whatever you may think of Noah Baumbach’s White Noise, a dryly farcical ‘80s period drama set in an Ohio college town, the final sequence — an ambitiously choreographed dance sequence featuring shoppers at an A & P supermarket — is the highlight.

“The sequence affirms the film’s basic theme about nearly everyone turning to all kinds of distractions (including food) to avoid contemplating their own mortality.

“Though brilliantly staged, the dance number is undercut by Baumbach’s decision to use it as a closing credits backdrop. Here’s how I put it to a friend:

“The LCD Soundsystem ‘New Body Rhumba’ finale could have been great if Baumbach hadn’t decided to overlay it with closing credits. I almost shouted out loud ‘Oh no!! He’s blowing it!!’

“I’m saying this because once the credits begin we instantly disengage as we tell ourselves okay, the movie’s over so the aisle–dancing is just a colorful bit, a spirit-picker-upper…whatever.’

“If Baumbach hadn’t given us permission to disengage, the dancing could have been wild and mind-blowing in a surreal Luis Bunuel-meets-Pedro Almodovar way. It could have been a mad slash across a wet-paint canvas…a Gene Kelly consumer-orgy crescendo.

“And then it could have segued into a closing credit crawl. Alas…”

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HE commenter Eddie Ginley said it best: “With the notable exception of Green Book, recent winners have been those that (a) haven’t been nit-picked to death and (b) that Oscar voters can live with.”

That’s HE’s basic idea with EEAAO — to chisel and bite and nitpick it to death.

Nobody has been stupid enough, have they, to re-watch Bullet Train over the last three or four months?

From The Telegraph‘s “Worst Films of ’22”, penned by Robbie Colin:

Posted on 8.2.22: I’m sorry but I don’t do summer movies as a rule. Smartly strategized, semi-realistic action and thrills are great (especially if they adhere to the forbidden laws of basic physics, which were more or less banned from filmmaking circles 20 years ago), but later with “turn off your brain and submit to the crap”, which is what Bullet Train is about.

Don’t get me wrong — I adore expertly rendered escapism. Being goosed and transported out of my own miserable head and taken to someplace fresh or surprising or hilarious or super-exciting is what movies have occasionally done for decades, and are certainly still capable of doing, and I mean going all the way back to the absolute gymnastic brilliance of Buster Keaton and his dazzling command of action choreography.

Alas, Bullet Train is not a Hollywood Elsewhere type of action flick. Because director David Leitch, an ex-stuntman who allegedly co-helmed the original John Wick (’14) and then actually directed Atomic Blonde (’17) and Deadpool 2 (’18), hasn’t the slightest interest in delighting people like me, and he might even be the kind of guy who would spit on the sidewalk when Keaton’s name is mentioned.

Okay, he might be a Keaton fan but he certainly doesn’t get him.

I vaguely respect (sort of) the fact that Leitch is basically giving people like me the finger and loving it. I vaguely respect (in a perverse roundabout way) that Leitch is fiercely opposed to realistic action chops and focused on fusing martial arts, manga and dry humor in a kind of bullshit Guy Ritchie wacky cartoony vein.

For all I know Bullet Train, which is looking to excite those tens of millions of action fans who also despise the idea of realistic action (you know, the kind with roots in that tedious realm that exists right outside the theatre doors or when you take off your headphones and turn off your Playstation games), and if it winds up making money, great.

Because that’s who and what Leitch is — a man of impudence and conviction and hunger who’s out to make money. And Sony loves him for that. And Brad Pitt, who was allegedly paid $30 million to star in this thing, is almost certainly swooning with affection.

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I just want it known that I caught Bette Midler‘s “The Divine Miss M” show at the Berkeley Community Theatre (1930 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704) on Saturday, 9.29.73.

Terry Anzur’s review appeared the following Tuesday (10.2.73) in The Stanford Daily.

My group included ex-girlfriend Sherry McCoy, her sister Donna and three or four pallies who shared a place on San Francisco’s Russian Hill. Tons of gay guys dressed in drag…quite the colorful community. And the crowd roared when Midler, carrying a pair of pink feather boas, ran out to ecstatic applause. Her opening number was “Friends.”

After the show we all went to the backstage door to watch Bette come out and sign autographs. Her hair was tied up in a bun (or she didn’t have the red wig on…whatever), and when she came out and waved ‘hi’ to the onlookers, Donna said “who’s that?” My eyes rolled into my forehead.

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The great Pele has succumbed to cancer at age 82. Pele‘s reputation as Brazil’s (and indeed the world’s) GOAT soccer player soared during the late ’50s, ’60s and early to mid ’70s. Lacking a sports gene, I didn’t pay attention to Pele until he appeared as a costar in 1981’s Victory (aka Escape to Victory), at which point he was 41 and essentially retired. Victory was a full-of-shit World War II fantasy sports flick — one of John Huston‘s most unfortunate director-for-hire gigs.

…when I saw Glass Onion at the Paris theatre sometime around 11.12 or thereabouts. I wasn’t expecting much except, hopefully, a Last of Sheila remake, and when that didn’t happen I kind of just gave up and sat there and went “okay, whatever.” I felt mildly underwhelmed, but not all that pissed off.

I wasn’t irritated by the film as much as by a couple of women sitting two rows behind me. They were laughing…make that shrieking at everything, and loudly. After a while I couldn’t stand it. I turned around and glared at them for a full ten seconds. If I had the power of telepathic messaging I would have conveyed the following to these low-class boobs: “For God’s sake, this movie isn’t too bad if your expectations are sufficiently low, but it’s not that good and you guys are killing the modest enjoyment factor…can you please turn it down?”

Since Glass Onion started streaming on Netflix six days ago (12.23) there’s been a groundswell of negative social-media opinion from non-professional critics. Perhaps this is a fringe thing as the Rotten Tomatoes ticket buyers have given it an overwhelmingly positive response, and of course the mainstream whore critics loved it.

I meant to post this last weekend….forgot. Absolutely the sharpest critique of Avatar: The Way of Water anywhere, written or spoken. Seriously. Congrats to @theryangeorge. His original Avatar pitch.

Plus this 1977 song sounds much better without the singing and the lyrics. The point is made by the guitars — nothing more needed.

On Wednesday afternoon (yesterday) I experienced a form of transcendence while listening to this instrumental track. I was moving north on the New Jersey Turnpike, and I suddenly felt more energized and attuned than usual…super-charged even. I felt like I was driving like Steve McQueen in Le Mans. Everything was perfect.

…to create this kind of spot today and if the underwear manufacturer and participating TV stations were stupid enough to run it, they’d all be sent packing…cancelled, shamed, run out of the business and condemned to work in fast food for the rest of their lives.

The advertiser was Underdaks, an Australian men’s underwear brand. Shot in 1994, it was temporarily banned from Australian TV after a later-dismissed complaint to the Advertising Standards Council made because of the tagline “He’s probably gay”. Alternate tagline: “Nice luggage”.

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