Jeff Wells

On 2.11.15, or a bit less than eight years ago, I reflected upon an Angelina Jolie-directed movie that had been quite the talked-about thing in late 2014 but abruptly disappeared after it was screened for press. No one has spoken about it since. It’s like it fell through a trap door.

In a piece called “Gone For Four Months,” I tried to explain the how and why of Unbroken‘s disappearance.

“There’s this imaginary guy I’ve been visiting at Cedars Sinai,” I began. “He went into a coma early last October and just came out of it yesterday. I wasn’t there when he awoke but he called today to say thanks for stopping by all those times. His mother told him about my four or five visits.

“Then he said he’d gone online this morning and visited the latest Gold Derby and Gurus of Gold charts, and he wanted to know what the hell had happened to Angelina Jolie‘s Unbroken, which was the Best Picture front-runner for weeks on end.

“Where’d it go?” he asked. “What happened? It was the leading Best Picture contender…it was all over but the shouting and the formalities. Every last default-minded, deferring-to-Dave Karger Oscar expert had it at the top of their lists. What’s the most likely film to win Best Picture? Why…Unbroken! What else? And now it’s vanished.”

I tried to break it to him easy. “What happened,” I explained, “is that Universal finally screened it, and a few days later the air had seeped out of the balloon. And then it just disappeared.” He asked me why. “It was the Christian torture-porn thing,” I said. What’s that? “There was something in the movie that said that the more a guy has been beaten and tortured, the braver and more beautiful and closer to God he is.” Oh, the guy said, suddenly sounding weaker and less curious.

“Right now the only chance Unbroken has at the Oscars is Roger Deakins‘ nomination for Best Cinematography,” I said. “But it would be surprising to a lot of people I know if Birdman‘s Emmanuel Lubezki loses out.”

I’ve always hated comic book films, but especially the DC Universe and particularly the Superman movies. Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. Take the brand out of the refrigerator, re-heat in a copper frying pan ad infinitum. The idea of another origin film or a young Superman film…suffocate me with a pillow.

Alas, James Gunn and Peter Safran are determined to bludgeon the remaining fan base into numbed submission. Plus they’ve deep-sixed poor Henry Cavill, 39. Jettisoned over being too old, I guess.

In keeping with the general industry sensibility of the last few years of de-emphasizing, degrading or ignoring whiteness, one wonders if Gunn and Safran’s new Superman will be gay, Black, Latinx or trans whatever? Or will Gunn-Safran go “wait, we have to be ahead of the curve…popcorn inhalers have hated woke stuff all along and woke has generally been losing money hand over fist and Joe Popcorn wants traditional guy stuff anyway to let’s hire a younger Cavill type…”

The same rationale applies to casting the new James Bond, a role that would fit Cavill like a glove.

In early March of ’05 I attended Argentina’s Mar del Plata international film festival. Four or five days, as I recall. Before flying back to Los Angeles I was able to spend nine hours in Buenos Aires. Here’s what I filed on 3.10.05:

“I flew out of Mar del Plata around 12:30 and landed at the slightly east-of-downtown Buenos Aires aeropuerto an hour later, and went straight into town to nose around and explore. I had about nine hours before my plane for Los Angeles was due to leave around 10:45 pm.

“I left my bags at the Hotel Intercontinental and walked over to the Casa Rosada, the ornate, three-story presidential residence with the famed second-floor balcony that Eva Peron addressed her followers from. (The paint isn’t exactly rose — it’s more like a fleshy off-pink). I walked around the San Telmo district and visited the open-air flea market. A big crowd was watching a couple dance the tango. I gave them ten pesos when they passed the hat.

“Director Fabian Beilinsky (Nine Queens) told me to go to a restaurant in San Telmo specializing in Argentine beef, called La Brigada (Estados Unidos 465). The aroma of perfectly-broiled steaks was transporting. I could tell right away it’s a class joint, although a bit too popular with the local swells. People were milling around outside and some kind of ticketing system was in place that I couldn’t figure out. I eventually gave up.

“I then rented a bike and pedaled all the way up to Palermo, in the eastern section of town. Palermo is the emerging hip section, like Manhattan’s Soho was in the early to mid ’70s.

“Buenos Aires is almost completely flat all the way around town, so biking anywhere is no sweat. You just have to be fearless about buses and crazy cab drivers. I travelled about five or six miles, all in.

“I ate at a small cafe/restaurant on a quiet, tree-lined street in south Palermo, called Viejo Indecente (El Salvador 4960). It has an alternate name of Maldito Salvador, which is what it’s called on the business card and on the website .

“There was an attractive woman with Tourette’s Syndrome sitting behind me. She didn’t seem to be swearing as much as shouting. It was kind of a cross between a loud scream and a loud sneeze. (‘Aaaggghh‘!) I kept asking myself as I ate, ‘Do I want to move outside or something?’

“Buenos Aires is a flat, somewhat hot and sweaty city with superb restaurants and deeply beautiful women, some with bedroom eyes and many with long slender toes. The best part for me was the absurdly low prices. Everything is one-third the cost. It put me in the greatest mood not to have to spend any serious money. I felt like a trust-fund kid.

“I cruised past the brick-walled cemetery where Eva’s remains are entombed, and the whole area around it was covered with T-shirted tourists, swarming like ants. The nearby restaurants were all cheap fast-food joints (McDonald’s, etc.). The vibe felt lurid and grotesque. I peddled on without stopping.

“B.A. is very much the bustling, pulsing place — crowds, music, culture, intensity — but the buses spew out exhaust like there’s no tomorrow, and you’re forced to breathe in the fumes as you’re peddling along, and with all the heat and clamor and the lack of much in the way of old-world architecture I began to conclude that Buenos Aires isn’t as sexy or intriguing as Paris, Rome or Prague. Or Berlin, even.

“But at least it’s gritty and alive, and I’m sure it’s a richer thing for X-factor people who live and work there and congregate at the right places.”

THR columnist Scott Feinberg doesn’t have any supernatural insights into award season positionings, but in terms of Best Picture predicting he does have the ability to pass along Robert Louis Stevenson‘s “black spot“, so to speak.

What I mean is that if Feinberg classifies a presumed Best Picture contender as a “major threat” or a “possibility,” that’s pretty much the kiss of death. And so, by this system, Feinberg is essentially declaring that 14 films are somewhere between damaged goods and dead meat.

Feinberg’s Frontrunners are pretty much the same ones that everyone else is favoring,

Here are my agreements and disagreements, top to bottom:

Frontrunners:

Everything Everywhere All at Once (STRONG DISAGREEMENT — it will be an absolute tragedy for the film industry if this film wins)
The Fabelmans (turning into a fizzler — doesn’t have the mojo)
Avatar 2: The Way of Water (Likely Best Picture winner?)
Top Gun: Maverick (2nd most likely winner)
The Banshees of Inisherin (alienating finger stumps)
Elvis (will never win — being mentioned to round out the pack)
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (forget it)
Babylon (admirably excessive)
Tár (AGREE)
Women Talking (forget it)

Major Death Threats:

The Woman King (Sony — HE agrees)
She Said (Universal — HE strongly disagrees as She Said is grade–A all the way — one of the best crafted films in the Best Picture race)
Triangle of Sadness (Neon — winner of the European Film Award for Best Feature + winner of the Palme d’Or — not as good as The Square)
RRR (Variance — deservedly out of contention)
Nope (Universal — forget it)
Till (UAR — Danielle Deadwyler is the contender, not the film itself)
Thirteen Lives (Amazon — HE disagrees but at the same time I understand)

Possibilities / D.O.A.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (forget it)
Armageddon Time (HE disagrees — this is one of the best films of the year)
Living (No match for Ikiru)
A Man Called Otto (forget it)
Empire of Light (STRONG DISAGREEMENT — Sam Mendes‘ period drama is HE’s pick for the Best Film of the Year)
The Whale (forget it)
Aftersun (ditto)

Two award-season signifiers are making my blood run cold and unleashing Beetlejuice shrieking. I’m left with no choice but to drop to my knees and beseech all HE readers with a semblance of spine and aesthetic perspective to stand tall and firm against the apparently genuine possibility that Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert‘s Everything Everywhere All At Once might win the Best Picture Oscar.

I’m totally okay with either Avatar 2: The War of Water (which I won’t even see for another couple of days) or Top Gun: Maverick taking the top prize, but the idea of EEAAO winning…the symbolism of such an event would be devastating….my soul would be crushed flat.

I know I shouldn’t allow myself to get all wound up about such a possibility…it would mean that the wrong people are running the circus…that Millennial standards have more or less taken over…I know that many people out there despise EEAAO, but if a win were to happen there would be a great shattering cry heard across the land…oh, the A24 of it all!

Between THR‘s Scott Feinberg putting EEAAO at the top of his Best Picture spitball roster plus this infuriating A24 release corralling 14 nominations from the Critics Choice org…this is really and truly a bad, bad thing…really. And it’s almost totally a generational split. Only Millennials and Zoomers like EEAAO, and the only way to address this situation is to assess the generational chasm…

If this isn’t the basis for a serious Academy war, I don’t know what could or would be…GenX and Boomers standing hard and resolute against Millennials and Zoomers…a standoff between voters of minimal taste and admirers of one of the most infuriating films to flirt with Best Picture contention in Academy history….words fail.

What percentage of Academy voters are male and over 50? Because that’s the demographic that will absolutely not vote for EEAAO. They hate this fucking film and, speaking from experience, went through the pains of hell trying to watch it. Only Millennials and Zoomers like it. What does the HE commentariat think? What’s the conversation?

Last night I finally watched Santiago Mitre’s Argentina, 1985, and it held me start to finish. Altogether a morally sobering experience, a disturbing history lesson and finally an affirmation of civic decency.

Based on the true story of the Trial of the Juntas, the film focuses on Argentina’s great moral reckoning — the prosecution of several fascist junta bigwigs who, during Argentina’s military dictatorship, had embarked on a campaign to exterminate hardcore leftists like a gardener eliminates crabgrass. An estimated 30,000 Argentinians were “disappeared” by the junta during the late ’70s and early ’80s.

Heroic Buenos Aires prosecutor Julio Strassera, assisted by Luis Moreno Ocampo and a team of young researchers, brought a complex case against the baddies, and put a lot of them (but far from all) in jail, and certainly made a moral statement that resonated worldwide.

I saw Argentina, 1985 with the original Spanish-language dialogue (Amazon streaming idiotically defaults to English dubbing). I still don’t care for the first half-hour (too whimsical and anecdotal and digressive) and I felt increasingly annoyed by the constant cigarette smoking, but this is nonetheless a fact-based, disciplined, well-ordered story of good guys vs. bad guys. Based on the historical record, pic exemplifies how a first-rate, down-to-business research procedural and courtroom drama should operate.

Just before watching it I had been bickering with a smart guy who knows his Latin American history. He had been reminding me that Argentina has a long history of being a bad-news country that believes in white supremacy and racially repressive policies, and for many decades had made life very difficult for native Argentinians and POCs. The finale of Argentina, 1985 doesn’t leave you with this kind of residue at all. It leaves you with a great feeling of humanitarian compassion and decency. So there’s a basic conflict of perceptions.

Here’s a taste of how our discussion had been going prior to watching Mitre’s film…

Latin American history guy to HE or LAHG: “The fact is that Argentina, just like the U.S., committed genocide against its native population, so that today only about 1% of the country is indigenous, and lives in the south, hundreds of miles from Buenos Aires. The country’s black population is also miniscule, about 1%. The majority are European immigrants, primarily from Italy, Spain, Germany and England.

“Of all the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, only Argentina and Chile (which also did a number on its indigenous population) have an overwhelmingly white population. All the other countries are a mix of black, mixed black and white, mixed white and indigenous, and pure indigenous.”

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Last night I finally sat down with Santiago Mitre‘s Argentina 1985, which I’ve been hearing excellent things about. I caught it on Amazon Prime. I naturally wanted to watch the original Spanish-language version, but for whatever reason I could only run the English-dubbed version, which was godawful. I wore out the remote out trying to click on the Argentinian soundtrack but no dice. I’ll figure it out eventually.

Like everyone else I really and truly liked James Garner, not just as a steady, easygoing actor but as the deep-down, no-bullshit person he seemed to actually be. But I rarely paid attention to his TV work (never caught a single Rockford Files episode), and I seriously admired his performances in only seven films — Joshua Logan‘s Sayonara (’57), William Wyler‘s The Children’s Hour (’61), John Sturges‘ The Great Escape (’63), Arthur Hiller and Paddy Chayefsky‘s The Americanization of Emily (’64 — his peak), John Frankenheimer‘s Grand Prix (’66), Martin Ritt‘s Murphy’s Romance (’85) and Clint Eastwood‘s Space Cowboys (’00).

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…this kind of statement was regarded as rational, sensible, average, unexceptional. If you say anything like this now, you’re an enemy of decency and deserving of a death sentence.

HE understands and accepts that curious pronoun usage is a “thing” among a miniscule percentage of the population, and it’s not worth sweating over. HE’s pronouns are he/him/his…take it or leave it.

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The U.S. version of Mother’s Day won’t happen until 5.14.23, but that’s okay. The track is from “That’s Why I’m Here,” an album released in October ’85. Joni Mitchell and Don Henley were two of four backup singers.