Jeff Wells

Spritzy Alley

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If Kirstie Alley was with us right now, she’d readily acknowledge that her acting career was in good to excellent shape in the ’80s and ’90s.

Six years of Cheers, three or four years of Veronica’s Closet plus Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Summer School, Shoot to Kill, three Look Who’s Talking films, Village of the Damned, Deconstructing Harry, For Richer or Poorer, Drop Dead Gorgeous, David’s Mother.

But once the 21st Century rolled around the emphasis seemed to be more on weight-loss programs, Fat Actress, and being a loyal Scientologist and a Trump supporter. (She voted for that animal in ’16 and ’20.)

Without these allegiances (Trump, Miscavige) she might have had a livelier career. People told her this repeatedly; either she didn’t listen or didn’t care.

I’m sorry that she didn’t have better luck with…well, a lot of things. And I’m sorry she didn’t live to be a happy 85 year-old.

Damian Chazelle Hollywood Sandwich

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I was planning to share some off-the-cuff remarks before Monday night’s Bedford Playhouse screening of Damien Chazelle‘s Babylon (Paramount, 12.23).

The special-event showing, courtesy of Paramount, kicks off Bedford Marquee, a new program that will occasionally showcase exciting new films two or three weeks before their release, and will include post-screening discussions when feasible.

Babylon began on time and all went well, but I couldn’t attend because of my Covid situation. I’m currently feeling fine with an 98.4 temperature, but it would have been cavalier to mingle. So early Monday afternoon I recorded some of the thoughts I would’ve shared live, transferred the eight minute and 45 second file to Vimeo and sent it to Bedford Playhouse bros Dan Friedman and Robert Harris.

I was told they might not be able to squeeze it in due to the fact that the film is on a specially encrypted DCP that can only be tested and played within a limited time frame. The DCP only arrived yesterday, due to bad weather and other delay factors and accompanied by bouts of anxiety and uncertainty — not unsual if you know anything about the workings of UPS and DHL.

Either way it was extremely cool of Paramount to allow us to present this herculean effort by director-writer Damien Chazelle, which I saw three or four weeks ago in Manhattan.

The next Bedford Marquee attraction will be a two-for-one deal — a mid-January screening of the recently restored Invaders From Mars (’53) along with a master-class from restoration master Scott MacQueen about the film’s exquisite visual transformation as well as a discussion of the film’s impact upon the sci-fi genre and how it reflected American culture and cold-war paranoia.

Inventively directed and impressionistically designed by the great William Cameron Menzies, Invaders From Mars is hands down the spookiest, most unsettling flying saucer film of the 1950s, due in no small measure to that eerie vocal-choir score by the unsung Mort Glickman.

Aside from the mildly distressing fact that I don’t look like I did 15 or 20 years ago, I’m okay with the video. Yes, I would prefer to wear amber-tinted shades a la Jack Nicholson but the red-frame, gray-tint ones are passable.

We All Understand The Game

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If while profiling a non-binary person a writer fails to use the person’s correct pronouns, he/she could be (and most likely would be) attacked as some kind of bigot. So I realize that Melena Ryzik had no choice but to follow the proscribed form in her N.Y. Times profile of Emma Corrin.

But I still find these three paragraphs in Ryzik’s piece infuriating. I’m counting seven “they” pronouns contained in eight sentences. How many centuries were “he” and “she” the only pronouns in town among English-language speakers and writers? They (i.e., the two gender pronouns) apparently came into being sometime in the 12th century, and within the last…what, three or four years the pronoun game has gone insane.

A thousand years of the old way, and and now and for the foreseeable future we’re all doomed to reading paragraphs like these three below:

Ryzik doesn’t mention that Corrin came out as queer in April ’21, apparently because naming a person’s sexual preference is regarded as too invasive.

In July ’21 Corrin posted Instagram photos of herself wearing a homemade chest binder, which is a thing among certain younger queer women who want to avoid looking too womanly-curvy in the eyes of certain queer lovers or friendos, or something like that.

I find the idea of breast-binding (along with breast-flattening surgery for that matter) a little creepy. Partly because the basic notion of “binding” one’s natural biology…well, that was a heinous practice in pre-20th Century China, no? I also find it weird because my mother, self-conscious about her feet not being petite enough when she was in her early 20s, forced herself to wear too-small shoes when she was a working girl in NYC (BBC, NBC). Her feet were permanently disfigured the rest of her life.

Terminate This Beast

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Mika Brzezinski says it straight and plain [7:25 mark]: “[Donald Trump] is a danger to our country. These are dangerous statements. He’s telling you what he wants to do. Believe him…okay? Like, how much does this country have to go through, how much division, how much hatred…how much pressure on our system…how much law enforcement…the FBI, Department of Justice, police officers…anyone in Donald Trump’s sights…how much stress on our democracy do we need to endure before we see that this man is a fascist, and that he has very, very bad intentions. And Republicans…are helping him by not stepping up and manning up and saying what is right qnd [defining] who you are.”

HE’s Sight & Sound Picksies

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There’s no point in selecting a pretend version of the S & S ten greatest, but here goes anyway:

(1) Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal‘s Zero Dark Thirty, (2) Alex Cox‘s Repo Man, (3) Michael Mann‘s Heat, (4) Howard Hawks‘ Red River, (5) Stanley Kubrick‘s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, (6) Chantal Akerman‘s Jeanne Dielman…kidding! I meant to say The Godfather, Part II, (7) Alfred Hitchcock‘s North By Northwest, (8) Wim Wenders‘ The American Friend, (9) Kubrick’s Paths of Glory, (10) Joel and Egan Coen‘s Fargo. This feels silly…

Bad “Avatar” Omen

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This is a very, very bad indication of where James Cameron‘s Avatar 2 may (I say “may”) be coming from. I literally gasped when I read the headline quote. I’m genuinely scared now. Testosterone in and of itself is not evil or toxic — it’s grade-A rocket fuel that gets certain characters up the hill and onto victory. Cameron is talking a woke game now but God help us if he really means this. Please God, don’t let Avatar 2 be woke…please.

I’ve Been Here Twice

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And I’d visit another five or ten times if I could.

Originally posted from Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland on 6.17.12: “Early yesterday afternoon I was expecting to meet Jett and Dylan at the modest Alpine-styled cabin we’re renting in Lauterbrunnen, but they weren’t there when I arrived. So I texted them and they said they were in town and would be along. The problem was that they had the only key to the place, and I was coping with a slight call of nature. But I figured I’d wait it out.

“The minutes dragged on and they didn’t show. The little devil on my left shoulder began to think about taking care of business behind the cabin. ‘No!,’ said the angel on my right shoulder, ‘don’t be an animal!’ But Jett and Dylan were taking their time.

“I looked around and noticed a narrow driveway behind the cabin — a possible problem. But nobody had driven by in quite a while. I also considered the fact that the rear of the cabin is sheltered from view by a hilly mound. Quiet, quiet, no cars, no cars. The devil won out and I stepped behind the cabin.

“Four or five seconds later a car drove up the driveway with a family in it, and with a three-year-old staring and pointing at me from the back-seat window. Five seconds after that another car drove by with a pretty girl at the wheel. She also checked me out.

“If I hadn’t stepped behind the cabin, those two cars would have never driven by.”

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No Sweat

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From Quentin Tarantino‘s “Cinema Speculation“: “Steve McQueen as Frank Bullitt keeps moving forward while Peter Yates, the director, follows him here and there as we, the audience, sit back and let them do our thinking for us. As pure cinema, Bullitt is one of the best directed movies ever made.”

Cheery Holiday Vibes

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Dozens of families were out and wandering around in Wilton Center early last night. It was cold but not too cold. There were handing out free cups of steaming alcoholic cider and hot chocolate. I could smell the campfire smoke on my overcoat when we got home.

“TAR” Wins Top NYFCC Prize; Blanchett, Farrell, Rajamouli Also Score

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Todd Field‘s TAR was won the New York Film Critics Circle’s Best Film trophy — fine. But the Best Director prize has gone to RRR‘s S. S. Rajamouli, which is somewhere between a taunt and absolute lunacy.

Earlier: The sometimes nutty-as-a-fruitcake New York Film Critics Circle, the once-esteemed org that used to award each and every award based upon merit, has handed its Best Supporting Actress trophy to Nope‘s Keke Palmer**.

The Banshees of Inisherin‘s Kerry Condon is easily the most deserving contender in this category.

And the NYFCC’s Best Supporting Actor award has gone to Ke Huy Quan (aka “Short Round”) of Everything Everywhere All at Once. HE approves of the Best Cinematography award going to Claudio Miranda, the dp of Top Gun: Maverick. Martin McDonagh‘s The Banshees of Inisherin has won for Best Screenplay — HE approves of the dialogue but not the bloody finger stubs.

Breaking at 1 pm eastern: Colin Farrell has won the NYFCC’s Best Actor award, a decision that I’m totally fine with. And the brilliant Cate Blanchett has won Best Actress trophy for TAR. Okay, the NYFCC is awarding for merit after all, Palmer and Rajamouli aside.

** Not a single Gold Derby handicapper has even mentioned Palmer’s performance, which was basically about projecting her Millennial Diva personality.