Jeff Wells

Everyone presumably understands by now that Gina Prince-Bythewood‘s The Woman King lies about the slave-trading history of Dahomey and particularly that of the Agojie, the all-female warrior unit that protected Dahomey during the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Here’s the concise truth of it, laid out in an 10.5 Project Syndicate essay titled “Women, Life, Freedom and the Left.” The author is Slovenian philosopher and scholar Slavoj Žižek:

“The Woman King is an historical epic about the Agojie, an all-female warrior unit that protected the West African kingdom of Dahomey from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.

“It stars Viola Davis as the fictional General Nanisca. She is subordinated only to King Ghezo (John Boyega), a real-life figure who ruled Dahomey from 1818 to 1859, and who engaged in the Atlantic slave trade until the end of his reign.

“In the film, the Agojie’s enemies include slave traders led by the fictional Santo Ferreira (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), a character loosely inspired by Francisco Félix de Sousa, a Brazilian slave trader who actually helped Ghezo gain power.

“Dahomey was a kingdom that conquered other African states and sold their people into the slave trade. While Nanisca is depicted protesting to King Ghezio against the slave trade, the real Agojie served him.

“The Woman King thus promotes a form of feminism favored by the Western liberal middle class.

“Like today’s #MeToo feminists, the Amazon warriors from Dahomey will ruthlessly condemn all forms of binary logic, patriarchy, and traces of racism in everyday language; but they will be very careful not to disturb the deeper forms of exploitation that underpin modern global capitalism and the persistence of racism.

“This stance involves downplaying two basic facts about slavery. First, white slave traders barely had to set foot on African soil, because privileged Africans (like the kingdom of Dahomey) furnished them with an ample supply of fresh slaves.”

I don’t see John Fetterman‘s stroke issue (i.e., using closed-captioning) as a campaign problem, although obviously it’s become one. Recent Pennsylvania Senate race polls had Fetterman, the Democratic candidate, ahead but now he’s neck-and-neck with the Republican candidate, Mehmet Oz. I tend to see Fetterman’s temporary disability (which I presume is temporary) as a character-building thing, or somewhat analogous to FDR’s disability. I think it’s cruel to attack Fetterman over a medical issue. The idea of Oz winning is appalling.

Something tells me that even if they watched it (which they probably wouldn’t), Millennials and Zoomers wouldn’t get Woody Allen‘s What’s Up Tiger Lily. They would probably find it deeply offensive.

Damn few actors have the innate ability to make this kind of dialogue — “Put down the magazine before you hurt yourself…okay, Harold?” — land as well. This plus a just-right expression of world-weary “God help me.” Bill Murray owns this attitude. He coined it. If you insist on beating him with birch branches along with a time-out, fine. We all understand that paying just over $100K to the Being Mortal production assistant was just for openers, and that the real punishment starts now. But don’t excommunicate him. He’s Bill Murray, for chrissake. He understands everything, has been everywhere, carries the whole equation in his head, etc.

“I guess we have to ask ‘what is the point of any of this?” Because activists are imposing their ideology on nearly every corner of the industry, making film awards — and films in general — something other than what their original purpose has always been. And honestly, what are these awards going to be but a ceremony inside of a devout religion?” — Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone, posted on 8.23.22.

10.12.22: Wokesters within the Los Angeles Film Critics Association have decided to follow the lead of the Spirit and Gotham Awards by abandoning gender-based acting awards.

When the LAFCA foodies vote in December they’ll hand out two Best Lead Performance trophies (either gender or gender-neutral) and two awards for Best Supporting Performance (ditto).

LAFCA motive #1 is to emphasize how different L.A. wokester culture is from tens of millions of Joe and Jane Popcorn movie lovers in every corner of the nation, who don’t give a shit about any of this.

LAFCA motive #2: “Non-woke film fans may love the idea of gender-based acting categories for now, but we are leading the way to a bold and brave new realm…henceforth we are living in a gender-neutral world, whether you like it or not. Wake up and woke up and join us…it’s a joyful revolution!”

Here’s a portion of my reaction to the Spirit Award announcement, which I posted six or seven weeks ago -/ obviously the same deal.

“I will say this straight and clear and true: If the Academy decides to go gender-neutral with the Oscar acting awards, the eclipse will be total and absolute, and I mean beyond the level of anything dreamt of by Michelangelo Antonioni …culturally and aesthetically, the Oscars will have slit their own throats.

“Which award-giving org will succumb next to glorious trans fluidity-slash-equality? If the gender-neutral advocates within BAFTA, the Academy, the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice and the guilds…if they manage to eliminate gender-based acting awards, Average Joes and Janes will simply walk away and stay away…they will raise their fists and voices and say “stop this insanity, stop this bullshit…men are men and women are women and they generate different moods and expressions and ways of living and processing the ups and downs of living…stop this bullshit and come down to earth.”

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Visual economy is always a great thing, but it can be dazzling when a single shot (or a brief sequence) portrays a character’s basic attitude.

There’s a moment near the beginning of Louis Malle‘s Damage (’92), a masterful drama about an obsessive, self-destructive affair between a British politician (Jeremy Irons) and his son’s fiance (Juliette Binoche), that exhibits this.

Irons walks into his tres elegant, two-story home in Hampstead Heath at the end of the day and tells his wife (Miranda Richardson) about a meeting with the Prime Minister. The maid is fixing dinner, he’s feeling smug and successful and all is generally well. He makes himself a drink and strolls into the nearly living room. He take a sip and looks around, and the expression on his face says everything — unfulfilled, unchallenged, drained.

Malle doesn’t dwell on Irons’ face. He shows it to us for maybe three or four seconds, and then fade to black. It tells us all we need to know.

Can anyone think of other films and other moments in which something essential or fundamental about a character is explained in a single brief shot?

[Initially posted on 5.30.17] Tatiana and I are staying in a stone cottage on a wine farm called Azienda Agricola Caparsa (47 Via Caparsa), near Radda in Chianti. (Luca Guadagnino says there are so many English who live or rent in this region that some call it “Chiantishire.”)

The owner, Paolo Cianferoni, is a dead ringer for Steven Spielberg if you take away the beard, and de-age Spielberg by ten years.

Paolo told me yesterday that original Sideways author Rex Pickett stayed here some years back. So between Pickett, Spielberg and myself the place has a definite Hollywood aroma.

Paolo’s electric bolt fence is more or less dead center in this photo. You can’t see it all that clearly, I realize, but does that matter? It’s there, okay? I’m telling you.

I told Paolo that Tatiana and I were planning to hike over to Radda in Chianti, and so he pointed to a shortcut path through his vineyard. He then pointed to a metal gate at the top of a far-off incline. The gate was electrified, he said, to keep out deer and whatnot, but I just needed to open it carefully and watch where I step.

So we got to the gate and I delicately opened it — no shock. Thinking I was in the clear, I stepped through and, being a bit sweaty and breath-starved, missed the fact that a thick, coiled, half-camoflauged wire was lying in the dirt three or four inches from the gate. My ankles touched it and a split second later I was James Cagney at the end of Angels With Dirty Faces. My body convulsed. I felt as if my kidneys had been punched by a guy with brass knuckles. The electric current was mild (i.e., high enough to dissuade animals without killing them), but it definitely rocked my attitude.

For a while there I felt like (a) a huge dumbass.  I actually still feel this way.

(l.) Caparsa vineyard owner Paolo Cinaferoni; (r.) Steven Spielberg.

Patty Duke won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 1962, but who even watches Arthur Penn‘s The Miracle Worker these days? But everyone knows Angela Lansbury‘s performance in The Manchurian Candidate, Duke’s chief rival that year.

She played Eleanor Iselin, the scheming wife of a rightwing, Joseph McCarthy-like senator who’s actually a tool of the Chinese-Russian Communists, and one of the most deliciously evil villains to grace the screen in the 20th Century.

Lansbury should have won the prize. It’s hard to find a hardcore movie fan today who doesn’t relish her performance. Eleanor Iselin is not only demonic but neurotic (braying voice, temper issues, vindictive), and each of her lines are layered with just the right amount of darkly comic icing. Plus she conveys a hint of sexual rapport with (and even lust for) her brainwashed son, Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey).

Ms. Lansbury died today at age 96, just five days short of her 97th birthday.

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From Anthony D’Alessandro’s “Amsterdam Stands To Lose Nearly $100 Million”, posted this afternoon on Deadline: “Fully financed by New Regency, Amsterdam cost a reported $80M to produce, that being the pic’s most piercing nail in its coffin. What should have been an awards-season play with its originality was quickly sandbagged by critics at 34% on Rotten Tomatoes. Even by pre-pandemic standards, this 1930s-set comedy was expensive, so how did this come to be? Based on a projected global gross of $35M, an estimated $70M global P&A spend — which I’m told is the bare minimum for a big pic like this — backstopped by Regency, Amsterdam after all home ancillaries will lose around $100M ($97M to be exact).”

Again, all I can say is that I’m sorry.

Yesterday’s Bill Murray news almost felt like an obituary. Per Eriq Gardner’s Puck report, the 72 year-old legend not only misbehaved on the Being Mortal set (i.e., straddled and mask-kissed a ‘much younger’female production staffer) but agreed to cough up $100K and change to make the issue go away.

In today’s woke-serpent world, this may mean that Murray is finished, at least for the time being. Unfair as this sounds, he’s suddenly the new Frank Langella…a soft predator who may or may not be an insurance problem because he can’t be trusted to play by the current rules. Too old to be saved or converted.

I don’t know how much of this “Murray is finished” talk is smoke and how much is mirrors, but it feels like such a shame that the mob wants him tossed…the latest name to be placed on the hit list. Maybe his alleged banishment isn’t permanent and he can slip back into film or streaming roles after a couple of years.

Friendo: “The fact that the media and entertainment industries want to assassinate Murray for doing…what’s the word? Oh, yes…next to NOTHING is most certainly a shame. Not to mention terrifying. Cancel culture is an addiction.”

Let’s pretend that Murray got hit by a truck yesterday and that it’s time for an obit. If I had an hour to grind one out I would insist that the most glorious year of Murray’s life happened in 1993, when he delivered his two greatest performances — a sardonic Chicago loan shark named Frank “The Money Store” Milo in John McNaughton and Richard Price‘s Mad Dog and Glory, and a sardonic TV weatherman in Harold Ramis‘s Groundhog Day. Murray was around 42 when he shot both.

Murray”s third-best performance happened five years later in Wes Anderson‘s Rushmore, in which he played Herman Blume, a wealthy Houston businessman (also sardonic) who falls in love with a grade-school teacher (Olivia Williams), and in so doing ignites a feud with a 15 year-old romantic rival, Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman).

Some thoughts about Milo, which I posted three years ago:

“Mad Dog and Glory is about a curiously touching friendship between Milo and Robert De Niro‘s Wayne — a timid, lonely Chicago cop who specializes in forensics and crime-scene photographs. Milo is a Chicago mob guy who becomes a big brother and ‘friend’ of Wayne’s after the latter saves his life.

“Milo is a lot like Murray in many ways, just not internally. He’s angry and doesn’t really like himself or his friends or his life. He wants to be somewhere else. He’s seeing a therapist to try and deal with the hostility, and he performs a stand-up comedy routine at a place called the Comic-Kaze Club, which he owns. But he doesn’t want to lose the gangster life either.

“Frank and Wayne’s connection begins when Wayne — joshingly called “‘Mad Dog’ by his cop pals — saves Frank’s life during a grocery store holdup by calming down a jittery holdup man and sending him away without bloodshed.

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It broke my heart when I learned that Martin McDonagh‘s The Banshees of Inisherin (Searchlight, 10.21) wouldn’t be screening at Telluride ’22. I knew it would be at least pretty good, and I couldn’t figure why Telluride hadn’t grabbed it. Probably some Venice Film Festival bullshit.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been hearing it’s a lot more than “pretty good”, and that it might even be a Fabelmans conqueror. And now that I’m hearing that a fair number of critics believe that Banshees might actually win the Best Picture Oscar, my heart is still broken as I won’t see it until 10.20, or the day before it opens.

Critic friendo #1: “I’m hearing that the movie that’s going to win Best Picture is the Martin McDonagh film. I’ve just heard it here and there. People adore this film.” Critic friendo #2: “Don’t miss Banshees…it’s A-plus. It made me realize how (1) filmmakers in America don’t really know how to tell good stories because they all want to write their own scripts and they’re not great writers. And (2) I’d forgotten how powerful a great story can actually be, and why they matter so much. McDonagh is such a great fucking writer.”

Critic friendo #2 response to Best Picture buzz: “I have to agree with that. Also Best Original Screenplay.”

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