Jeff Wells

In Thursday’s riff about the Good Night, and Good Luck CNN telecast (tonight at 7 pm), I explained, for the benefit of the HE commentariat dumbshits, an obvious parallel between the political climates of the red-scare, Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy-dominated 1950s and the recently concluded peak era of woke terror (2018-2024).

Edward R. Murrow’s famous anti-McCarthy expose, which aired on March 9, 1954, ridiculed McCarthy’s argument that if a person disagreed with or called into question McCarthy’s witch-hunt tactics, then he or she must be considered a Communist dupe or sympathizer or perhaps even an actual, card-carrying pinko.

Likewise, if a person had issues with woke fanaticism and the temerity to question its theology between ’18 and ’24 (institutionalized DEI, identity issues above everything else, #MeToo cancellations, fat is beautiful, pregnant men, Lily Gladstone for Best Actress, the power and the glory of being LGBTQ and especially trans (particularly for children of high-profile industry celebrities), the Gothams and Spirits embracing gender-free acting categories, the 1619 Project as absolute gospel, drag shows in elementary schools, presentism or the historically absurd casting of POCs in certain historical settings, Woody Allen labelled a monster, tearing down statues of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, older straight white guys deemed inherently evil, men competing in women’s sports, half-excusing the George Floyd riots)…if, God forbid, you had problems with any of this you were presumed to be a bad person — perhaps a closet racist or homophobic or transphobic or at the very least a social undesirable, and therefore deserving of political and professional punishment.

George Clooney‘s head is ummistakably in the right place as far as Good Night, and Good Luck‘s tribute to Murrow’s balls and backbone are concerned, but how did Clooney the industry player respond to the climate of fear and intimidation fostered by Hollywood wokeism over the last few years?

I’ll tell you how he responded to it. He completely capitulated. Clooney and partner Grant Heslov pretty much said aloud to the Stalinist mobthink wokeys, “We’re with you!…we agree!…tell us how we can most effectively grovel!”

Clooney and Heslov showed their inclusion-mandate colors two or three years ago when they cast The Tender Bar. To film a tale about a young lad and fledgling writer, called “JR Maguire” and based on journalist-author J.R. Moehringer (played by Tye Sheridan), who was raised within a German-Irish community in Manhasset, Long island, George and Grant bent over backwards by not casting birds-of-a-feather actors in a couple of key roles — the 10 year-old version of Moehringer and a Fairfield County-residing whitebread lass whom the real-life Moehringer fell in love with while enrolled at Yale.

The basic rule of thumb was “the less white, the more wokey and therefore goody goody.”

In my 10.10.21 review, I wrote that The Tender Bar “is partly undone by a pair of surreal casting decisions, one of which makes the first 40% of the film feel seriously out of whack.

“I’m speaking of the casting of young Daniel Ranieri, a kid who hails from some kind of swarthy Mediterranean heritage, as the 10 year-old version of Tye Sheridan, who, like Moehringer in actuality, is the biological son of a German/Irish paleface couple (Lily Rabe, Max Martini).

“It would be one thing if Ranieri was adopted, but there’s NO WAY IN HELL this kid grows up to be Tye Sheridan.

“And then The Tender Bar doubles down by changing the identity of a wealthy Westport white girl named Sydney, whom Moehringer fell in love with during his time at Yale in the mid ’80s and who represents the unattainable ideal for a working-class kid from Manhasset…Clooney changed Sydney from a blonde, Daisy Buchanan-like character with a small nose, ample breasts and whiter-than-white parents (her father is described by Moehringer as Hemingway-esque) into a ravishing woman of color (Briana Middleton) and her parents into an interracial couple (mom is played by Quincy Tyler Bernstine).

“This is yet another example of casting by way of virtue-signaling, and particularly Clooney, Heslov and producer Ted Hope wanting to groove along with the white-disapproving ethos of progressive Hollywood.

“I grew up in Wilton and Westport, and I personally knew of one couple of color (opera singer Betty Jones, a friend of my mom’s, and her husband) and heard about no interracial couples at all. That’s not to say there were none, but if they existed in the Wilton-Westport-Weston region they were very under-the-radar.

“For a working-class Manhasset kid to fall head over heels in love with a rich, blonde, unattainable goddess from Westport…that works, that fits, I’ll buy that. But Tender Bar’s version of Sydney and her parents is insincere presentism — it has no reality current, certainly in a 35 year-old context.

“And frankly? People from scruffy working-class towns like Manhasset weren’t exactly known for being racially progressive or attuned to color-blind attitudes. This is the ‘70s and ’80s we’re talking about. Those boozy guys in The Dickens would have definitely raised an eyebrow if Sheridan’s J.R. character had shared the particulars about his Yale dream lover. They wouldn’t have ‘said’ anything, but they would have definitely, you know, cleared their throats.”

Boiled down: You can’t kowtow to the wokeys in the early 2020s and then turn around and produce a period play that says “Edward R. Murrow was a hero and a man of bedrock principle for refusing to kowtow to Sen. Joseph McCarthy!”

Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone posted about this general subject yesterday (6.6) — worth reading.

Nobody seeks out conclusive decisions or indications that a relationship has begun to wind down or run out of gas. Said indications nonetheless have a way of tapping you on the shoulder, whispering in the dark, tugging on your shirtsleeve.

What I’m saying, basically, is that whether the participants want a slow-down or not, some relationships (not the “match made in heaven” kind) have a way of forcing the issue on their own dime or upon their own volition.

I went through this two or three times in my 20s and early 30s, and being the passive-aggressive type when it comes to urgent emotional issues, each time I tended to say to myself “okay, the fires of passion aren’t heating the furnace like they used to, but that doesn’t mean there’s absolutely no choice but to break up…right? Why not just play it by ear and idle along and see what happens? I’m not hugely unhappy with her, just a tiny bit bored. She’s a good, kind person. Maybe things can somehow re-ignite…maybe we can figure it out…who knows?”

It’s different when women start feeling that tug on the sleeve. The fire doesn’t just stop heating the room — they tend to be much more decisive and expressive of their romantic dissatisfaction. They put out vibes that inspire songs like “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’“, which is one of the most pathetic love songs ever written because it’s obvious the woman has been telling the dude that things just aren’t happening any more, and his response to these signals is “please, baby, please…baby baby baby baby please please.” God, man!

I was in a marginally spirited, low-energy relationship in my mid 20s. We shared an inexpensive pad in Santa Monica, and we both had jobs, of course.

But one day, being an asshole, I noticed that a really super-dishy blonde was living alone in a building that was maybe 150 feet from our two-story apartment house, and being the weaselly passive-aggressive type (while at the same time not really dealing with what I was feeling deep down) I started a little something with the blonde, who was curvy and buxom and had a Dutch last name.

I can’t recall how I managed it, only that my hormonal impulses wouldn’t take no for an answer. Her name was Carol. I somehow wangled my way into into her place one evening, and oh, Lordy, what happened an hour or two later was wonderful. She was initially reluctant, and then less reluctant and eventually she went with it. Ecstasy and us.

I saw her again the next night, and there was zero reluctance this time. Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-dinga-linga-ling!

And then Steve, a single guy in my building who may have also had eyes for Carol (he was a fairly serious swordsman), invited her over, offered her a glass of wine and quickly sniffed out the situation. He knew what was up, he told me, when she heard the squeaky brakes on my Volkswagen Fastback and said, “That’s Jeff’s car.” A day or two later he told me I should think twice about “shitting where you eat.”

I didn’t disagree with Steve but my God, the intoxication…the madness I was feeling over Carol…her Northern European Marilyn Monroe-ness and fair white skin, that milky scent, those moaning sounds, etc. It was impossible that any sort of real-deal relationship could happen, of course. A night or two later and wised up by Steve, she told me it had to stop.

My significant other never “found out”, although she hinted soon after that she sensed a certain current in the air and found it so disturbing that she didn’t want to think about it. I lied and pretended, and she let me get away with it. Or something like that.

Many decades have passed and to be perfectly honest I’m still a bit ashamed of my week-long affair with Carol. And yet every now and then I think of her and try to imagine how her life might have turned out, etc.

There are episodes of passion you get into in your 20s that you would probably steer away from in your 30s and 40s and beyond. All I know is that for a few days I went nuts, and that Carol met me halfway and man oh man oh man.

The following 1975 films are, in HE’s view, the most well-liked or highly respected according to the standards of 2025, and not those of 50 years ago. Times change, culture evolves…this is where we are right now.

And I’m a little bit sick of Jaws right now, to be perfectly honest. It’s obviously a very engaging, colorful, well-crafted film in many ways, but it’s stuffed to the gills with annoying or nonsensical Spielberg-isms that simply haven’t aged well.

And Milos Forman‘s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest does not rate all that highly either, and I’m saying this as one who played Dr. Spivey in a community theatre presentation of Ken Kesey‘s classic play that very same year. Plus I met and talked with Kesey at the Sundance Film Festival sometime in the late ’90s so don’t tell me.

Best Films of 1975 according to 2025 criteria (i.e., how often do I pleasurably rewatch?), and more or less in this order (23):

1. Sidney Lumet‘s Dog Day Afternoon.

2. Hal Ashby, Warren Beatty and Robert Towne‘s Shampoo.

3. John Huston‘s The Man Who Would Be King.

4. Sydney Pollack‘s Three Days of the Condor

5. Peter Weir‘s Picnic at Hanging Rock.

6. Michelangelo Antonioni‘s The Passenger.

7. Michael Ritchie‘s Smile.

8. Francois Truffaut‘s The Story of Adele H..

9. Stanley Kubrick‘s Barry Lyndon. (Great film but I’m sick of re-watching it.)

10. Steven Spielberg‘s Jaws.

11. Lina Wertmuller‘s Seven Beauties.

12. Robert Altman‘s Nashville (hate the snide, patronizing attitudes towards Nashville music industry types).

13. Akira Kurosawa‘s Derzu Usala.

14. Joseph Losey‘s The Romantic Englishwoman.

15. Arthur Penn‘s Night Moves.

16. Frank Perry‘s Rancho Deluxe. (“Oh, give me a home, with a low interest loan. A cowgirl and two pickup trucks. A color TV, all the beer should be free. And that, man, is Rancho Deluxe.”

17. Milos Forman‘s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

18. John Milius‘s The Wind and the Lion.

19. Giuseppe Patroni Griffi‘s The Divine Nymph. (1975’s best hard-on movie.)

20. Walter Hill‘s Hard Times.

21. John Frankenheimer‘s French Connection II.

22. John Schlesinger‘s The Day of the Locust.

23. Thomas McGuane‘s 92 in the Shade.

I can’t wait to hate-watch Materialists (A24, 6.13).

“Aren’t you funny? Don’t you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You might not marry a girl just because she’s pretty, but my goodness, doesn’t it help? And if you had a daughter, would’t you rather she didn’t marry a poor man? You’d want her to have the most wonderful things in the world. So why is it wrong for me to want those things?” — Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) to Gus Edmond, Sr. (Taylor Holmes), the super-loaded father of Gus Esmond, Jr. (Tommy Noonan), at the very end of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (’53).

Posted on 5.9.25: “I feel this way because I’m a money whore, and you’ve got a lot of money so…perfection, right?” — Dakota Johnson‘s Lucy to Pedro Pascal‘s Harry Castillo in Celine Song‘s The Materialists. Okay, this isn’t an actual quote.

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“There’s a ‘performance overcomes craft’ aspect to Bill Condon’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, but it’s not a supporting one in this case. For Condon’s adaptation of the hit musical adaptation of the beloved book, it’s the lead: A stunning newcomer named Tonatiuh, who carries this film with an emotional, physical performance that justifies its existence by itself.

“There are other effective elements in the new Kiss, including supporting turns from Diego Luna and Jennifer Lopez. Still, Condon’s direction often works against what’s good about this version, reminding one how good he can be with performers but how much his vision still lacks when it comes to things like framing, blocking, lighting, etc.” — Brian Tellerico’s 1.30.25 review on rogerebert.com.

“Some say it’s your nose, some say it’s your toes but I think it’s your mind.”

MAGA loyalists know DJT behaved like a rogue and a scoundrel before being elected President in ’16, and they couldn’t care less. Some probably admire him for swaggering around like some neighing stallion or swaggering crime boss…like some louche bad guy.

This doesn’t change the fact that many of us love Elon Musk having basically given Orange Plague the finger earlier today. Delicious stuff.

We’re all aware of CNN’s forthcoming live broadcast of George Clooney and Grant Heslov‘s Broadway presentation of Good Night, and Good Luck, straight from the Winter Garden theatre — Saturday, June 7th at 7 p.m.

Viewers will see an actual stage performance, one that will be concurrently watched by a seated Manhattan audience. The final performance of the play will happen on Sunday, 6.8 — a matinee as Clooney will be attending the Tony awards that evening at the RCMH.

This will be a historic presentation — the first time in history that the performance of a Broadway play has been broadcast live — and fairly wonderful, I feel, on its own merits. There will be pre- and post-show discussions. The presentation will be on CNN’s cable channel as well as CNN.com.

Set in 1954, Good Night, and Good Luck is basically about high-stakes patriotism and the scarcity of backbone and how very few stood up to the brutes and bullies of that era. It’s about Sen. Joseph McCarthy‘s reign of political terror, and how various people in the political and TV realm reacted to this “red scare” atmosphere.

A few called McCarthy’s bluff, but at the time it seemed as if the most influential opponents of McCarthy’s tactics numbered only two, at least as far as general public knowledge was concerned — attorney Joseph N. Welch of the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings and legendary CBS newsman and See it Now host Edward R. Murrrow.

Murrow’s famous anti-McCarthy expose, which aired on March 9, 1954, condemned McCarthy’s argument that if a person disagreed with or called into question McCarthy’s witch-hunt tactics, then he or she must be considered a Communist dupe or sympathizer or perhaps even an actual, card-carrying pinko who was looking to undermine or weaken the U.S. Constitution and its system of government.

The HE commentariat isn’t going to like this, but beginning in 2018 or thereabouts wokesters had pretty much the exact same deal going on. McCarthy’s, I mean.

If you disagreed with woke fanaticism and had the temerity to question its theology (institutionalized DEI, identity issues above everything else, #MeToo cancellations, pregnant men, Lily Gladstone for Best Actress, the power and the glory of being LGBTQ and especially trans, the 1619 Project as absolute gospel, drag shows in elementary schools, presentism or the historically absurd casting of POCs in certain historical settings, Woody Allen labelled a monster, tearing down statues of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, older straight white guys deemed inherently evil, men competing in women’s sports, the George Floyd riots), you were presumed to be a bad person — perhaps a closet racist or homophobic or transphobic or at the very least a social undesirable.

As it was in the ’50s, nobody wanted to be hit with possible cancellations or social ostracizing or worse, and so they kept their yaps shut.

Who were the intrepid souls who stood up to the woke Khmer Rouge during this reign of terror (’18 to ’24)? I’m obviously no Edward R. Murrow but I sure as shit stood up to the insanity, and so did Sasha Stone starting in ’20…day after day after day after day. Very few manned up in this fashion. Everyone ran for cover.

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9:15 pm update: I was surprised to discover this evening that a good portion of Len Wiseman’s Ballerina is actually kick–asserino…enjoyably engaging, I mean, during the snowy second half. (The first half is mostly a generic origin story.)

I take it back about Wiseman being an “animal” as Ballerina is much better directed than expected, effectively shot and often witty (the action choreography rivals the wit of Buster Keaton here and there) and at times is actually funny — two or three times I yaw-hawed out loud and once I slapped my thigh with enthusiasm.

Ana de Armas is playing Eve Macarro, a major badass, of course, but not a superwoman — she’s believably vulnerable throughout and gets slugged and slammed around quite a bit.

John Wick: “You killed my dog!” Eve Maccaro: “You killed my daddy!”

There’s an especially funny bit when Eve shoves a hand grenade into a bad guy’s mouth and then traps him behind a door and then BLAM-SPLATTER-GLOPPITY!!! Blood and brain matter all over the place….hair on the walls!!

And the duelling flamethrower finale is magnificent! Roast those ayeholes! They’re all disposable meat hunks….nothing but flame–broiled chickens…gaaaahhh!!

As with all previous John Wick films, Ballerina‘s theme and tone are completely divorced from any sort of humanitarian mindfulness…what am I even talking about? This is a movie that says “embrace your inner sociopath.”

And while Anjelica Huston‘s Prizzi’s Honor voice is recognizable (“So, Charlie…ya wanna do it?”), she’s been surgically transformed in such a way that I couldn’t quite get a handle on the situation. As the “Director“, AH is in league with Gabriel Byrne ‘s “Chancellor“. My initial reaction was “well, Gabe has obviously aged but at least he semi–resembles the Usual Suspects or In Treatment guy.”

I can’t believe I’m saying this but I had a fairly rousing time during Ballerina‘s second hour. It’s like a sadistic video game with a wicked sense of humor, made by a team of truly sick fucks with a dark–eyed, no-longer-a-spring-chicken human being (de Armas is 37) at the center of the action.

Earlier today: Tom Cruise is not doing Len Wiseman‘s Ballerina (Lionsgate, 6.6) any favors by (heh-heh) praising it.

We know Cruise has chosen his own films very carefully over the last 45 years, and that a John Wick-ian action film by an obvious animal like Weisman…we know that Cruise would never star in a film of this calibre for fear of damaging his brand. [6.3 update: Wiseman is not an animal.]

We also know that his praise is generally insincere or at least partial because he’s been (heh-heh) “doing” Ana de Armas over the last few months so c’mon…why say anything about this obviously coarse, low-rent film?

Before yesterday’s Ballerina premiere de Armas called Cruise’s recent public support for the film “unbelievable“….that’s right, it IS unbelievable!

“But you know what, he supports every movie,” de Armas went on. “He really wants the industry and cinema to do well and [get] people going to the theaters. We’re working together, so he got to see Ballerina and he actually really liked it…he loved the John Wicks.”

Bullshit! Wick-y flicks like Ballerina (which I’m actually going to see in a couple of hours) are slick garbage…cancer pills…soul destroyers. C’mon, we know this going in.

From John Wick fandom:

From Owen Gleiberman’s Variety review:

…although it wasn’t a major, historical year for movies…certainly not like 1939, 1962, 1971, 1999 and 2007 were.

In my humble opinion, the most loathsome film of 1993 was, is and always will be Chris Columbus‘s Mrs. Doubtfire. Piss on this stupid film forever…soak it in horse urine.

And the finest five films of 1993 were and still are, in this order of enjoyment or admiration, (1) Harold Ramis and Bill Murray‘s Groundhog Day, (2) Jonathan Demme‘s Philadelphia, (3) John McNaughton and Richard Price‘s Mad Dog and Glory (a pair of Bill Murray films among the top three!), (4) Fred Schepisi and John Guare‘s Six Degrees of Separation, and (5) Steven Spielberg‘s Schindler’s List.

#6 through #10: Sydney Pollack‘s The Firm (I’ve watched it at least 10 or 12 times, largely because I love Gene Hackman‘s fundamentally humane performance as Avery Tolar, mitigated by his chuckling, shoulder-shrugging cynicism), Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (two or three viewings), Tony Scott‘s True Romance (minus the ridiculous ending but containing the first great Brad Pitt performance), Martin Scorsese‘s The Age of Innocence (very moving finale), Wolfgang Petersen‘s In The Line of Fire, and Joel Schumacher‘s Falling Down.

Honorable Mentions (in order of preference): Tim Burton‘s The Nightmare Before Xmas, Neil Jordan‘s The Crying Game, Robert DeNiro and Chaz Palminteri‘s A Bronx Tale, Jim Sheridan‘s In The Name of the Father, Robert Altman‘s Short Cuts (Julianne Moore‘s red public hair), Adrian Lyne‘s Indecent Proposal, Brian DePalma‘s Carlito’s Way, Rob Reiner‘s Sleepless in Seattle, Alan J. Pakula‘s The Pelican Brief, Jon Amiel‘s Sommersby, George Sluizer‘s remake of The Vanishing (which wimpishly changed the ending of Sluizer’s 19888 original), Clint Eastwood‘s A Perfect World, Bruce Joel Rubin‘s My Life (Michael Keaton with cancer), Ivan Reitman‘s Dave, James Ivory‘s The Remains of the Day (15).

Not So Hot: Renny Harlin‘s Cliffhanger, John McTiernan‘s Last Action Hero.

When I consider the finest feature films made without a musical score, I always think first of Call Northside 777 (’48), Henry Hathaway‘s Chicago-based, docu-styled procedural about a tough reporter (James Stewart) gradually managing to prove that an alleged cop killer (Richard Conte) is innocent.

But of course, Call Northside 777 has a musical score, composed and conducted by Alfred Newman. But only at the very beginning (opening credits…crashing, bombastic) and at the tail end (final 10 seconds, if that). Otherwise this 111-minute film (the first 9 minutes are annoying to sit through) is completely without musical enhancement, and all the better for it. Get rid of Newman’s intrusion and those first nine minutes and it’s perfect.

Among the better known music-free features: Sidney Lumet‘s Dog Day Afternoon, Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds (not even opening- or closing-credit music), Joel and Ethan Coen‘s No Country For Old Men, Ingmar Bergman‘s The Silence, Hitchcock’s Rope. Lumet’s Network has no “score” but aside from the characters and dialogue the first element you always think of is that brassy Howard Beale Show fanfare.

Others?

No, I’m not suggesting that when your dog or cat succumbs to the inevitable (and I’ve been through the deaths of one Siamese cat from pancreatic cancer and two from related illnesses so don’t tell me)…I’m not suggesting that you go right out and get a puppy or a kitten. That would be heartless. Pet owners need to commune with the spirit of the dear and departed and settle into a reasonable period of mourning (a month or two) before bringing home a newbie. I get the idea of respectful meditation.

But I do think it’s necessary to affirm the continuum and embrace the natural life process by embracing youth and vitality and the prospect of a new beginning…a full dog life of 12 to 15 years, or a cat life of 15 to 20. You can’t let yourself sink into mourning and never climb out of that hole. I’ve known people who’ve done this (they feel that their deceased pet, residing in pet heaven, will feel terribly hurt and rejected if he/she is replaced…they feel that keeping the flame burning for the dear and departed is all), and it’s really not right. After 30 or 60 days you have to stand up, brush yourself off and move on….start all over again.