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Hats off to Western Built Construction, the general contractors who’ve been working on a huge, two-story, concrete-and-glass structure at the northwest corner of Melrose and Westbourne, which is near my place. I complained about some obnoxious lighting mounted on the rear of their building, and one of the WBC principals responded in a reasonable, mild-mannered way in a matter of minutes. Life should be so simple and easy in other realms.

“[Name] and [name] — I’m Jeffrey Wells, a Hollywood columnist (www.hollywood-elsewhere.com) and longtime journalist who lives near that massive, two-story commercial space you’ve been working on for…what’s it been, eight or nine months? I’m writing to complain about those three obnoxiously bright lights mounted on the rear of your building. I’m asking you to please replace them with lights that are quieter, amber-ish, toned down and not so aggressively bright.

“Right now these lights are a nocturnal eyesore. I don’t know the wattage but the level of brightness and intensity is ridiculous — the kind of lethal, industrial-strength lighting that might be used by a state prison or some warehouse with truck bays in the middle of nowhere.

“Westbourne Drive is a quiet residential street, and having lived here for many, many years I assure you there’s no need for that kind of illumination. We have no escaped convicts running around (or none that I know of) and there’s no need to have lighting so fierce and glaring that jets flying over Los Angeles at 35,000 feet can easily pinpoint the corner of Westbourne and Melrose.

“This may sound curious, but some of us believe that the night should be allowed to be what it is, which is to say allowed to be dark. You know, the way it was on the planet before guys like you and your commercial lighting schemes came along?

“Walk down Westbourne south of Melrose — each and every home is lighted quietly, softly, with a certain restraint. Your building is the only one using an aggressive state-prison aesthetic.

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I have two questions about the firing of Phil Lord and Chris Miller off the Han Solo spin-off. One, why did producer Kathy Kennedy wait four and a half months to cut them loose with the film having begun shooting in late January or thereabouts? And two, what does it say about Kennedy’s hiring instincts that she chose a couple of guys whom she so disagreed with that “she didn’t even like the way they folded their socks,” according to Brent Lang‘s Variety story?

Kennedy, no doubt looking to shoot and construct the film along familiar lines, said in a recent statement that “it’s become clear that we had different creative visions on this film, and we’ve decided to part ways.”

This conflict wasn’t apparent to Kennedy after three or four weeks of principal photography? Or after several weeks of it? I don’t know the backstory but what kind of producer needs four and a half months to assess a flawed situation and then finally do something about it with filming two-thirds completed?

In my book this is the second big problem with the Han Solo flick, the first being the casting of Alden Ehrenreich as Solo. I explained my reservations in a 5.22.17 piece called “Ehrenreich Won’t Cut Han Solo Mustard“:

It was my reaction to Alden Ehrenreich‘s performance in Alexandre Moors‘ The Yellow Birds, which I saw at last January’s Sundance Film festival, that convinced me he won’t be a good Han Solo. He just doesn’t have that presence, that Harrison Ford cock-of-the-walk cool. There’s just something about Ehrenreich that feels guarded and clenched.

Alden Ehrenreich and Untitled Han Solo Film costars (including Woody Harrelson) in recently posted set photo.

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I for one wouldn’t see Kyra Sedgwick‘s Story of A Girl (Lifetime, 7.23) with a knife at my back. It’s about a young girl (Ryann Shane) coping with unwanted notoriety from a viral sex-tape video, surreptitiously captured when she was only 13. It’s not the execution, which for all I know is pretty good or even expert, but the premise. In what way is cruel and odious behavior on the part of nearly everyone in a small community remotely interesting? I’m not surprised there was next to no interest when it screened the other day at the L.A. Film Festival, which in itself exudes a generally droopy vibe. Pic is based on a book by Sara Zarr.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Los Angeles Film Festival, where the turnout for the world premiere of Kyra Sedgwick’s directorial debut looks like this.” — Variety‘s Peter Debruge on Instagram.

“And how about Jon Voight, who plays Ray’s father/nemesis Mickey Donovan? In 2013 the Oscar winner (’78’s Coming Home) won a Golden Globe for the first season of Ray Donovan, but that was before he came out four-square for the most malevolent and deranged Oval Office occupant in the history of this nation. While Voight was snubbed by the Emmys last year, he could stage a comeback.” — HE-edited version of Sid Lipsey’s Gold Derby assessment of Voight’s chances.

My heart is down, his head is turnin’ ’round because Jon Ossoff didn’t make it. Yes, Georgia’s sixth district, an affluent, well-educated suburb of Atlanta, seemed like a prime arena for a liberal progressive to defeat a bland bullshit Republican like Karen Handel, but the sixth has been a safe Republican district since the dawn of the Reagan era. And as a N.Y. Times analysis piece noted, “it showed that Republicans skeptical of [President] Trump remained comfortable supporting more conventional candidates from their party.”

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Miles “don’t be a pervert, man” Teller, who got into some kind of trouble in San Diego last weekend, plays a PTSD-afflicted soldier in Jason Hall‘s Thank You For Your Service (Universal, 10.27). Boilerplate: “As three American soldiers return from Iraq, they struggle to reintegrate with their families and adjust to civilian life while also struggling to forget their memories of war.” This sound way too generic and familiar — American Sniper (also written by Hall) meets Bruce Dern‘s story in Coming Home meets Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk meets Dana Andrews‘ nightmare in The Best Years of Our Lives meets Alexandre Moors‘ The Yellowbirds meets Paul Haggis‘s In The Valley of Elah. Costarring Haley Bennett, Beulah Koale, Amy Schumer, Scott Haze, Joe Cole and Keisha Castle-Hughes.

Over the last 18 years Sofia Coppola has confined her directorial focus to a world that she knows like the back of her hand — a realm of privileged, apolitical younger white women living in a well-tended world provided by family or marriage, and not getting laid all that much. The Virgin Suicides (’99), Lost in Translation (’03), Marie Antoinette (’06), Somewhere (’10), The Bling Ring (’10) and The Beguiled (’17). (I’m ignoring A Very Murray Christmas, which I hated.)

My favorite was and still is Somewhere, in part because it felt Antonioni-esque, and because the main character (Stephen Dorff‘s) is ill-defined in a nihilistic sort of way. I admired the ballsiness of Coppola investing in his melancholia while avoiding a three-act “story”.

The Beguiled opens this Friday (6.23). I wasn’t exactly blown away when I saw it in Cannes. “Whoa, calm down on the ‘terrifically entertaining’,” I said to a friend. “It’s pretty good, but not all that different from Don Siegel‘s The Beguiled (’71). Less heated with more emphasis on suggestive humor. And shorter than the Siegel version by 11 minutes, 94 minutes vs. Siegel’s 105. Which I rather liked.

“Yes, the apple pie scene is amusing if not quite ‘funny’. I think Nicole Kidman barking ‘get the saw!’ was meant to challenge Faye Dunaway shouting ‘get the axe!’ in Mommie Dearest.”

Mattel has introduced 15 new Ken dolls with traits that reflect the world of 2017 — seven skin tones, eight hair colors, nine hairstyles, etc. (There’s even a man-bun Ken.) But they’ve chickened out by only coming up with three body types — original, slim and “broad” (i.e., husky). If they really wanted to reflect present social realities Mattel would have also created a fat-ass Ken (i.e., out of shape, jowly, beer belly). A year and a half ago a Daily Mail piece noted that social media convos were calling for a dad-bod Ken. Lord knows chubby, corpulent characters have been pushing their way into TV serials, comedies (Seth Rogen, Michael Chernus), animated features (the obese Boy Scout kid in Up, fat Snow White in Red Shoes and the 7 Dwarfs). Obviously a distasteful trend, but the culture has tipped in this direction. In hetero circles it’s a relatively rare thing these days to run into an original Ken, much less a slim one. Bod-wise, we’re living for the most part in a Joaquin Phoenix world.

I own a Mini Cooper, but most of the time I cruise around town on a rumbling, saddlebag-laden scooter hog. Some believe this mode of transportation isn’t brawny or genuine enough, which of course is bullshit. It’s consistent, however, that when it comes to the Pacific Ocean that I would be a boogie boarder rather than a surfer. Used to be, I mean. I hit the beach a lot in the ’80s and ’90s. Especially when the kids were old enough to join me. Even on the level of boogie boards, which involves very little skill and is, of course, far below the realm of surfing, you can feel the spirit when you’re out there, bobbing up and down. You’re in church, a kind of natural church of swells and tides and that salty seaweed aroma. All you do is catch the crest of waves and ride the whitewater. A very elemental, simple-dick thing, but God, the hours I spent out there. Sun, sunburn, sparkling water. I had a yellow Morey boogie board, which in my mind was top of the line. The kids had a couple of smaller ones. All to say I just bought a new Morey board. A Big Kahuna 44-incher. I’ll be using it soon.