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I turn around and things that happened 20 or 30 years ago rise to the surface like air bubbles…they appear of their own volition…who am I to ignore that faint popping sound?
April 26, 2023 2:47 amby Jeffrey Wells
After visiting Jett, Cait and Sutton in West Orange last Sunday, the VW Passat suffered a seizure (call it a coughing fit) while driving back to Wilton. I was afraid of a painful financial gash, but the total tab (including an oil change) was only $418. I’ll be training down to New Rochelle Auto Care this morning to settle up and retrieve.
April 26, 2023 2:39 amby Jeffrey Wells
Friendo to HE: “If I buy you this shirt, will you wear it in Cannes?”
April 25, 2023 2:52 pmby Jeffrey Wells

Until proven to be a lucid, smartly-plotted, grade-A film (which it might conceivably be), I’ll be assuming that The Flash (Warner Bros., 6.16) is the same old gotterdamerung, CG-overload D.C. shite…tortured, over-emotive, anguished adolescent stuff.

“My payurants, my payurants…I lost my payurants,” etc.

I was a fanatical admirer of director Andy Muschietti‘s Mama, but I went cold on the guy after seeing his two It films. The return of Michael Keaton‘s Batman / Bruce Wayne holds no allure for me; ditto the return of Michael Shannon‘s General Zod. “Let’s get nuts”…yeah, no thanks.

April 25, 2023 2:41 pmby Jeff Wells
Yesterday the No Hard Feelings redband trailer generated fresh energy at Cinemacon. It made me laugh several weeks ago, and it still rubs me the right way. And I adore the fact that shrieking wokesters like Scott Menzel are upset by the bawdy premise. The more alarmed Menzel is, the better.
April 25, 2023 1:03 pmby Jeff Wells
April 25, 2023 12:53 pmby Jeff Wells

Innocent question: What's so stunning in this day and age about a graphically violent "ice-cold thriller" flooded with "atmospheric dread"? What else could a film about a conscience-stricken hitman be?
April 25, 2023 12:50 pmby Jeff Wells
The Playlist's Gregg Ellwood on a recently-viewed Cinemacon clip of Ridley Scott's Napoleon: "The scenes featured hundreds (a thousand?) extras on horseback (Kingdom of Heaven vibes) and almost entirely in-camera visual effects (lots of on-the-ground explosions). There were at least three or four individual shots that anyone in the room will still remember weeks from now, which obviously a very good thing.
April 25, 2023 12:35 pmby Jeff Wells

This longish (over six minutes) recap scene in The Big Sleep explains what’s already happened for those who may be lost or confused. And yes, Phillip Marlowe‘s meeting in the District Attorney’s office obviously fits the very definition of what a good film isn’t supposed to do — i.e., tell rather than show. Which is why it wasn’t included in the final 1946 version.

And yet the general consensus is that The Big Sleep is one of the most convoluted, perplexing, nearly-impossible-to-follow crime films ever made (even co-screenwriter William Faulkner was unsure about who’d done what), so I actually wouldn’t have minded if this scene had been left in.

As Big Sleep aficionados know, the sexually suggestive restaurant scene between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (i.e., trading double entendres about horse racing) replaced (a) the District Attorney’s office scene plus (b) Rutledge/Bacall coming to Marlowe’s office a second time.

(More…)
April 25, 2023 11:10 amby Jeff Wells

On the occasion of Al Pacino‘s 83rd birthday, here, in this order, are HE’s top twelve Pacino performances:

(1) Michael Corleone, The Godfather, Part II; (2) Lowell Bergman, The Insider, (3) Tony Montana, Scarface, (4) Michael Corleone, The Godfather, (5) Lt. Vincent Hanna, Heat; (6) Tony D’Amato, Any Given Sunday (the”inches” speech); (7) Frank Keller, Sea of Love; (8) Frank Serpico, Serpico; (9) Sonny Wortzik, Dog Day Afternoon; (10) Jimmy Hoffa, The Irishman; (11) Will Dormer, Insomnia; and (12) Frank Slade, Scent of a Woman (“I’m just gettin’ warmed up!”).

Obviously Pacino’s peak decades were the ’70s and ’90s. He’s so far made only two grade-A 21st Century films, Insomnia and The Irishman.

April 25, 2023 10:01 amby Jeff Wells
Directed by Antoine Fuqua and lensed by the great Robert Richardson, The Equalizer 3 (Sony, 9.1.23) was mostly filmed on Italy's Amalfi Coast in Italy with supplementary shooting in Naples and Rome.
April 25, 2023 9:06 amby Jeff Wells
I met and listened to the great Harry Belafonte only once. It was during a press junket round-table for Desmond Nakano's White Man's Burden (Savoy, 12.1.95), a racially reversed fantasy about American prejudice and injustice.
April 25, 2023 8:51 amby Jeff Wells

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