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“The Marvel machine was pumping out a lot of content, but did it get to the point where there was just too much, and they were burning people out on superheroes?”

This quote, spoken by Wall Street analyst Eric Handler and reported by Variety‘s Tatiana Siegel, is music to Hollywood Elsewhere’s ears.

I’ve been waiting for over a decade for the Marvel downfall or at least the gradual weakening of this satanic strain, and now that it’s slowly, finally happening there are tears of joy in my eyes.

I haven’t felt this good since the death of Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark, and I was clicking my heels over that one.

The impetus behind Siegel’s new “Marvel is in trouble” article (okay, call it a “the tide has turned and things are swirling downward” piece) boils down to widespread readings and presumptions about The Marvels (Disney, 11.10) blowing the big one.

That plus the seeming downfall of Jonathan Majors, but this has been a nagging legal thing for several months now, partly due to Siegel reporting on Major’s issues (sexual assault charges) and seemingly pushing for his demise.

Even I, a committed hater of all things spandex and particularly a cinematic brand that significantly contributed to the death (or at least the diminishing popularity until Oppenheimer came along) of tangy, character-driven, real-world theatrical films…Marvel plus Covid plus streaming plus the appalling cinematic tastes of Millennials and Zoomers…a brand that every major over-45 filmmaker (Marty!…Fuck Joe Russo!) has been deploring and damning for years…even I was delighted by Spider-Man: No Way Home two years ago…I admit it.

But generally the Marvel machine was been drooping and groaning and shortfalling for at least a couple of years now, and not just in my head.

Siegel: “The source of Marvel’s current troubles can be traced back to 2020. That’s when the COVID pandemic ushered in a mandate to help boost Disney’s stock price with an endless torrent of interconnected Marvel content for the studio’s fledgling streaming platform, Disney+.

“According to the plan, there would never be a lapse in superhero fare, with either a film in theaters or a new television series streaming at any given moment.

“But the ensuing tsunami of spandex proved to be too much of a good thing, and the demands of churning out so much programming taxed the Marvel apparatus. Moreover, the need to tease out an interwoven storyline over so many disparate shows, movies and platforms created a muddled narrative that baffled viewers.

“‘The more you do, the tougher it is to maintain quality,” says Handler. “[Marvel] tried experimenting with breaking in some new characters, like Shang-Chi and Eternals, with mixed results. With budgets as big as these, you need home runs.”

Speaking of Eternals, another anvil tied around Marvel’s ankles these days are workester themes and plotlines. Fanboys don’t like that shit as a rule. Just ask Kathy Kennedy.

Siegel: “The Marvels will struggle to get the ball past the infield, at least by Marvel’s outsized standards. The movie, which cost $250 million and sees Brie Larson reprising her role as Captain Marvel, is tracking to open to $75 million-$80 million — far below the $185 million Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness took in domestically in its debut weekend last year.

“The Marvels has seen its release date moved back twice, too, once to swap places with Quantumania, which was deemed further along, and again when its debut shifted from July to November to give the filmmakers more time to tinker. But that extra time didn’t necessarily help. In June, Marvel, which traditionally only solicits feedback from Disney employees and their friends and families, took the uncharacteristic step of holding a public test screening in Texas. The audience gave the film middling reviews.”

Last night HE commenter “Regular Joe” said the following about Alexander Payne‘s The Holdovers: “I liked it. I enjoyed it and might see it again on the big screen. That being said, I’m not sure how much it will resonate with the newer, younger Oscar voters who’ve been skewing the awards for a while now. Either way, entertaining flick.”

HE to Regular Joe: Saying you “liked” it enough to possibly see it again is both a serious compliment and an increasingly rare one these days. At the same time saying you found it “entertaining” almost qualifies as damnation with faint praise. Almost but not quite. I know you didn’t mean it this way but there’s a certain low-flame element in what you’re saying

In my book The Holdovers is a tartly finessed gift and something close to a well-varnished treasure — the kind of wisely seasoned, well-assembled, character-rich relationship dramedy that (here comes the crusty cliche that everyone has been repeating since Telluride) they just don’t make any more.

Mostly set in late December of ’70, The Holdovers delivers a sublime time-travel effect — a visit to a land of wonder and imagination…Jesus, I sound like Rod Serling here. It’s basically a visit to a land of real-people flavorings and shadings, of realistic complications and emotional detours and random speedbumps…the kind of food that was occasionally served on the menu back in the 20th Century…the kind of stuff that been-around-the-track types remember from films like The Last Detail, etc. Three characters with their particular, baked-in contours and attitudes on a journey of gradual self-discovery or resignation or whatever.

I know what you’re saying about the likely expectations or criteria that Millennials and Zoomers might have in their heads. Over the last 15 years these unfortunately bruised and coarsened souls have been conditioned to want more push or punch from films of this sort — payoff elements of a grosser or more pratfally nature (erections, farts, belchings, defecations, brown torpedoes, vomitings, ejaculations, handjobs, blowjobs, slaps and punches and ball-kickings, guys jumping out of second-story windows and suffering nary a bruise or scratch, fire alarms, cops being called, car thefts or crashings or breakdowns or speeding tickets, encounters with local yokel mechanics or grumpy old codgers or eccentric trans folk). I know what they want. They want “holy shit!” or “oooh-hah-hah-hah!!” or “gaaahhh!”

As Marcus Licinius Crassus once said, it’s all a matter of taste. And as Francois Truffaut once explained, taste is a result of a thousand distastes, I’m not saying that the cinematic appetites of Millennials and Zoomers are tragic, but in a sense a fair-sized percentage of them don’t seem to know (or don’t care to know) what distastes are, or have rejected the idea of distastes or something along these lines. Over the last 15 or 20 years their standards have been systematically lowered and ground into mush, and so they want relationship dramedies in a Seth Rogen-y vein.

You know that feeling of shuddering disgust that many critics expressed in their reviews of Rogen’s Long Shot? The Holdovers has none of that shit in its veins. It’s a fine wine by comparison.

This is Carey Mulligan‘s film…that seems obvious. Felicia forever. Bradley Cooper‘s Lenny seems like a combination artful dodger and attention whore.

What’s with Cooper’s accent? It sounds fascinating in some respects, but it also sounds like he has an odd nasal condition.

A Netflix presentation, Maestro goes up against Ridley Scott‘s Napoleon on 11.22, and then begins streaming on 12.20.

During last May’s Cannes Film Festival N.Y. Times critic Manohla Dargis, who’s become an unbridled celebrator of feminist-brand cinema in recent years, praised Todd Haynes’ May December (Netflix, 12.1), an underwhelming (to put it kindly) attempt at blending the Mary Kay Letourneau saga with a semblance of a re-heated Persona. Dargis actually went apeshit, predicting Oscar glory. I wouldn’t say that reactions to the recent N.Y. Film Festival screenings of Haynes’ film have necessarily put the kibbosh on this fantasy, but I would say that the general lack of excitement is palpable.

HE’s most recent May December piece appeared on 9.26.

Last night I saw for the very first time Rouben Mamoulian‘s Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde (’31). I had watched two or three segments (particularly the Miriam Hopkins stocking-removal + side-boob scene) but never the entire thing.

It was a beautifully restored version showing on the Criterion Channel, but I was doubly impressed and actually astonished by the extended POV sequence in the very beginning, which I had somehow never read about.

It was almost certainly Mamoulian’s idea to begin with, I’m guessing, but the renowned cinematographer Karl Struss (Sunrise, The Great Dictator, Limelight) was obviously a full partner. The shot uses a circular, partially-closed iris view, and it starts with Fredric March‘s unseen Dr. Jekyll playing an organ, talking to his butler, walking through his home, putting on an evening cape, leaving his home (we finally get a peek at March when he looks in a mirror) and arriving as a college classroom for a lecture.

If before last night you had asked me what film was the first to make use of extended POV cinematography, I would have said Robert Motgomery‘s Lady in the Lake (’47), a hardboiled Phillip Marlowe crime story.

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It will be interesting to watch the forthcoming 4K UHD of Alfred Hitchchcock‘s The Man Who Knew Too Much (’55), which was shot by Robert Burks in VistaVision. But not the others.

If you’re talking about a 4K UHD remastered Hitchcock film that would really get people excited, the most desired would be North by Northwest (’59). The last Bluray upgrade happened in ‘07. Overdue for 4K. Way.

Hitchcock and Burks shot five films in VisaVision: To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo and North by Northwest.

I’ve just been told that if I want to potentially buffer my image as a moderate-minded fellow and not sink any deeper into the sinkhole of suspected racism, I need to ease up on my tortured reactions to Killers of the Flower Moon. In short, get with the program or you’ll be bitch-slapped and condemned as Hollywood’s David Duke.

And as a bonus, I’ve been told, while I’m carving up Killers of the Flower Moon, I’ll be hurting The Holdovers in the bargain!

What the fuck are these benign buzzards and gargoyles talking about? What have my divided reactions to a well-produced but clearly problematic, difficult-to-sit-through-a-second-time film about a century-old case of native Oklahoma genocide…how does that make me a racist?

Does everyone understand what woke-fingered demons these guys are? If they don’t like your opinions they’ll throw “R” spears at you in order to give you pause or perhaps even kill you outright. This is the stinking, steaming social cauldron in which we live.

It started with an assessment of my piece on Armond White’s negative review of Scorsese’s film.

HOOVES AND POINTED TAIL: “The fact that Armond’s a Black man gives you some welcome cover here, of course. You must realize, however, that he is also a Black Trump supporter. Which places him pretty close to that guy in Sam Fuller‘s Shock Corridor. You know, the Black inmate who put on Klan robes.”

HE: “Armond’s Trump thing is insane.”

HOOVES AND POINTED TAIL: “The Trump thing is who he is; it seeps into everything he writes. He owns it. So do what you will. You’re gonna try to kill this movie for the next…God, three or four months. But you won’t be able to. And The Holdovers will suffer as a result, because you’re gonna look so much like David Duke while you stomp on Scorsese that people won’t trust your positive recommendations. It’s a shame. And I know you don’t wanna hear this but it’s the truth.”

HE: “‘David Duke’? Maybe in the politically correct, culturally intimidated film elite wussy world that you and others live in, but otherwise that’s ridiculous and flat-out offensive. That’s bad comedy. My mixed feelings about Killers of the Flower Moon are about leaden pacing and poor dramaturgy, and my issues with Lily Gladstone…look, she’s a fine actress and is better-than-decent in the film but everyone knows she doesn’t really deliver Oscar-level chops, and that her handlers are using her identity as a passport to Best Actress contention.”

HOOVES AND POINTED TAIL: “As you have to be aware by now, some folks already see you that way, whether you think it’s ridiculous or not. Just keep putting the pedal to the metal and watch the pushback you get. Consider this observation a friendly word of caution.”

HE: “‘Some folks already see me that way’? Is there any chance these folks are descendants of ’50s-era Hollywood predators who warned Carl Foreman, Dalton Trumbo and Jules Dassin to modify their HUAC testimony, give their industry profile a buff-and-polish and re-think their political persuasions? We’re living in a wicked, wicked world, man….and deep down the truly foul players know who they are. I spit on their insinuations.”

Late yesterday afternoon I sat through my second viewing of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. (My first exposure was on 5.20.23 at the Salle Debussy, or five months ago.) It happened at Westport’s AMC Royale 6, Theatre #3 at 4 pm.

The screen illumination was decidedly dim (in Cannes the brightness levels seemed well above the SMPTE standard of 14 or 15 foot lamberts) and so the whole thing felt needlessly shrouded and vaguely downish…dark rainclouds overhead.

Plus there were only four of us in the theatre — Jody and myself plus a 60ish couple in the rear.

I knew I would be experiencing a kind of waiting, stuck-in-the-Oklahoma-mud gaslighting hell for the first two hours. For it’s not just Lily Gladstone being monotonously lied to by Robert DeNiro’s incessantly drawling “King” Hale and his dumbfuck nephew, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart — it was me also…me, Jeffrey Wells, sprawled in my handicapped seat for extra legroom…I had to sit through all that gaslighting bullshit…lying, lying, “ahh feel fer yew in your tahhm of grief”…will you shut the fuck up already, Bobby?

I flinched with every DeNiro sighting. Jesus, here it comes again…”we wull leave no stone unturned in order to fahhnd these killers…”

And then finally Jesse Plemons (as FBI investigator Tom White) shows up at the two-hour mark, and things start to pick up. But even then…

For one thing there’s no real Lily / Mollie catharsis at the end. No admonishments, no barking, no “how dare you?”

Even during her final scene with Leo / Ernest, after White has doubtless told her the full sordid truth about Leo’s conspiratorial complicity in the Osage murder spree as well as her own poisoning, Lily / Mollie can’t bring herself to slap or even scold that hayseed.

Instead she embraces Leo / Ernest and then her right palm gently touches the side of his face. Lily’s pained expression says, “I feel mostly pity in my heart for you, my poor dumb beef-bod yokel. You’re the lamb who went astray and saw to the deaths of my family and friends…poor little stupid baby.”

Not very dramatically satisfying, Lily, Leo and Marty!

Below is a screen capture from Martin Scorsese‘s 2004 American Express commercial. This is the Marty I’ve adored for decades as opposed to the woke Marty who decided he couldn’t make a white guy movie when he started work on Killers of the Flower Moon. This recent Marty incarnation I don’t fully relate to. The “I only have eyes for the pain of the Osage” Marty is like a Marty who’s been taken over by seed pods from Don Siegel‘s Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It looks like him and talks like him, but it isn’t him…it’s someone else.

And now comes the revelation that Leo did it…Leo talked Marty into dropping the “birth of the FBI” angle and giving Killers a woke makeover.

Blunt message: “You’re going broke, You spend more than you make.”

Posted on 10.13.23:

The Best Supporting Actress buzz for Penelope Cruz‘s Ferrari performance — the bitter, burning, marginalized-but-nonetheless-tough-as-nails wife of Enzo Ferrari, holding his fate and that of the car company itself in her hands — started roughly six weeks ago at the Venice Film Festival, and here I am adding a log to the fire.

Cruz and the bewigged and paunchy Adam Driver, who portrays the nearly 60-year-old Ferrari with a current of earnest conviction, perform a dining-room tabletop sex scene that out-points, I feel, the last historic milestone in this realm — the Jack Nicholson-Jessica Lange table-top in Bob Rafelson‘s The Postman Always Rings Twice (’81).

The difference is that the Cruz-Driver sex is joyful and eruptive and therapeutic while the Nicholson-Lange is merely hot and hungry.

Due respect to The Eyes of Tammy Fae‘s Jessica Chastain, but there’s no question that Cruz’s bravura performance in Pedro Almodovar‘s Parallel Mothers (’21) should have won the Best Actress Oscar — everyone understands that. So the Ferrari nomination will likely result in Cruz being regarded as the front-runner — one of those “the Academy apologizes buut this will make things right” deals.