The thing about Sunset Boulevard that doesn’t quite play in today’s terms is Joe Gillis‘s refusal to confide to Betty Schaefer what he’s up to — that he’s become a kind of screenwriting gigolo, living high on the hog with a 50 year-old silent movie star. Gillis cares for Schaefer and vice versa — audiences can tell they’d be a good match — but he’s too consumed with self-loathing to let her know what’s up. That doesn’t figure. He was broke and ready to skip town when he met Norma Desmond. Now he’s hustling a rich meal-ticket while he plots his next move. What’s so shameful about that?

The first 30 minutes of Sunset Boulevard are sharp and catchy, and the last 15 are grand-slammy. But the middle 65 of this 110-minute film are a little slow and frustrating.

And why hasn’t Gillis insisted to Desmond that he has to be paid an actual weekly salary? If he got one he could save up enough to buy a new car and move back into his apartment and get his career going again, especially with Schaefer as his new writing partner.

Cameron Crowe: “There is a famous story from the first Hollywood screening of Sunset Boulevard [in 1950]. Louis B. Mayer [head of MGM] was standing on a stairway, railing about ‘How dare this young man, Wilder, bite the hand that feeds him?’ What did you say to him when you overheard all this?”

Billy Wilder: “I am Mr. Wilder, and go fuck yourself.”

Crowe: “What did he say to that?

Wilder: “He was astonished. He was standing with the great MGM bosses who were below him, there at the studio, Mr. [Eddie] Mannix and Mr. [Joe] Cohen. And that so astonished them, that somebody had the guts to say, “Why don’t you go and fuck yourself?” [And that’s when] I knew that I had a good picture there. — from October 1999 Vanity Fair piece, “Conversations With Billy.”

Right now is Best Picture crunch time. Opinions are hardening. People are now looking to be talked out of already-decided-upon favorites. What am I missing right now? In what ways if at all is my list incorrect? What do I need to move up or down?

For many, many weeks ESPN’s Adnan Virk and I were the only Gold Derby-ites to predict Ethan Hawke as a Best Actor finalist. Then he won the Best Actor trophy from the Gotham Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle. As of right now 21 out of 30 Gold Derby spitballers have included Hawke on their top-five contender lists. That’s quite an uptick. They wouldn’t get behind him on the merits of his First Reformed performance — sticking their necks out would have made them feel unsafe. They finally took the plunge when the Gothams and the NYFCC insisted that Hawke has heat. The other four are still Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born), Viggo Mortensen (Green Book), Christian Bale (Vice) and Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody).

It says something for Ethan Hawke‘s charisma that I didn’t even blink when he appeared in a pair of flip-flops in Juliet Naked. Normally that would prompt am agonizing reappraisal, at least in my realm. The only other moment in which mandals weren’t an HE issue was when Spike Jonze donned a pair for that Moneyball scene that he shared with Brad Pitt and Robin Wright. That was because I knew they were being worn with a wink — because director Bennett Miller was saying to audiences (and to guys like me in particular) that “it’s okay if you don’t like Jonze’s character that much…given his footwear I wouldn’t blame you…you get what I’m saying, right?”

I honestly believe that the bad mandal karma has gotten around or you’d see actors wearing them a lot more. I can think of only four instances apart from Hawke and Jonze. Michael Fassbender wearing a pair in Prometheus — a moment that was probably pivotal in my forming a negative opinion of the guy. Billy Baldwin strolling around in bathroom flip-flops in Backdraft — if only Ron Howard had taken him aside and said “I don’t think they work.” Adam Sandler in 20 First Dates. And Colin Farrell wearing sandals during a kitchen chat scene in Miami Vice.

It’s not just mandals but footwear in general. Directors almost never allow an audience to consider whatever kind of shoe, boot or sandal…none of that. Even in the matter of really slick-looking shoes, like those polished lace-up cordovans Cary Grant wears in North by Northwest.

“On the evening of 12.8.80, Roone Arledge was presiding over ABC’s Monday Night Football in his capacity as its executive producer. When Arledge received word of John Lennon‘s death, a game between the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins was tied with less than a minute left in the fourth quarter and the Patriots were driving toward the potential winning score. As the Patriots tried to put themselves in position for a field goal, Arledge informed Frank Gifford and Howard Cosell of the shooting and said they be the ones to report on the murder.

“Cosell was apprehensive at first, as he felt the game should take precedence and that it was not their place to break such a big story. Gifford convinced Cosell otherwise, saying that he should not ‘hang on to (the news)’ as the significance of the event was much greater than the finish of the game. The following exchange begins with thirty seconds left in the fourth quarter, shortly after Gifford and Cosell were informed.” — from “Murder of John Lennon” Wiki page.

Eight or nine days ago I promised to stream Andrew Bujalski‘s Support the Girls and assess the merit of the New York Film Critics Circle giving Regina Hall their Best Actress trophy. Which some regarded as a curious call. For whatever fudgeball reasons I didn’t get to it last weekend, and then the neck surgery happened last Tuesday and I’ve basically been Kharis for four days now.

But last night I finally hit play, and I have to say that Support The Girls isn’t half bad, and that I get what Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn and David Ehrlich were on about when they posted raves during last March’s SXSW festival or when it opened last August. And I get why they pushed and politicked on Hall’s behalf during the NYFCC voting. Their enthusiasm wasn’t unwarranted, and I think I understand why they preferred giving the award to Hall rather than Can You Ever Forgive Me‘s Melissa McCarthy or The Wife‘s Glenn Close or Widows‘ Viola Davis. So yes, I respect their motives, but I’m still persuaded that McCarthy’s is far and away the finest in her field. Hall is obviously skilled and entirely commendable in Support The Girls, but McCarthy is like “whoa, hold on, stand back, look at this.”

Support The Girls is a believable, better than decent, woe-is-me, carry-that-weight, handle-that-shit, “One Day In The life of Ivan Denisovich” mumblecore no-laugh “comedy” about poor Lisa (Hall), the manager of an Austin Hooters-like bar (i.e., Double Whammies) who has to be “the adult in the room” as she copes with all kinds of employee problems and personal hassles and you-name-it. The trailer tells you that right off the bat.

You’re not supposed to laugh or even chuckle with Lisa as much as feel for her situation and identify with her burden, and I sure as hell did that. I admired her strength, persistence, maturity and people skills as she fused just the right combination of steel, patience and restraint. Hall is a good actress — she knew exactly how to make this character feel genuine and whole. I spent the whole time pulling for Lisa, wanting to see her come through, telepathically urging her adversaries to go easy, etc. Your heart goes out.

God help the poor souls of suburban Austin and in fact all denizens of blighted urban sprawls who live or work within spitting distance of freeways…God help them all. Life can feel so miserable and deflating under the wrong cultural conditions or circumstances and especially in the company of people with ongoing issues, but here’s to the Lisas of the world…they keep things running and humming despite all kinds of sadness and frustration and the heaviest of hearts.

Christmas was great when I was a New Jersey kid of seven, eight and nine. Almost everything felt magical or tingly or transporting on some level. Mostly the aromas — the pine needles, oven-fresh turkey, hot gravy over mashed potatoes, warm pumpkin pie — but also the tree decorations, the store lights at night, the wrapped gifts, the chilly air, listening to Dylan Thomas‘s recording of “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” and watching Alistair Sims‘ A Christmas Carol, and those occasional visits to Manhattan with my mom (department stores, Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall).

But the warmest flow-through Christmas vibes I’ve ever felt, topping even those of my impressionable years, happened at a post-Thanksgiving holiday party at Robert Towne‘s large Pacific Palisades home in late November of 1997. Yeah, I know — I mentioned this in a piece I ran after Curtis Hanson passed a couple of years ago. But what a night, what a fine English Tudor vibe on a grand holiday evening in which all the elements were in place.

The gathering was just the right size and full of people who mattered a great deal at that moment (Hanson, Jerry Bruckheimer, Phillip Noyce) and the aromas…my God! The place smelled like cinnamon and mistletoe and cigar smoke and turkey gravy and egg nog, and Towne and his wife Luisa had hired three professional singers to roam around and sing Christmas carols and I mean in perfect harmony, all dressed in top hats, shawls, bonnets, gloves and hoop skirts…classic Dickensian garb.

It was glorious. I remember coming down the big staircase and looking at this choice industry crowd having such a great time and saying to myself “everyone should experience this kind of perfect Christmas gathering at least once in their lifetimes.”

Because even the most poignant Christmas get-togethers with my own family weren’t this heartwarming, this extra-perfect. It was even better than a holiday feeling that filled my heart when I was in London in early December of ’80, when I was walking around and sensing how lucky I was to be in the Stockwell section at that particular moment. It was hardly a flush area of town but it felt exactly right as I settled into a quiet neighborhood pub and ordered a lager as I listened to “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” on the juke box.

A buncha lyin’, slick-as-fuck, well-paid actors, pushin’ the Marvel bullshit because that what it says in the script.

You have to give a two-part answer here. One, who is the Academy most likely to hire to replace the now-jettisoned Kevin Hart? And two, who would be the most engaging host, regardless of the likelihood of this or that person being hired?

Trevor Noah? Bill Hader?

Why exactly is Jimmy Kimmel a no-go? He could obviously just waltz in and do it again without breaking a sweat.

Why again doesn’t the Academy pay a decent fee to the host? Kimmel said he was paid a lousy $15K for hosting the 2017 Oscars.

I think that Michelle Wolf, who made history as the emcee at the last White House Correspondents Dinner, would be perfect. She’s brilliant, and you know she’d make mince meat out of the wokers.

I would have said Tiffany Haddish but she doesn’t seem to know movies all that well. Remember how she said she decides what to see by what her friends at the beauty salon tell her? She’s not a Movie Catholic, and the Oscar host has to believe, has to really care.

A couple of days ago N.Y. Times critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott posted their Best Movies of 2018 lists. They both like Roma, First Reformed and Happy as Lazzaro, as I do. They’re also on the same page as far as BlacKkKlansman admiration goes, which I don’t quite get.

I called it Lee’s strongest film since Inside Man (’06) and before that The 25th Hour (’01), and easily his most impassioned, hard-hitting film about the racial state of things in the U.S. of A. since Malcom X (’92). For me the bottom line is that BlacKkKlansman is basically a police undercover caper film, but plotted in an odd, head-scratchy way. Which I tried to briefly explain in a 7.19.18 piece.

I agree with Dargis’s admiration of Burning and First Reformed, and to a lesser extent Shoplifters. And I feel strongly bonded with Scott on his praise of Marielle Heller‘s Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Nadine Labaki‘s Capernaum.

But how Scott could completely ignore Pawel Pawlikowski‘s Cold War, my choice for the best film of the year, is mystifying. Dargis includes it in her list of runner-ups.

I guess it all basically comes down to whether or not you can accommodate yourself to the rules and regulations of the Dargis-Scott Critical Universe (DSCU). I understand and respect the DSCU for what it is, but I was really quite upset by a 5.2 DSCU article called “Dear Movie Industry, We Have Thoughts”, in which Scott declared that anyone offering a historical analogy about today’s near-tyrannical climate of politically correct admonishing is up to no good.

“Please read some history,” he implored. “About the Salem witch trials, the Spanish Inquisition, the martyrdom of early Christians, Joseph McCarthy, Joseph Stalin, the Gestapo, Pol Pot and any of the other historical monsters and catastrophes you like to invoke when talking about whatever is bothering you in contemporary culture. Also please refrain from hyperbolically throwing around words like ‘silencing,’ ‘thought police’ and ‘censorship’ in reference to criticism on social media or elsewhere. People who indulge in this kind of rhetorical inflation are like rats spreading bubonic plague.”

Either you understand what’s going on with the current climate of intimidating woke-lefty fascism and how a sizable percentage of the current community of leading film critics is simply terrified of stepping out of line or saying anything that might strike the wokeys or the virtue-signallers as the wrong thing to say. Either you can say to yourself “yup, this is definitely a characteristic of our social and critical discourse right now” or you can’t. Or you won’t. But to call people who are claiming there’s a strong element of fear and intimidation…to call these people “plague-spreading rats” is quite the declaration.

Again, HE’s picks for the top 32 films of 2018.

I feel pretty good for a guy who had neck and shoulder surgery three days ago. I have an appetite, I walk around like Kharis, I’m strong enough to think and write and prepare my own tana leaf broth, etc. The only problem is the stabbing pain in my left shoulder. And so, like a baby getting a bottle feeding, I awake at 2 or 3 am for pain meds. And as long as I’m up I check the HE comments and twitter.

Lo and behold, this morning I read two heartening messages in the “Un-Sundanced by Wokers” thread — one from author, critic and SF State film professor Joseph McBride (aka “Bob Hightower”), and a second from a guy I don’t personally know or agree with at all — Breitbart columnist John Nolte. But their words of support felt good. Twitter shriekers will probably conclude I’m no longer a lefty iconoclast because I’m grateful for Nolte’s message. But in my head I’m separating what he’s saying about my situation and whom he’s aligned with politically. Nobody wants to live in a lefty fascist world but at the same time I can’t wait for Beto O’Rourke to run against Trump and for Tulsi Gabbard to come into her own.

McBride/Hightower: “Jeff — This is ridiculous and outrageous. You’re a working journalist and reviewer who covers the film industry diligently and should not be denied such access. Can your readers and fellow writers be of help in protesting? Please post names and email addresses of people to whom we should complain on your behalf. Also, those who are advising you about how to change your attitude or whatever to appease Sundance are offensive. That smacks of McCarthyism. Let’s all get behind supporting you in getting your pass to cover Sundance.”

Nolte: “I apologize for violating my ban. This is Wells’ site, and I have respected his decision by not commenting for a number of years now — and I will continue to respect his decision, but I wanted to chime in…

“I [visit] two or three times a day because Hollywood Elsewhere is the best film site online. Despite the frequent attacks on Trump and his supporters (i.e., me), I still read because Wells is INTERESTING, because he offers a unique point of view, because he is an open book (without being a narcissistic virtue signaler) and a solid wordsmith who brings a worldview (like it, agree with it, or not) and experience you cannot find anywhere else.

“Thanks to corporatization, thanks to the growing fear of de-platforming and social blacklisting, every other movie site I click on reads like every other movie site I click on — a tedious exercise in sterilized, homogenized, pro-social justice conformity. I’m not boycotting the sites I used to read. I don’t believe in boycotts. I just lost interest because…

“Everyone is either in a terrified defensive crouch as they energetically contribute to the Internet’s Woke Film Pravda, or worse, they are true believers in this shallow, censorious crap; or worse still, they contribute to the Internet’s Woke Film Pravda because they are simpering gerbils desperate to belong.

“Do you have any idea how dull it is to be a movie lover these days (thank GOD for DVD/Bluray)? Unless you are looking for ideological applause lines as opposed to insights and nuance and honesty, it is dry out there — and not just in film writing but in much of filmmaking (especially comedy).

“But it is not dry and sterile here, because Wells is what a writer is supposed to be — above all, he is honest about everything, and that makes him a raw nerve, and that means sometimes he’s going to piss you off, but it also means that you will sometimes discover a FIRST REFORMED you would not have otherwise. It also means you will never be bored. Given the choice between being offended or bored, is an easy choice.

Thanks to the haters, uglies and tortured souls who’ve cheered my Sundance ’19 announcement. One thing I’ve never done and never will do is applaud a journalist’s political difficulty or misfortune, but there are some who revel in such distractions. And they all have their bathroom-mirror reflections to consider each night. Last January I covered Sundance like everyone else — reviews of Ethan Hawke‘s Blaze, David Wain‘s A Futile and Stupid Gesture and Paul Dano‘s Wildlife, a chat with Jonah Hill about Gus Van Sant‘s Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot, a riff about Marina Zenovich‘s Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, a pan of Blindspotting, a mostly positive review of Amy Scott’s Hal Ashby doc, etc. Sundance is a job, a task, a 10-day march…something you try to do as best you can. And then you move on.