Hollywood Elsewhere – Movie news and opinions by Jeffrey Wells_Education & Science

.widget.holly-widget {display: none;}HomeSubscribeArchivesAboutContactTwitterFacebookSearch “There’s Hollywood Elsewhere and then there’s everything else. It’s your neighborhood dive where you get the ugly truth, a good laugh and a damn good scotch.”–JJ Abrams(Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Super 8)“Smart, reliable and way ahead of the curve … a must and invaluable read.”–Peter Biskind (Down and Dirty Pictures Easy Riders, Raging Bulls)“He writes with an element that any good filmmaker employs and any moviegoer uses to fully appreciate the art of film – the heart.”–Alejandro G. Inarritu(The Revenant, Birdman, Amores Perros)“Nothing comes close to HE for truthfulness, audacity, and one-eyed passion and insight.”–Phillip Noyce(Salt, Clear and Present Danger, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Dead Calm)“A rarity and a gem … Hollywood Elsewhere is the first thing I go to every morning.”–Ann HornadayWashington Post“Jeffrey Wells isn’t kidding around. Well, he does kid around, but mostly he just loves movies.”–Cameron Crowe(Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky)“In a world of insincere blurbs and fluff pieces, Jeff has a truly personal voice and tells it like it is. Exactly like it is, like it or not.”–Guillermo del Toro(Pan’s Labyrinth, Cronos, Hellboy)“It’s clearly apparent he doesn’t give a shit what the Powers that Be think, and that’s a good thing.”–Jonathan HensleighDirector (The Punisher), Writer (Armageddon, The Rock)“So when I said I’d like to leave my cowboy hat there, I was obviously saying (in my head at least) that I’d be back to stay the following year … simple and quite clear all around.”–Jeffrey Wells, HE, January ’09“If you’re in a movie that doesn’t work, game over and adios muchachos — no amount of star-charisma can save it.”–Jeffrey Wells, HE.socialnew {display: flex;}.socialnew iframe {margin-left: 5px;}HomeSubscribe to HE PatreonArchivesAboutContactMerchPatreon LoginPatreon Logout Deep Freeze July 11, 2022 Nobody Has A Perfect Marriage July 11, 2022 Disbelief Isn't Entertaining July 11, 2022 .st0{fill:#FFFFFF;}Support on Patreon Follow @wellshwood No CommentsDog DaysI need to upgrade my summer wardrobe…yeah, Club Monaco has the right idea…shorts, sneakers, baseball cap and a generic dork shirt. Why didn’t I think of this combo myself? July 14, 2022 4:30 pmby Jeffrey Wells No CommentsRoute 66Just a couple of gals with a laid-back, take-what-comes existential attitude, rough and ready with a full tank but in no particular hurry…life is a journey, an adventure, and cruising along in leather-upholstered seats with a rumbling, well-tuned engine under the hood makes all the difference. July 14, 2022 2:42 pmby Jeffrey Wells No CommentsJust Around The CornerOnly seven weeks left of summer because that’s when Telluride ‘22 kicks off. The official poster popped today: July 14, 2022 2:28 pmby Jeffrey Wells No CommentsPaisanErnest Borgnine passed almost exactly ten years ago. He did a lot of interviews and told a lot of stories later in life, and one that I never forgot involved a verbal confrontation with a group of Italian guys in some quiet New York City neighborhood. (Or possibly in Boston or Rhode Island or Newark, New Jersey…some northeastern city with a significant Italian population.)It happened a few weeks after the August ’53 opening of From Here to Eternity, in which Borgnine achieved his big career breakthrough for his performance as “Fatso” Judson, a sadistic Army stockade sergeant whose racist brutality leads to the death of Frank Sinatra‘s Pvt. Maggio.Borgnine has just walked out of a bar or was hailing a cab, and four or five guys walked up and one of them said “you’re him, right?” Borgnine copped to being the guy who played Fatso, and the guy said, “So what’d you kill Frank Sinatra for?” Borgnine tried a standard rational response — “I didn’t kill him, I played a guy who killed him, I’m actor and so is Sinatra,” etc.The under-educated Italian guys weren’t having it — “yeah but why’d you kill him?” They’d apparently decided that Borgnine/Judson, who’d called Sinatra a “wop” two or three times in Eternity, was some kind of symbol for all the racist bullies they’d known in their lives, all the guys who’d picked on Italians or denigrated them with slurs.Borgnine gradually realized that there was no avoiding fisticuffs, so he offered to take them on one at a time if that’s how it had to be. One of the Italian guys said something to another in Italian, and Borgnine, born in Hamden, Connecticut to Italian-immigrant parents, answered back in the same tongue. The air of hostility immediately ceased.For several years I’ve tried to find a video clip of Borgnine telling this story, and I’ve never had any luck.(More…) July 14, 2022 12:45 pmby Jeffrey Wells No CommentsSucked Out Of PlanesThis is a weird detour but when I think of passengers falling out of airplanes, I think of three scenes: (a) Eddie Albert‘s Cadet Hughes falling out of a B-17 at 20,000 feet in Bombardier (’43), (b) Gert Frobe‘s portly Auric Goldfinger getting sucked out of a small window in a private airborne jet in Goldfinger (’64) and (c) Ed Nelson‘s Major Alexander, a 747 co-pilot, getting sucked out of a smashed cockpit window in Airport 75.Frobe’s Goldfinger scene was played for laughs, and if you ask me so was Nelson’s in Airport 1975. But Albert’s death scene was shocking and chilling.34 years ago this same ghastly fate happened to Aloha Airlines senior stewardess Clarabelle “C.B.” Lansing. Through maintenance dereliction a tear in the fuselage was ignored and the roof above the first-class section of an Oahu-bound flight #243 was ripped off by wind velocity, and Lansing was sucked out. Her body was never recovered.Yesterday morning I happened to watch a cartoonish video about Aloha Flight #243, produced by the “Be Amazed” YouTube channel — a brand apparently aimed at children. The animated images of the crew and passengers aren’t just primitive but wildly insensitive. Consider the below illustration of Lansing’s misfortune.I’m not a scolder as a rule, but imagine if Lansing had a close family relative or a friend and they came upon this video. July 14, 2022 11:53 amby Jeffrey Wells No CommentsHammer in the CaymansYesterday afternoon Variety‘s Elizabeth Wagmeister and Sasha Urban reported that TMZ’s 7.9.22 report about Armie Hammer is true — he is indeed working at a certain hotel resort in the Cayman Islands (i.e., Morritts Resort), and reportedly focusing on selling timeshares.Excerpt: “A source tells Variety that Hammer is indeed working selling timeshares at a hotel in the Caymans, and that all other reports suggesting otherwise are inaccurate. ‘He is working at the resort and selling timeshares. He is working at a cubicle,” [the source] explains. “The reality is he’s totally broke, and is trying to fill the days and earn money to support his family.”Armie’s salesman hair is too short. He looks better with longer, wavier hair and the bushy beard.Update: Vanity Fair‘s Julie Miller has reported that at the height of Hammer’s career meltdown, which apparently had something to do with a substance issue, Robert Downey, Jr. stepped in a like a big brother and paid for Hammer’s nearly six-month rehab stay. July 14, 2022 10:34 amby Jeffrey Wells No Comments#MeToo-Stamped “Spotlight”…DefinitelyA friend was a tad skeptical about the trailer for Maria Schrader‘s She Said (Universal, 11.18), which popped this morning. Actually two friends were, but this film is going to sail through.“No, no…this is good,” I replied. “I can feel it. It has discipline, tension…first-rate acting from Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan and, as Weinstein employee Zelda Perkins, Samantha Morton. A well-honed screenplay by Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Nicholas Britell‘s music is a little overbearing** but this is Spotlight again.”This is a Best Picture contender — no question, no doubt. If Spotlight can get there, this can too.The victims weren’t children being molested by priests and some who were invited to Harvey’s first-class hotel rooms had to be at least wary of what might happen, but this is one of those social justice, social portraiture flicks that can’t miss, at least as far as a Best Picture nomination is concerned.“Apparently Harvey isn’t played by anyone. Well, he is, but not as a speaking character with a puss. There’s a clip of a big fat guy we see from the rear, but we don’t see his face. We hear Harvey’s voice on a speakerphone during a conference call, but his voice isn’t deep or punchy enough.”A guy who’s allegedly caught a research screening:“Better than a TV movie. Not sure about Best Picture, but Samantha Morton and Carey Mulligan are the MVPs. Very intelligently made and well-directed. They smartly show the effect of the abuse. Victims go back to the hotel rooms, reenact what happened in the bed and shower, but with their clothes on. It’s very Spotlight, maybe too much so. It also has a fantastic ending. We never get to see Weinstein’s face, only see his back and hear his voice.”Pic is produced by Plan B’s Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner.Lenkiewicz’s screenplay is based on Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s “She Said.”(More…) July 14, 2022 10:13 amby Jeffrey Wells No CommentsDrowning in Carver WeltschmerzSincere apologies to Larry Karaszewski, but I don’t have many fond memories of Robert Altman‘s Short Cuts (’93). I saw it 29 years ago, once, and all I remember is the faintly dreary vibes and the cast behaving in the usual eccentric, Altman-esque ways and the visual drabness and the Julianne Moore-Matthew Modine argument scene with the pubic hair and that soul-baring scene with Jack Lemmon “acting” in his usual actor-ish fashion.I “respect” Short Cuts, of course, but there’s a reason why I haven’t re-watched it in all this time. The reason is the miserable downishness of Raymond Carver‘s short stories. If I was suddenly stuck in a Carver story or wearing the shoes of a Carver character, I would become a heroin addict.Respectful disagreement with the late Michael Wilmington: “Short Cuts is a Los Angeles jazz rhapsody that represents Robert Altman at an all-time personal peak—and it came at just the right time in his career. For anyone who believed that what American movies needed most, after the often-moribund cinematic eighties, was more of the old Altman independent spirit and maverick brilliance — and more of a sense of what the country really is, rather than what it should be — the director’s sudden cinematic reemergence with 1992’s The Player and 1993’s Short Cuts was an occasion for bravos.” July 13, 2022 4:37 pmby Jeffrey Wells No Comments80 Years on Planet EarthWithout even thinking it through it’s my earnest belief that Harrison Ford‘s best performance ever is Jack Ryan in Clear and Present Danger (’94), followed by his Philadelphia detective in Witness (’85 — his only Best Actor nomination), Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back (’80), Ally Fox in The Mosquito Coast (’86), Deckard in Blade Runner (’82), the widower in Random Hearts, the hosthot executive in Working Girl and the TV anchor in Morning Glory.[Posted two years ago] “Frantic is an example of the kind of film that we used to make in the olden days, and for me [there were certain] directors who were really important in the formation of a career. I didn’t actually do it all myself. I got to work with Alan Pakula, Sydney Pollack, Mike Nichols, Phillip Noyce, Roman Polanski, Peter Weir, Ridley Scott, Wolfgang Petersen].“Those kinds of films are as important on a human level as, uh, those more successful films” — the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. “Which I keep revisiting in interview situations, because they are the most successful films.” [Unspoken: “Most successful” because your basic whiteside and T-shirt-wearing knuckle draggers obsess over these films and seem to need them like babies need their blankies.]“But [making big franchise movies for the unwashed salivating hordes] is not what makes a life. That’s not what makes a career. That’s not what brings pleasure to the pursuit of something effable.” — Harrison Ford, starting around the 8:26 mark.Why, then, did Ford turn down the Michael Douglas role in Traffic? And why did he make something so flagrantly non-organic and digitally antiseptic as Call of the Wild? Legend has it that a lot of what Ford agreed to do over the last 20 years was first and foremost about producers meeting his quote. The bottom line (and please correct me if I’m wrong) seems to be that “the kind of films that we used to make in the olden days” are to some extent still being made, but their producers can’t afford Ford.(More…) July 13, 2022 2:33 pmby Jeffrey Wells No CommentsGreat ParentingRemember that scene in Manchester by the Sea when Casey Affleck is arguing with Lucas Hedges and finally says “I’m gonna knock your fucking block off” and director-writer Kenneth Lonergan, playing a passerby, sarcastically says “great parenting” to Affleck and the yelling ratches up another couple of notches?Let’s imagine another scene in which a pair of Philadelphia brothers, aged 10 and 14, voluntarily surrender to the cops over having killed a 73-year-old guy (James Lambert) who was beaten to death on 6.24.22.Imagine that you’re aware of the whole story behind this tragedy, and you come upon the parents of these kids outside the police precinct. What would be the appropriate dialogue? Would you say “great parenting” or would you say “the poor guy was beaten to death around 3 am, for Chrissake…what kind of parents let their kids run wild at 3 am?? And what kind of parents raise kids who would even want to beat a guy to death??”A 10 year-old kid who helps beat an old guy to death is going to turn out wrong…that’s obvious. But imagine how it feels if you’re the father or the mother of these little shits.Friendo: “This story is a complete disaster and one the media will barely cover, for obvious reasons.”HE: “What do you mean ‘a complete disaster’? It was a matter of neighborhood culture and whatnot, but mainly derelict parenting…poisonous, appalling, derelict parenting.” July 13, 2022 2:15 pmby Jeffrey Wells No Comments“All You’re Seeing Is The Beliefs of the Writers”“[Many of today’s] screenwriters have gone to college for four or five years, and where they’ve been told incessantly [that] the world is inherently racist and sexist…everyone is awful, everyone hates each other and it’s just this big heirarchy of everyone getting oppressed by everyone else, and so that’s going to be reflected in what they write and what they try to rationalize in their stories, and that’s why [we’re getting what we’re getting].”In the view of Will Jordan‘s “Critical Drinker” (or, if you will, just plain Jordan) a good portion of the woke poisoning of iconic characters has happened under the influence of the Disney death star.“They took over the Stars Wars brand, they took over Marvel…and in the case of Star Wars you would see characters like Han Solo, Luke Skywalker…these classic heroes from 20, 30 years ago” — actually 40 to 45 years ago — “that were awesome, and suddenly they’re gettin’ brought back and [they’ve become] deadbeat dads or grumpy old men livin’ on an island, and they want to die and have lost all hope…it’s a terrible thing to do to these characters…it’s one thing to kill them off, and another to destroy their legacy and the very essence of who they were.” July 13, 2022 1:12 pmby Jeffrey Wells No CommentsMoths to FlamesSara Dosa‘s Fire of Love (Neon/National Geographic, 7.6) tells the story of devoted (one could say obsessive) volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who died in a volcanic explosion atop Japan’s Mount Unzen on 6.3.91 — 31 years ago.The married couple — French natives, deep soulmates — had been studying, cataloguing, filming and photo-snapping volcanic eruptions since the early ’70s, and were among the most fearless and exacting in their field.Dosa’s 93-minute doc is mostly composed of volcano footage (color, 16mm) that the Kraffts shot over the years, and which apparently was only made accessible to Dosa and her producers somewhat recently. The film also contains a fair amount of footage of the Kraffts themselves.The dynamic visuals (miles-high clouds of gray ash, thunderous rumbling, pools of intense red-gold lava bubbling over and streaming down mountainsides) are exciting or at least fascinating until they become familiar, at which point you’re left with “okay, here are some more lava flows” and “wow, more shots of nuclear blast ash clouds.”The problem, for me, is Dosa’s decision to weave it all together with Miranda July‘s whispering, barely enunciated narration. I was on the verge of abandoning the doc because of this aspect. July sounds like a parent quietly reading a Babar the Elephant story to a small child at bedtime.The idea, presumably, is to pass along a certain romantic sensibility as well as (I gathered) soft-spoken Katia’s view of volcano worship, marriage, the twists and turns of nature…the whole magilla. But if ever a narration track rubbed me the wrong way, it was this one..The honest truth is that I found Fire of Love a tad boring at first. If the Kraffts hadn’t been killed there would be no film, just as Werner Herzog‘s Grizzly Man wouldn’t have been a film if Timothy Treadwell hadn’t been eaten by a bear.Herzog’s Into The Inferno (’16) covers roughly the same ground as Fire of Love, and I for one found it a bit more intriguing than Dosa’s decent–enough film.Why were the Kraffts so into volcanoes? “Both Katia and I got into volcanology because we were disappointed in humanity,” Maurice said. “Since a volcano is greater than man, we felt this is what we need. Something beyond human understanding.”But were they really seeking a mystical communion with the primal forces of nature? Or were the Kraffts simply volcano junkies in the same way that some photojournalists obsessively cover war zones, and Joanne and Bill Harding (Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton) were tornado junkies in Twister?The Kraffts were doing valuable work, but they were primarily, it seems to me, moths lured by flame. Was their story a replay of the ancient myth of Icarus? You could certainly start with that interpretation.The Kraffts were killed not by lava but a pyroclastic cloud — a fast-moving current of boiling hot gas and volcanic matter that flows along the ground away from a volcano at average speeds of 100 kph but sometimes as fast as 700 kph. They and American volcanologist Harry Glicken were standing on a ridge near the volcano and suddenly the cloud surged up and over and killed them “instantly.”I found it odd that Dosa’s doc doesn’t mention that 43 people were killed that day by the same tragic event — the Kraffts, Glicken and 40 journalists. Wouldn’t the deaths of so many people in the same area warrant an explanation of what happened? Dosa barely gets into the specifics.Narration quote: “Katia and Maurice know that these [volcanic] rocks will long outlive them. They are not religious. [They know] we all have one short life, and then we return to the ground.”Okay, except I knew that large rocks would outlive me when I was nine years old and going on nature hikes with my Cub Scout pack. I remember asking this very question of an adult — “how long have these rocks been here?” Thousands of years, I was told. (More…) July 13, 2022 12:38 pmby Jeffrey Wells Page 1 of 3,9201234»102030...Last ».srpw-more-link a {font-family:arial,san-serif;font-size:9px;}.srpw-summary {font-size:13px;font-family:georgia;line-height:13px;padding-left:5px;}.srpw-title {font-family:arial,san-serif;font-size:18px;font-style:justify;font-weight:bold;}.srpw-meta {font-family:arial,san-serif;padding-left:5px;}.srpw-comments {font-family:arial,san-serif;font-size:11px;padding-left:5px;}Feeling Larson’s PainNovember 21, 2021I gradually came to respect Lin Manuel Miranda‘s Tick Tick…Boom (Netflix, now streaming). I was even emotionally affected by it...More »And Away We Go…November 18, 20219:30 pm: A for vision, A for speaking comic truth, A for Leonardo DiCaprio’s explosive acting in two temper-tantrum scenes...More »Limp “Rifkin” Against Scenic BackdropFebruary 12, 2021Last night I streamed Woody Allen‘s Rifkin’s Festival, and I’m afraid I can only echo what critics who caught it...More ».srpw-more-link a {font-family:arial,san-serif;font-size:9px;}.srpw-summary {font-size:13px;font-family:georgia;line-height:13px;padding-left:5px;}.srpw-title {font-family:arial,san-serif;font-size:15px;font-style:justify;font-weight:bold;}.srpw-meta {font-family:arial,san-serif;padding-left:5px;}.srpw-comments {font-family:arial,san-serif;font-size:11px;padding-left:5px;}Rittenhouse ReflectionNovember 20, 2021Yesterday a Facebook friend chose to process the Kyle Rittenhouse “not guilty” verdict through a racial lens, using the whole...More »“Friends of Varinia” ReturnsMarch 10, 2021Here’s a re-posting of a classic HE essay titled “Friends of Varinia.” It originally appeared on 2012, and was reposted...More »Four Heston RecallsMarch 9, 2021Charlton Heston passed on 4.5.08 at age 84. The poor guy had been grappling with Alzheimer’s Disease for the previous...More » asdfas asdf asdf asdf asdfasdf asdfasdf© 2004-2022 Hollywood-elsewhere.com / All rights reserved.#rev_slider_1_1_wrapper .uranus.tparrows{width:50px; height:50px; background:rgba(255,255,255,0)}#rev_slider_1_1_wrapper .uranus.tparrows:before{width:50px; height:50px; line-height:50px; font-size:40px; transition:all 0.3s;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s}#rev_slider_1_1_wrapper .uranus.tparrows.rs-touchhover:before{opacity:0.75}!function(){window.advanced_ads_ready_queue=window.advanced_ads_ready_queue||[],advanced_ads_ready_queue.push=window.advanced_ads_ready;for(var d=0,a=advanced_ads_ready_queue.length;d