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Never Cursed wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 5:48 pm The last few days of his posts have basically been nothing but him ranting about his inability to use the Cannes virtual ticketing website, preventing him from attending a great number of screenings.

With disaster all around, Columbia looked for a villain to hold responsible. It found one in a freelance writer named Jeffrey Wells, who had already earned the studio’s disfavor by writing that Mark Canton had snoozed through a screening of The Age of Innocence. The same article said that, while Canton was at Warner Bros. he had been assigned to work on Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet and had asked for a plot summary.

But all that was merely a prelude to what Columbia would see as Wells’s unforgivable transgression. The piece speculated about a disastrous Hero screening that had allegedly taken place in Pasadena in late May, according to “varied sources, from actors, directors, and film industry executives to social workers, bodybuilders, and dental technicians.”

Canton’s headache worsened on Monday morning when En- tertainment Weekly arrived with a cover story billed: scHWARz- ENEGGER FINISHES “LAST”!! The article emphasized “the re- writes, reshoots and rumors,” reinforcing the idea that the film was troubled and out of control, with its budget soaring to $120 million. Jeffrey Wells was credited as a contributor to the story. In a rage, Canton had the offending issues of EW pulled from the shelves of the Columbia bookstore.

The movie was going down and somebody had to be blamed. At 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 15, a three-page letter was sent to editor John Lindsay at the Los Angeles Times. Signed by Mark Gill, it was a declaration of war: “Columbia Pictures will be out of business with the entire Los Angeles Times editorial staff as of noon on Monday, June 21 unless you guarantee that your paper will never again run a story written by Jeff Wells about (or even mentioning) this studio, its executives, or its movies.” If the newspaper failed to respond, all Times reporters would be barred from studio screenings and their phone calls would go unreturned. Columbia was also considering pulling its re- ported $5 million in advertising from the paper. “In my three years as Calendar editor,” Lindsay said then, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Such hardball tactics left the Times with no choice but to stand by its story and its reporter: The paper could not be seen as caving in to Columbia. Lindsay defended the “Phantom Screening” piece on the grounds that it reported on rumors of the screening and gave adequate space to the studio’s denials. Nevertheless, Calendar movie editor Claudia Eller called sources trying to verify that there had been a Pasadena screen- ing, while Wells desperately tried to get his original sources on the phone. But the “social workers, bodybuilders, and dental technicians” had either disappeared or recanted their stories.

Convinced that Wells had deliberately spread lies, Columbia executives tried to damage Wells’s reputation with prospective employers. One Columbia executive referred to him as “a cockroach in a nuclear war” that had to be destroyed.

Jeffrey Wells, meanwhile, finally gave up trying to nail down the confirmation he needed to salvage his reputation regard- ing that elusive Pasadena screening. His sources, like the screening, turned out to be phantoms. “My conclusion is that it didn’t happen,” he said, expressing “complete befuddlement” that people would fabricate such information.

The same article said that, while Canton was at Warner Bros. he had been assigned to work on Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet and had asked for a plot summary.

“varied sources, from actors, directors, and film industry executives to social workers, bodybuilders, and dental technicians.”

JabbaTheSlut wrote: Fri Aug 26, 2022 1:41 pm

The same article said that, while Canton was at Warner Bros. he had been assigned to work on Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet and had asked for a plot summary.

“varied sources, from actors, directors, and film industry executives to social workers, bodybuilders, and dental technicians.”

Hahaha. Genius.

Convinced that Wells had deliberately spread lies, Columbia executives tried to damage Wells’s reputation with prospective employers. One Columbia executive referred to him as “a cockroach in a nuclear war” that had to be destroyed.

That is an amusing mangling of a metaphor that inadvertently reveals that they may have known deep down that they could never truly, finally, absolutely destroy Wells!

If I, Jeffrey Wells, were to suddenly be thrust into the living pages of Bethan Roberts‘ romance novel and thereby literally become Tom Burgess, a young British policeman in 1950s Brighton, I would not secretly fall in love with Patrick Hazlewood, a 40ish museum curator. I might find him excellent company and a good fellow, but no heavy breathing…sorry.

Primarily because (a) I’m not gay despite lifelong metrosexual tendencies, (b) because David Dawson (who plays Hazlewood) isn’t good looking enough, (c) because I’m more or less committed to being a good husband to Emma Corrin‘s Marion, even if she lacks the sensuality of Ingrid Bergman, (d) because I’ve never found men’s hairy legs the least bit attractive and (e) because I’ve always been profoundly fearful of or turned off by certain physical intimacies that would go with the territory. (Sorry but I don’t think I’m alone on that one.)

If I, Jeffrey Wells, were to suddenly be thrust into the living pages of Bethan Roberts‘ romance novel and thereby literally become Tom Burgess, a young British policeman in 1950s Brighton, I would not secretly fall in love with Patrick Hazlewood, a 40ish museum curator. I might find him excellent company and a good fellow, but no heavy breathing…sorry.

Primarily because (a) I’m not gay despite lifelong metrosexual tendencies, (b) because David Dawson (who plays Hazlewood) isn’t good looking enough, (c) because I’m more or less committed to being a good husband to Emma Corrin‘s Marion, even if she lacks the sensuality of Ingrid Bergman, (d) because I’ve never found men’s hairy legs the least bit attractive and (e) because I’ve always been profoundly fearful of or turned off by certain physical intimacies that would go with the territory. (Sorry but I don’t think I’m alone on that one.)

Computer Raheem wrote:I got the vague hint of whatever nonsense he's spewing, but can someone translate this into actual English?

Also, I wonder what would happen if someone told him that Emma Corrin is non-binary?

Huh. I guess that explains why they didn’t make MY POLICEMAN about Jeffrey Wells.

Though a time travel film about you bulldozing through 1950s Brighton while grumbling at guys, “I’m not gay! Plus you’re not hot enough!” would provide a certain entertainment of its own.

Matt wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 1:15 am Thank you anyway, Jeff. The straights are stuck with you

Matt wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 1:15 am If I, Jeffrey Wells, suddenly found myself the main character in this entirely fictional book/film, I would simply not be gay.

I am definitely not gay (despite owning a comb and more than one pair of pants), and I know that I am definitely not gay because:
- David Dawson is not hot
- Emma Corrin is hot
- I don’t like leg hair
- Ew, butt stuff

Maurice Micklewhite wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 1:58 am
Wells knows.

He wrote a review of the Corrin-starring "Lady Chatterley's Lover" that she doesn't generate sufficient heterosexual heat for the role.

He's now put the piece behind the paywall.

https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/curious-blockage/

Then, apropos of nothing, he wrote another post about how hot Ingrid Bergman was as opposed to how not-hot Corrin is.

The closest thing you'll get to an explanation for Wells' thought process is the following comment on his site.

Huh. I guess that explains why they didn’t make MY POLICEMAN about Jeffrey Wells.

Though a time travel film about you bulldozing through 1950s Brighton while grumbling at guys, “I’m not gay! Plus you’re not hot enough!” would provide a certain entertainment of its own.

domino harvey wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 2:14 am No one thinks Wells is gay, literally the cringiest thing he or possibly anyone has ever done verifies it. Maybe he’ll use it as his next defense

Everything’s cool now (I think), but for three or four days a close friend was giving me the cold-shoulder treatment because I’m not a fan of Martin McDonagh‘s The Banshees of Inisherin.

HE to friendo: “Banshees obviously has its virtues and charms and its pictorial beauty and whatnot, but the [afore-mentioned nihilism] is ridiculous. THR‘s Scott Feinberg isn’t demonic for sharing my reaction or vice versa. There are many sane people out there who’ve found this film mystifying. I really don’t think I deserve to be shunned or banished for feeling this way. I respect many things about it. It’s not ‘bad’ as much as infuriating.”

That isn't what happened. Here is how it went. My cat died a terrible death in the vet. I had wanted to bring him home after finding out he had lung cancer. But the vet told me I had to end his life that day because it was too cruel to make him suffer any longer. I was distraught, very very sad. He was a cat that was found on Mulholland as a kitten half dead. He had a hernia operation and then ate thread and almost died. He lived 12 years after that and it was hard letting him go. I told you how excited I was about you seeing Banshees. So on the day my cat died, which you knew, you chose that opportunity to SCREAM at me about how bad, how ugly, how DISEASED this movie was. On and on it went, text message after text message. I told you to stop. You wouldn't.

Then you said: I'm sorry about your cat. Shortly thereafter you sent me a letter someone sent you about the movie that they didn't like -- I asked you to stop. It was a movie I loved, a movie I thought you would love. BUT YOU COULD NOT HEAR THE MOVIE AND REFUSED TO ADMIT YOU COULD NOT HEAR IT. So you blamed the movie for that. See it again, I said. Listen to the dialogue I said. IT'S DISEASED you insisted.

This was not my fault. This was YOUR fault. And now you seem like loving a movie has to be a team sport. You have to find people to hate the movie to prove that it is worthy of your hate (because you could not hear a word of it). People loving movies is not a crime, Jeff. It is a gift. It is a wonderful thing. You didn't love it, so what. Watch it again. Try to understand it.

But if you came away with this thinking I blocked you because you didn't like the movie you have way too high of an opinion of yourself. I don't care what you thought about it - I would have loved it if you loved it. The problem was that you kept coming at me when I was in a bad way and sad and I didn't want to hear it.

Also: it doesn't matter to me who didn't love the movie. I loved Empire of Light and the critics killed it out of Telluride. That sucked. But they weren't texting me as a friend telling me how terrible the movie was even when I asked them to stop.

You know I have had your back so many times - defended you so many times. In so many different ways. It isn't that hard for you to extend a tiny bit of kindness on occasion.

And finally, if you find my behavior repugnant, you should get a look at yours.

MongooseCmr wrote:No, he takes boner pills as an anti-depressant(?) and is surprised when he’s rock hard at the grocery store