Wells says it's tragic that the new One-Eyed Jacks restoration will be in 1.85:1 instead of the full VistaVision neg ratio of 1.5:1 (and so presumably feels this way about all VistaVision productions?). Much of the extra visual information he desires would of course have never made it to release prints at the time.

For a time, Wells seemed to believe that any flat widescreen film made before the mid-to-late '60s should be presented in full frame. He offered various justifications, typically some combination of a) filmmakers needed time (roughly a decade, apparently) to properly adjust to widescreen framing, so the films look better with open mattes; b) filmmakers knew that people would eventually watch these films on TV and subconsciously framed for 4:3; and c) headroom is good. He's since realized this is a futile crusade and now pushes for 1.66:1, regardless of how the film was projected at the time or even the director's stated preference—for instance, he complained to Peter Becker about Richard Lester's decision to present A Hard Day's Night at 1.75:1.

Jiminy Glick has nothing on wellshwad

Holy shit...


Wells is now at David Thomson level of creepiness, with the added bonus of good Lesbian stereotyping.

The best / worst thing about Wells is that not only he casually writes things like that, but he also thinks he HAS TO answer about people calling him on this. He's like the guy who doesn't know when to speak but also when to just shut up.

If this is just a mild-mannered cautiously and respectfully phrased observation, I can't even imagine what he reads like when he's going wilder.

Also, I believe that this explains just sooooooo much and I almost feel sad for him but actually no :

Political correctness has gone too far when elderly perverts can't masturbate on their keyboards w/o millennials trying to make them feel bad.

I remember a time when elderly perverts didn't feel the need to express what they're mastubated on, as if they HAD to or if people really cared about it. I wish this time could be back, sometimes.

http://gawker.com/brave-male-film-critic-shares-thoughts-on-how-he-would-1784483193

Gawker linked to this thread

Well, there you go, you've all just put more money into his pockets

Wow. Out of all of the awful stuff he has done or said, is this the worst? I haven't read him in over 8 years (though I enjoy this thread).

The Vinessa Shaw thing was the worst. There's (thankfully) probably no way for anyone to come back from that, so nothing from Wells since surprises me anymore

Wow

What a piece of shit.

Apologies to the board. I've missed most of this somehow.

He probably thinks what he writes is un-PC, but it's actually only very immature. When he doesn't write BS about some movies ("there's too much grain on Stagecaoch", "A Hard Day's Night should be 1.66"), he writes social posts which have the maturity of a 15 years-old.
No, wait : I remember when I was 15 and actually had some friends who were more mature than that.

But in some ways, it's working for him : for every of his stupid post like the Kirsten Stewart one, there are multiple articles being written, putting him in the spotlights (even if for the wrong reasons). It's probably not giving him any long-term readers, but he certainly gets to be known that way.

So, Wells is sort of the Trump of "film critics"?

I actually thought of that comparison.

In several of the pieces linked above, commenters were posting photos of Wells with the idea that in the looks department, those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. A few folks responded that to do that is to sink down to Wells's level, but I think they're sorely underestimating just how far down one would have to go to get to that level. It would probably take years of work with intensive study of PUA "negging" techniques and lessons on "what women are like."

A little more than Trump, he reminds me a little more of Cabbage Head from Kids in the Hall: he considers himself a wit and makes a lot of douche-ily insulting comments in a self-amused way. In at least one of those sketches, Cabbage makes a comment to a woman he barely knows about her body and then hedges with "But I don't mean that in a sexist way!" Textbook Wells. And when things aren't going his way, he jumps into the role of the wronged party, the unfairly-treated and resentful victim, just like Cabbage Head Man.

Their voices are extremely different, though. There was an audio clip on Hollywood Elsewhere once of Jeff calling a police department in search of one of his big black cowboy hats and his voice was very soft.

I'm assuming after his email scandal, he's just doubling down on the Kanye tactic, and poking at celebrities to see if they will drive more traffic to his site. I assume that worked out just fine with Jennifer Lawrence, so what's he got to lose? I had never read him before this thread, for instance.

If he thinks he's being Kanye then he's probably more deluded than I thought.
And if he's really getting exactly what he wants with this stuff, then I can't see why he's always such a baby about it (and that's saying that is genuinely unfair to babies).
If he's being a troll and trying to get a rise out of people, then I'd think he'd sit back and enjoy the reaction rather than getting on the defensive: "Hey, everyone stop being mean to meeee!!" which shows that others have gotten a rise out of him and he's had the tables turned on him.

Also he used to do this kind of thing only once in a while, with hundreds or thousands of more routine blog posts in between, so I'm inclined to think all the stuff that he posts is what comes naturally to him and not any kind of act to get attention.

It's true that he probably has little to lose now that he's widely seen as a joke, but he could probably still lose:
- access to celebrities and places to go and be a film blogger with all the comped hotel rooms and other perks
- whatever respect he has left from anyone in the world who isn't like the commenters on his site who say things that are even dumber than Wells's own badly expressed points (e.g., "Bisexual is not an identity, just a confusion" and [regarding lesbian couples: "There's no sex though. Lesbians seem to like cuddling. That's why a lot of asexual women become lesbians, less pressure to do anything sexually.")