jeffrey wells

How Older, White Critics Have Missed the Boat on ‘Rachel Getting Married’

5:09AM Kyle Buchanan | Most of the attention paid to Jonathan Demme’s new film Rachel Getting Married has centered on the Oscar-buzzed lead performance from Anne Hathaway, but many critics are consumed with something the movie treats as a non-event: the fact that the titular Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) is marrying a black man, Sidney (Tunde Adebimpe of the band TV on the Radio). The interracial nature of their relationship goes unremarked upon throughout the entire film, and that fact is vexing several film critics, who dismiss such a notion as a fantasy. Enjoy their thinly veiled discomfort with the shocking idea that white people can marry black people in 2008 without someone giving a speech about it, after the jump! More »

Bill O’Reilly Devours Conscience-Stricken Movie Blogger

10:10AM STV | Jon Voight’s recent toe-dip into the murky pool of political commentary attracted more than a few piranhas, the hungriest of whom may have been Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells. And after a July 29 blog item suggested freezing Voight’s career as payback for his public condemnation of Barack Obama (”If I were a producer and I had to make a casting decision about hiring Voight or some older actor who hadn’t pissed me off with an idiotic Washington Times op-ed piece, I might very well say to myself, ‘Voight? Let him eat cake’”), Bill O’Reilly came a-calling last night with a theory about a new Hollywood blacklist against conservatives. While we (and Wells himself, apparently) had hoped for a more bloodthirsty offensive from Wells, we’re endlessly engrossed by his session on Dr. O’Reilly’s couch, elucidating the vengeful feelings inherent to angry industry bloggers everywhere. Seriously, Bill, this is nothing — wait until Oscar season. [Fox News] More »