“I was expecting to feel really badly this morning. Now not so much. The nominations are what matter & what sells so hooray for David O. Russell's Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay nominations for Silver Linings Playbook, and also Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro and Jackie Weaver's noms — four for effing four. Eight nominations in all. That's industry emotion. I knew. And I stood alone, all alone, against an army of haters who are now silent and seething. Bitches!”

--Jeff Wells on his “Hollywood Elsewhere” site after the annoucement of the 2012 Oscar nominees.

Wells is often interesting to read but he's also a pompadoured chest-beater who seems to imagine himself the hero of his own action movie--even as he disparages most of the action movies coming out of Hollywood. “I stood alone! All alone! Against an army of haters!” Every person contains a paradox, a contradiction, which they live with everyday, but most people's paradoxes and contradictions aren't so immediately apparent. Jeff Wells' is right out there.

As for “Silver Linings Playbook”? Liked the beginning, got worried in the middle, hated the end. “Let's ignore everything thus far for a bet and a dance competition. And two attractive people, the stars of the movie, coming together in the end. To watch football.” For the Academy this meant eight nominations. Add it to the list of things they get wrong.

“I know you're bi-polar, I know I'm nuts, I know your dad is OCD: But if we just have your Dad bet double-or-nothing on both the Eagles game and you and I in this dance competition, I bet we can win his money back and fall in love! Just in time for the ending!”

All previous entries