And I would never ban DZ.

Or maybe he just had fewer people to quote in his scatter-brained responses.

Point is, it ain’t what it used to be, and probably never will be again. For the first half of 2008, HE contained some of the best (film or otherwise) back-and-forth I’ve ever witnessed on ye olde Internets.

Here’s some news for y’all: Jeff’s reader count hasn’t dropped a whit since the purge, and his blog doesn’t miss you (collectively) in the slightest. It is still its own beast, and the commentaries are much, much better without the constant blathering from all of those who would mutate film threads into political threads. Which - sorry - makes it a much better read.

But continue to have fun with the self-deluded mutual stroking, boys!

[And, yes, "R. Conquest"... they most assuredly 'would'.]

He also has an abysmal taste in film.

“One last thought from here about this thread. It says something about the relationship between Wells and his readers that he wanted to do something about “soul sucking” films, that he loathed. And his readers go to films that they love.”

And those threads are what made HE probably the greatest film site on the web…for a brief time. The purge had nothing to do with getting rid of right-wingers since I was booted and as you might know, I’m a little bit to the left of Chomsky. But I did defend those like Mgmax or Sobchak who had a differing opine. Burma, Prager and some others had no problem with Well’s sociopathic behavior, but then, they’re li’l blog bullies too.

And the site is now reduced to hilarity about Wells and his Sundance cowboy hat. Onward.

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2008/02/eternal_polluti.php

But okay, dozens is probably more accurate in general. Still, quality is what matters most, not quantity, I don’t see how you can argue that didn’t take a kamikaze dive when Jeff deliberately alienated half of his readers (at the behest of some Hollywood type he was sucking up to, if you read the original post… talk about a man of firm convictions).

And I think it’s important to make a big distinction between whatever sickos may have fired off a dumbass threat following his O’Reilly appearance and the “right-wingers” (again, who ranged from Bushies to Clintonites) who generally behaved more civilly than the lefties. It would be very unfair to smear the longtime participants with that kind of drive-by stupidity and ugliness.

Or let’s put it this way: do you believe that Walter, Max, Josh Massey or their like would have thrown BurmaShave, Christian, George Prager or D.Z. off just for holding different opinions?

It is strange that the one thing that actually got him national exposure beyond film circles (the non-calling for of Jon Voight’s blacklisting) is the one thing that was left off this list. Of course, that is also the thing that brought him actual hate-mail and I believe a few hyperbolic death threats which is what set the stage for his purge of RWers from the site.

http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2008/09/fuming.php

It’s understandable why he would have to go strangers on craigslist to help him with a personal issue that any good friend could have handled. Sad.

This one will do just fine, it was often pretty entertaining watching Sobchak or Max or whoever get bemusedly surreal in response to the increasingly splenetic Bush-hatred and irrelevant fact spouting of people like D.Z. (A favorite was when D.Z. was going off about Prescott Bush or Enron or something and one of them started replying to him with recipes.) But the really sad thing is that there were actual film threads on there and a lot of those guys really knew something about film. (Which, no doubt, is why they had to go from the Wells-centric universe.) Those threads would go on for hundreds of comments and really have a lot of interesting stuff in them.

Now even the political threads rarely get more than 30 or so and the actual film-related ones are thinner yet (in both quantity and quality). Wells blew his site’s brains out when he purged it, not only getting rid of many of the best people but killing the conversation among those who remained– including himself.

http://www.hollywood-newsroom.com/news/jeffery-wells-of-hollywood-elsewherecom-vs-bill-oreilly-over-blacklisting-jon-voight/

Been reading Jeff since the Reel.com days…

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2007/12/boston_cab_alte.php

Plus, his description of Tim Roth is priceless:

http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2008/06/all_right.php

“Poor Tim Roth does an okay job as the Hulk’s nemesis, but his head is growing larger and larger the older he gets — he’s looking like one of those bobbing-head football dolls — plus his nose is getting bigger, his shoulders are way too narrow and he seems to be as short as Dustin Hoffman.”

R Conquest and Allen are right, the most damaging thing was the self-described Stalinist purge of the summer. Many long time posters were kicked off and the place is poorer for it. Not that it’s been apparent due to the election year high political posts.

All that said, the one thing you got wrong was the “No. Fucking. Idea.” It was clearly a mash-up of the year’s catch phrases presented as a challenge for the film freaks.

And yes, the infamous 3:10 to Yuma nude pictures incident was in 2007. That one got me my first banning.

OR, even better, the one where he basically said the people in Texas deserve what they get from the hurricane because they’ve profited from oil?

This dude is a class A douchebag. A fucking scum, and definitely at the top of my list of People I’d Love to Meet in a Dark Alley One Night. Look at that haircut! To quote Weird Science, “Anybody with a haircut like that, gotta be an asshole.”

However, I’ve read his bio, but no where do I see any reference to a college degree. Does he have a degree? Or is he self-taught? Not that there’s anything wrong with that…He’s obviously intelligent and well versed in film. Just curious.

What folks like pinko leave out is that Wells got rid of anybody calling him on his Stalinist bs, left center or right. And look how hard-ass Wells folded on O’Reilly. Tough as tissue that one.

But the hat thing is classic.

1. The Stalinist Purge
More and more Wells was turning his movie blog into a low-rent Obama shill site. The problem was, the non-Obama-koolaid-drinkers (inevitably referred to as rightwingers, though often as not Hillary supporters or merely admirers of clear logic) like Walter Sobchak and Mgmax and Hickenlooper would take his cranky “observations” and the leftwing rants of commenters like SpinDozer and D.Z. and tear them apart. Finally Wells couldn’t take it any more, and so imagining himself a bloggy Che Guevara, he purged all dissenting points of view from his blog in what even he, with no apparent irony, admitted was a “Stalinist purge.” The trouble was, the “rightwingers” included many of the people who actually knew something about movies visiting his site, and now he only has the political ranters left, and posts about actual movies draw mostly silence from his much diminished base of commenters.
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2008/08/stalinist_purge.php

2. The “Omaba” Incident
This is the one that shows why he’s untrustworthy and shouldn’t be allowed to operate a keyboard. A commenter named “Duck Dodgers” (possibly one of the purged rightwingers?) tried to reintroduce a certain level of non-lockstep-lefty dissent. It soon became clear that Wells, late at night in his cups, was mucking with Duck Dodgers’ posts, changing their spelling (eg, Obama to Omaba) and punctuation to make them appear illiterate. Dodgers managed to briefly get a response up calling Wells on this and pointing to the Google cache that proved his case; but Wells soon deleted all the evidence and his posts and insisted that Dodgers was “delusional.”
http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2008/10/mayor_tut-tuts.php

Both of these are creepier, slimier and just plain weirder than anything you name.

Cherry picking won’t do you any favors, though, I think you could have talked some more of what makes him probably a good guy, even if his grampa pants are starting to hike up.