90 minutes ago I was pedaling south on La Cienega (I have a nice bicycle) when I noticed a block-long line of mostly teenage girls. Okay, 20somethings.

I pulled over, walked up to a 50ish dude standing by one of the girls (a dad, I presumed) and said, “May I ask what this is?” He gestured to his daughter and she said “oh, it’s for hair styles.”

“Hair styles?” I said. “People are having their hair done?”

“Hairy Styles,” she repeated, a little more clearly this time.

“Oh, Harry Styles…sure!” I quickly replied. “Dunkirk, dresses and pearl necklaces.”

It was the young girl’s fault. You don’t pronounce Styles’ first name so it rhymes with “hairy.” You pronounce it Hahrry. Like Harry Truman or Harry and the Hendersons or “a little touch of Harry in the night.” But she could have been thinking of Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape. Not that she was.

I’m not questioning the Muslim identity thing, but her pipsqueak voice sounds so “Valley” — she has the vocal-fry speaking voice down cold. She could be any mousey, low-self-esteem teenager in any region of the country. Same manner, same vibe. In short, she’s done everything she can to blend in and assimilate with all the other vocal-fry girls.

An Industry Professional Responding to Sunday’s “Normcore Bill at Le Petit Four“, which mentioned an ill-advised impulse to briefly greet Bill Maher in the restaurant’s back room:

“I vaguely know Bill [Maher]. I represented the writer-producer of [details redacted]. It seemed to me that Bill was exuding misanthropic vibes from time to time.

“He was standing next to me one evening about three years ago at the CAA valet after a reception for Julia Roberts, so I chatted him up. He was incredibly tense at first but relaxed when I praised his show as well as Politically Incorrect. I said ‘You seemed visibly nervous when I said hi…I bet a lot of crazy people come up to you?’ Maher relaxed and laughed and said “Yes, and they want to argue about something from the show. I never know what to expect. “

“He doesn’t like fans as a result. And he’s a bit of a grumpy guy to begin with.

“The unfortunate 21st century new rule is not to approach an on-camera celeb in public if they’re wearing a hat or are trying to obscure their face or hair etc. Unless they’re an old friend or someone you’ve worked with.

“You read Twitter. There are too many mean and crazy people out there.”

The ’22 Cannes Film Festival (5.17 to 5.28) has officially announced that both Tom Cruise and Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount, 5.27) and Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis (Warner Bros,., 6.24) will have big splashy debuts on the Cote d’Azur. But then we suspected this weeks ago.

I have vague qualms about both. It can be safely presumed that neither will deliver serious heat. The possible competition titles that I’m most excited about are Alejandro G. Innaritu‘s Bardo, Cristian Mungiu‘s R.M.N., Ruben Ostlund‘s Triangle of Sadness, James Gray‘s Armageddon Time and Kantemir Balagov‘s Monica.

Posted on 3.4.22: World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy has compiled a list of (seemingly) likely titles for Cannes ’22.

Other possible out-of-competition titles: Bullet Train, Nope, Lightyear. Perhaps George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing (rumored to be something of a slog) will play OOC instead of competition.

Here’s the general rundown:

Here’s Variety‘s Cannes projection.

TUCKER CARLSON 2019: “Why do I care what’s going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia? And I’m serious. And why shouldn’t I root for Russia? Which I am.”

TUCKER CARLSON 2022: “Who’s siding with Putin? I haven’t seen anybody do that.” pic.twitter.com/HpyXtVEw0I

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 15, 2022