From The New York Times…even Maureen Dowd wants him to quit.

Welcome to episode #2 of “The Misfits” as HE’s Jeffrey Wells welcomes this weekend’s hotshot guests — Wilson Morales, editor and founder of Blackfiklmandtv, and comedy writer, former Fox News movie guy and “Talking Movies” cohost Bill McCuddy.

Topics include (a) the last and final Oscar predictions (we’re all very glad the season will be over after next Sunday night, 3.10), (b) reactions to Dune: Part Two, and (c) speculations about five or six March releases. Again, the link.

Click through to HE’s Substack page to watch, and please be good people by becoming paid subscribers next week and down the road.

I had a few chats with Dennis Wilson back in the mid ’70s, and one of those times we briefly discussed Monte Hellman‘s Two Lane Blacktop (’71). And I can tell you that Wilson wasn’t a fan. I can’t recite an exact Wilson quote as it happened too long ago, but his basic opinion was that Hellman had missed the potential…that he didn’t really understand what the film was about or didn’t appreciate the glory of high-octane engines….something like that. Wilson felt he understood the fast-car aesthetic better than Hellman, and that he understood more fully what it should have been about.

As mentioned two or three times I got to know Charles Bukowski a little bit in ‘ 87. This was during the post-production period on Barbet Schroeder‘s Barfly, which I wrote the press kit for.

I visited, drank with and “interviewed” Bukowski (sans notes, Truman Capote-style) in his Long Beach home sometime around…I don’t know, maybe March or April or even May. Barfly opened on 10.16.87.

Barbet made me rewrite the press kit over and over and over, so much so that I couldn’t read it after the tenth or twelfth revision. I came to hate hat press kit, but you know what? It’s one of the most tightly composed pieces of writing I’ve ever authored.

All to say that somewhere during this period I experienced by very first reading of Bukowski’s “The Laughing Heart,” which I loved. Not as much as “The Genius of the Crowd” but still.

Originally posted on 7.28.08: Here’s a decent story about a celebrity-drinking incident, passed along second-hand by a friend. It involves Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart, as well as the non-drinking Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher**. It’s important to understand that no one had GPS on their phones, and that verbal driving directions were the law of the realm.

“It happened a week or two after the opening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” I was told. “Or sometime in late May or early June of ’08. Harrison, Calista, Demi and Ashton all went out to dinner. The latter two weren’t drinking but over the course of dinner Harrison and Calista had…I don’t know, two or three bottles of wine between them and got fairly loaded. Too drunk to drive, in any case. It was therefore decided — responsibly, intelligently — that Ashton would drive Harrison home in his car, and Demi would follow with Calista in her car.

“But somehow Demi lost Ashton at a traffic light, and Ashton and Harrison are now heading towards Ford’s home in the Pacific Palisades on their own, presuming that Demi will catch up. Except Calista has succumbed to the alcohol and passed out. Okay, ‘gone to sleep.’ Dead to the world, in any event. Demi tries to rouse her so she can get the directions and the address, but with no luck.” Wells note: STrange as it sounds, Demi hadn’t typed in the address on the GPS software on her Blackberry or iPhone before leaving the restaurant,

“So as she’s driving along, Demi starts prodding and shaking Calista with her right hand to wake her up to get the address, and as a result of the shoving the car slows down and weaves a bit, and as luck would have it a couple of patrolmen notice this and pull them over.

“Have you been drinking? the cops ask. No, Demi answers. I was trying wake up my passenger to get directions to her home. Has she been drinking? Demi doesn’t want to say, says she doesn’t know. The cops suspect inebriation despite Moore’s denials — “I haven’t been drinking! I don’t drink!” — and make her do the walk and touch her nose and all that.

“Meanwhile, Harrison and Ashton have arrived at Ford’s home. It’s been a little while and they’re wondering what’s happened to the ladies. Ashton calls Demi on her cell and by this time she’s being questioned by the cops and they’re saying ‘no answering the phone while you’re being tested for intoxication.’ Harrison says to Ashton, “You want an omelette? It’ll calm you down.” Uhh, not really, Kutcher replies, having just eaten an hour or so ago. Ford leads him into the kitchen anyway and starts on the omelette. ‘You want herbs? You want cheese? You want onions?’

“Back on the road, the combined efforts of Moore and the two cops finally wake Flockhart up. It’s like she’s coming out of a coma. One of the lawmen ask, ‘Do you know where you live?’ She gives them the address and they all get into their cars with the understanding that the bulls will escort Demi and Calista to the house.

“A few minutes later Harrison and Ashton see the flashing lights outside and respond as you might expect — “Oh my God, are you guys okay?,’ ‘What happened?,’ ‘Why didn’t you answer your phone?’ The cops say goodnight and leave, all’s well that ends well, and everyone’s safe and sound. And Harrison says, ‘So…who wants an omelette?'”

** Moore and Kutcher met in 2003, married in ’05. After six years of marriage they separated in 2011. In 2015 Kutcher married former costar Mila Kunis. Moore is allegedly currently dating celebrity chef Daniel Humm.