It was almost exactly three years ago (8.25.19) that HE suffered through an early evening visit to Moonshadows, the obnoxious tourist-trap beachside restaurant in Malibu. Here’s what I wrote:

Last weekend I made the mistake of taking Tatiana to dinner at Moonshadows Mailbu. I hadn’t been there in decades, but it’s a famous Malibu mainstay as well as the place Mel Gibson got drunk in before being arrested for DUI in July ’06. It will always appeal to gawking tourists and Lookie Lous because of the surfside location.

I took an instant dislike to the place, and when I got home I made a list of the reasons why. There were five of them. (1) Too many loud people congregated in a tight setting and generating so much conversational racket that I had a headache almost immediately; (2) Too many unattractive people who were either over-dressed or lacked that certain je ne sais quoi X-factor coolness that everyone needs to project when they’re out on the town; (3) Seriously ugly decor (baby blue seating booths with small and kitschy amber-toned lamps); (4) Decent but far from phenomenal food; and (5) A bizarre table-seating policy that may or may not have involved some kind of unsavory arrangement.

All I know is that the hostess declined to seat us next to an oceanview window, and when Tatiana asked why the hostess explained that a certain table in question was being held for a party of four that hadn’t yet arrived. In the politest terms I could muster I asked, “Well, are they royalty? What’s the special dispensation? We’re here in good faith and money in our pocket, and we’d like to sit at that open table so why can’t we exactly?” The hostess said that the party in question has paid a thousand bucks to Moonshadows so they’d always get a windowside table when they ate there.

Me (slightly agog): “Really?” Hostess: “Yeah. A thousand sounds like a lot, I agree, but…”

For the rest of the dinner I couldn’t think of anything else except this alleged thousand-dollar payoff. I was wondering how it worked exactly. Was it a thousand a year or twice annually or…? We asked our friendly waiter but he didn’t know of any such arrangement. I called the next day and spoke to a manager, a guy who said he’s worked at Moonshadows for many years, and he also said he was unaware of any such system.

All I can tell you is that the hostess said what she said, and that I didn’t imagine it.

I will never, ever go to Moonshadows again. I would rather eat a hot dog while sitting on the beach. I would rather go to Jack in the Box. On top of which Pacific Coast Highway is such an aggressive, high-speed thoroughfare. They say that the ocean is calming and restorative but not out there. I’ve been to beachside communities all over the globe, and Malibu is easily the worst of them. It has no sense of peace or tranquility.

Last Saturday (8.20) Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were re-married (following their quickie Las Vegas ceremony on 7.16) at Ben’s sprawling, semi-historic 87-acre plantation south of Savannah. Dozens of guests, catered up the wazoo, champagne on ice, no expense spared, a splendid time had by all.

All the press reports have described Ben’s spread as being either “in” Savannah or “just south” of it. In fact the Liberty County residence (which includes a 6,000 sq. ft. main house, a cottage house and a 10,000 sq. ft. guest house) is well south of Savannah, and in fact south of the Savannah suburb of Richmond Hill.

The hard truth is that Bennifer plantation is located between 35 and 40 minutes south of downtown Savannah…okay? Don’t lie about this. It’s way the hell out of town.

The luxurious spread sits on the banks of historic Blackbeard Creek — named after Blackbeard the pirate. It’s basically in the blue-collar boonies. The property isn’t that far from the moderately noisy interstate 95 and a little more than a mile south of a huge Target distribution center, and just east of Newport Timber in Riceboro.

Midway, Georgia is three or four miles to the northwest.

The home actually lies near an old settlement called Seabrook. Wikipedia says Seabrook “was originally built up chiefly by former slaves”…whoops! Couple this with Affleck’s Savannah-residing ancestor, Benjamin Cole, being a slave owner…okay, leave it there.

HE to Larry Karaszewski: Paul Newman aside, Cool Hand Luke (‘67) was an ensemble thing, and if you ask me the six…make that seven standout supporting players are George Kennedy, Strother Martin (“failure to communicate”), the icy prison guard with the reflector shades, Jo Van Fleet, J.D. Cannon, Clifton James and Joy Harmon, the soapy blonde who was washing the car.

I know Dennis Hopper was in it but I don’t recall him saying or doing anything especially stand-outish.

I recall young Lou Antonio’s face from the film, but he didn’t have any stand-out dialogue or business that leapt to the forefront. He’s 88 and apparently in a wheelchair — hope he’s feeling okay and everything’s cool. Is there any video of your discussion? Love to listen in.

“Wokeness has permeated so deeply into the ethos of Hollywood.” — Joe Rogan on unsubstantiated suspicions that the new Game of Thrones and Amazon’s forthcoming Lord of the Rings have woked themselves up.

@hulkroganclips woke GoT [JRE-1850] #joerogan #joeroganpodcast #jre #jreclips #gameofthrones #lordoftherings #woke #hollywood #series #tvshow #podcast #amazonprime #hbo #funny ♬ Meme Song – Waveyy

It was reported yesterday that Gary “wild man” Busey, 78, is facing sex crime charges stemming from alleged groping incidents that happened earlier this month at the Monster-Mania Convention in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

“It was about contact,” Cherry Hill lieutenant Robert Scheunemann told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “It was about touching.” Three women have filed complaints.

Today video surfaced of Busey sitting on a beach in Malibu’s Point Dume Park last Saturday with his pants down. The video allegedly shows him “putting one hand down the front of his pants and looking around to make sure no one was watching before committing a lewd act” — presumably jerking off.

Two possible scenarios: (1) Busey has become a proverbial dirty old man due to dementia, and is acting in weird sexual ways because he’s unaware of what he’s doing and simply has no self-control. Or (2) he’s pulling a Vincent “Chin” Gigante move — publicly pretending to be crazy and demented in order to persuade New Jersey authorities to go easy in terms of possible disciplinary action over the Cherry Hill thing.

A press release has gone out about Rian Johnson‘s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix, 12.23). The film, partly set on the Greek island of Spetses, will star Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc and costar Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista.

One of the two photos in the Glass Onion press release is a shot of director-writer Johnson and Monae. Which suggests that Monae, Craig aside, has the lead protagonist role. Which means she’s probably playing an equivalent of the Ana de Armas role in the original Knives Out — a pure of heart, relatively innocent, non-white woman up against a demimonde of scurvy, slimy skunks and serpents.

Norton, I’m guessing, has the Chris Plummer role, except given Glass Onion‘s Mediterranean vacation vibe…well, let’s just use our imagination and presume that Norton’s character is at least partly inspired by the cruel, manipulative James Coburn character in The Last of Sheila. Or something in this vein. Why hire the rapscallion Norton if you don’t want him to play edgy and a tiny bit wicked?

Sheila, which played with the same kind of Agatha Christie “whodnit?” formula that the Knives Out films are modelled upon, was shot along the French Cote d’Azur.

Which reminds me: how come Johnson and his producers chose Spetses for their Greek location when Maggie Gyllennhaal and Olivia Colman‘s The Lost Daughter shot there only a couple of years before? Of all the hundreds of exotic Greek island locations they chose the same damn island?

Netflix paid $468 million for rights to both Knives Out sequels, but the actual production budget (per Wiki) was only a little more than $40 million with over $100 million in fees paid to Johnson, Daniel Craig and producer Ram Bergman for their work on both productions. (Nice payday!) That totals out to $140 million and change, maybe a bit more. Call it $150 million.

That leaves roughly $318 million in expenditures for the second sequel. What is Johnson going to shoot in that second sequel? Will he sink a 300-foot yacht a la Titanic and then stage a battle between the cast and the Kraken from Clash of the Titans?

Sorry but I’m only going by the numbers in the Wiki page.

The $468 million paid by Netflix (a result of a bidding war) is humungous, historic. Last year a well-placed source told Variety‘s Claudia Eller that “the math doesn’t work…there’s no way to explain it…the world has gone mad…it’s a mind-boggling deal.”