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Last night I watched the fourth and final segment in Oliver Stone‘s interviews with Russian president Vladmir Putin. Stone asked and asked about Russian hackings of the 2016 U.S. election, which of course Putin denied any involvement with. Like any gifted politician, the 64 year-old ruler is very good at deflection and evasion. And yet two weeks ago he acknowledged that Russian “patriotic hackers” may have cyber-meddled on some level. So there’s that.

Did I expect Putin to admit that he’s an iron-fisted authoritarian whose hand is obviously strengthened with other like-minded strongmen (like Orange Orangutan) in power around the globe? That he didn’t want Hillary Clinton to beat Donald Trump? That he has a copy of the pee-pee tape in his private safe? Of course not.

Stone’s questioning of Putin struck me as direct but collegial — i.e., not overly friendly but respectful, appropriately non-aggressive. I’ll tell you one thing. Say what you will about Putin but he’s a much smarter, wiser, better educated fellow than Trump. And certainly more emotionally mature. Putin may be a brutalist and a murderer of his enemies, but he’s no dummy. Putin is a player who knows how to behave; Trump is an animal.

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Stephen Rodrick‘s Esquire profile of Bill Maher (“Bill Maher Knows Exactly What He’s Doing“) does a fairly standard job of looking for chinks in the armor. Rodrick hung with the HBO talk-show host and comedian several weeks ago and discovered two things: (1) Once a nocturnal party animal who drank and toked with the best of them, Maher now lives a semi-solitary, somewhat lonely life (“only three chairs at his dining-room table”), in part because he has no apparent interest in getting married or even investing in a semi-serious partnership. And (2) Maher isn’t as knowledgable about certain political topics (like French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen) as he could be, or is at least less knowledgable than John Oliver.

Rodrick excerpt #1: “Maher spoke dreamily about hosting dinner parties, but I noticed that there were only three chairs at his dining-room table. He’s never been married, and his predilection for dating young women is well known. His last serious girlfriend was a Guyanese-Canadian musician a quarter century his junior. But while Maher readily admits that he’s spent much of his adult life making up for his crummy adolescence, he thinks he’s taken way too much shit for the age of his companions over the years. ‘You know the definition of sleazy, don’t you?,’ Maher says. ‘Anyone who’s having more sex than you are.'”

Rodrick excerpt #2: “It was at this point that I realized Maher’s Doubting Thomas ideology is, in its way, as rigid as any dogma, a reflexive contrarianism that works spectacularly well for him right up until it convinces him that it’s okay for a white person to call himself a ‘house nigger.’ He can be just as dependent on slogans and talking points as the politicians he skewers on his show. And here, perhaps, was another important difference between him and his peers. Unlike John Oliver, who did seventeen minutes on the French election, Maher clearly had not done his homework about the most important European election of this century so far.”

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The first peek-out screening of the completed War For The Planet of the Apes (20th Century Fox, 7.14) happened last night on the Fox lot. Mainly for elite first-wave journos. Director Matt Reeves and producer Dylan Clark were the only team members at the after-party. Everyone else is in London, where the junket will happen because costar Woody Harrelson is shooting the Han Solo film there.

Reeves regales: War for the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves during after-party that followed last night’s Fox lot screening. (l. to r.) Vox.com’s Greg Ellwood, Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson, War For The Planet of the Apes producer Dylan Clark, Reeves.

From Susan Chira‘s 6.14 N.Y. Times piece, “The Universal Problem of Men Interrupting Women“:

“The spectacle [of] Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat of California, being interrupted for the second time in a week by her male colleagues, triggered an outpouring of recognition and what has become almost ritual social-media outrage.

“’I think every woman who has any degree of power and those who don’t knows how it feels to experience what Kamala Harris experienced yesterday,’ said Laura R. Walker, the president and chief executive of New York Public Radio. ‘To be in a situation where you’re trying to do your job and you’re either cut off or ignored.’

“Keep Fucking With Kamala Harris, Boys — You’re Making Her Stronger” — a 6.14 Wonkette piece by Evan Hurst.

“Senator Harris, a former prosecutor, assertively questioned Attorney General Jeff Sessions during his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, interrupted and chided her to let Mr. Sessions answer her questions. Soon after that, Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina and the committee chairman, cut her off, saying her time had elapsed.

“Academic studies and countless anecdotes make it clear that being interrupted, talked over, shut down or penalized for speaking out is nearly a universal experience for women when they are outnumbered by men.

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Lawrence Kasdan‘s Silverado (’85) has been easily viewable through Bluray and high-def streaming for a while now. I loved it when I first saw it…Jesus God, 32 years ago. Everyone did. It wasn’t just a handsome, well-told, character-driven story but serious popcorn fun. And it launched Kevin Costner, of course. I don’t think it’s a stretch to call Silverado one of the most impressively crafted, highly entertaining films of the mid ’80s or even the ’80s as a whole.

Why, then, have I re-watched Kasdan’s Body Heat (’81) at least nine or ten times and The Big Chill three or four times and even Kasdan’s extra-long version of Wyatt Earp on Bluray, but for whatever curious reason I’ve never re-watched Silverado? Actually, I take that back. I tried to re-watch it a few years ago but I felt bored on some level and turned it off.

Nobody called Silverado boring when it opened…no one. It was hailed as the first genuine, non-revisionist, real-deal western in a dog’s age. I need to attempt another re-watch and stick with it this time.

Today’s homework assignment: Name five films that you’ve always admired and certainly enjoyed at first blush, but for whatever reason you’ve never re-watched them.

The below comment, written by Alex Gibney and included in a N.Y. Times rundown of the best or best-liked 21st Century films (“Six Directors Pick Their Favorite Films of the 21st-Century”), had honestly never occured to me. I always regarded Anton Chigurh (i.e., “sugar”) as a metaphor for the increasing presence of malice and poison in the American bloodstream and the general decline of civilization, but whatever works. I’ve mentioned a couple of times how Tony Scott‘s Man on Fire (’04) is probably the best 9/11 payback film ever delivered by mainstream Hollywood, and how the superhero genre is a pathetic spawn of the post-9/11 mentality. Avoiding films that are specifically about that tragedy, what others can be called “9/11 films” in the same way Gibney regards No Country For Old Men?

20 months after the start of principal photography (i.e., 10.14.15) and almost exactly a month before the 7.14.17 opening, Matt Reeves‘ War For The Planet of the Apes will have a peek-out screening for elite journos. Plus a little post-screening schmooze time with filmmakers. The grand conclusion to a great and terrible war between civilizations. Spoiler: Apes win. Stand-up hurrahs for Andy Serkis (“Caesar”), Woody Harrelson (Trump-like Colonel), Steve Zahn (“bad ape”), Karin Konoval, Terry Notary, et. al. Nothing especially mind-boggling or even newsy in this, but the invite art hooked me.

From a friend: “The holiday in France is Whit Monday (white Monday) — the day after Pentecost. Pentecost is when the holy spirit (envisioned as a white dove) descended on the disciples. Remember, this is an almost all-Catholic country and Whit Monday is a national holiday.”

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A 6.5 Smoking Gun post says pint-sized porn actress Lauren Kaye Scott (aka Dakota Skye) was arrested and charged with domestic battery after allegedly punching her boyfriend, Robert “Bobby” Anderson, after having sex with him.

Smoking Gun excerpt: “According to an arrest affidavit, police arrived at the Pinellas Park, Florida, residence of [Anderson], and were told that Scott had struck Anderson in the face with an open right hand, causing him to suffer a swollen lip with a cut.”

Scott “would not get off the phone after the two had sex,” Anderson allegedly told cops. Words ensued, Anderson said he asked her to leave, and Scott “became upset and hit him in the face.”

In other words, she didn’t “punch” him — she slapped him. Like angry women sometimes do. Like femme fatales have done to tough-guy actors in dozens upon dozens of Hollywood potboilers, gangster flicks and film noirs for decades.

Movies are movies and real life is real life, but what kind of pathetic wimp calls the fuzz after his girlfriend whacks him? Women will sometimes call the authorities if a guy gets rough (and well they should) but guys never do this. Ever! Just as surely as there’s no crying in baseball, a guy never calls the fuzz unless there’s been a shooting or stabbing.

There’s only one way to respond if your girlfriend slaps or punches you, and that’s to just stand there and take it like Lee Marvin did when Angie Dickinson walloped him in Point Blank — just stand there and let her go to town until she gets tired. Only chickenshit candy-asses whine and complain when this happens, much less pick up the phone and call John Law…God! Anderson needs to get in touch with that Vietnamese asshole who whined and howled when he was thrown off that United flight.

Last week a disparate community of tough female film critics and outraged femme-nazi types (Mary Sue, Jezebel) were howling about David Edelstein‘s 6.1 Wonder Woman review for phrases and terms within the review they felt were leering or sexist. Honestly? They seemed to have a point.

In a mea culpa piece that ran on Tuesday, 6.6, Edelstein said he’d been misunderstood or at the very least tarred and feathered with too hasty a brush. He also admitted to having used imprecise or poorly chosen language. Which imperfect writers occasionally do.

The bottom line is that Wonder Woman was and is a very big deal for women everywhere, and particularly in the wake of its huge financial success ($254 million worldwide thus far), and so anyone throwing shade in a way that sounded even a tad sexist was sure to catch hell. This Edelstein did, and in spades. The harridans didn’t disagree with him or reprimand him for incorrect attitudes or callous phrases — they wanted him seized, dragged into the street and clubbed to death.

I’ve tasted this wild-dog behavior myself and probably will again. Surround, bite, tear open stomach and anal cavity, pull out intestines and other organs, consume. It’s a terrible thing to experience, but this is the fucking realm I live in.

Edelstein: “In the context of this spate of comic-book movies (which I consider a blight, but that’s another subject) I underestimated how much a superheroine at the center of a woman-directed film would mean to many people, and descriptions I considered lively and complimentary would come across as demeaning. Moreover, if Wonder Woman will empower women at this moment in history — in which reproductive rights are imperiled, and an admitted groper is working to undo decades of gains for women — then some of the criticisms of my review are just. I reserve the right to think that this is not, overall, a very good movie. But it is an important one.”

From Ryan Lizza‘s New Yorker piece, “How Climate Change Saved Steve Bannon’s Job,” dated 6.2:

“Just as [Steve] Bannon seemed to reach a low point in his relationship with Trump, [Jared] Kushner’s role in the Russia probe emerged as the most important piece of White House intrigue. Kushner, though he didn’t have the title, was the Trump campaign’s de-facto campaign manager. He was at Trump’s side through the eras of Roger Stone, Carter Page and Paul Manafort. And more important, as we learned last Friday, Kushner was working closely with Flynn, during the transition, on his dealings with the Russians, and he has attracted a similar level of interest from the F.B.I.

“The second change since Bannon’s low point was that a decision on whether to withdraw from the Paris climate accord finally needed to be made. It was the most important fight pitting Bannon against Jared and Ivanka yet. And it played to all of Bannon’s strengths. The first Trump adviser described Kushner and Ivanka as ‘more or less Trump’s conscience,’ and as ‘more pragmatic, a little less ideological,’ or perhaps ‘multi-ideological.’ Bannon, he said, ‘speaks to Trump’s id.’

“A third Trump adviser, more closely aligned with the Bannon faction, was less charitable. ‘I think Jared and Ivanka are concerned with being accepted in the right places, they care about what the beautiful people think,’ he said. ‘They care about being well received in the Upper West Side cocktail parties. They view Steve as a man with dirty fingernails, with some weird, crazy, extremist philosophy they don’t think is in the best interest of the President.

“With all respect to them, they don’t understand how Trump got elected. They don’t understand the forces behind it, they don’t understand the dynamics of the situation, and they certainly don’t understand his appeal and the people who voted for him ** — they can’t understand it.” He added, “They would like the President to be more like George Bush: one-dimensional, predictable, neocon, mainstream.”

** rural and rust-belt dumbshits, marginally educated if that, Fox News-watching, the dregs of 21st Century society.