For an hour-long session, this sure flies by. Great gab, fascinating character studies, etc. How many weeks ago was this thing taped? Hanks shaved his beard over a month ago.

For the 47th time, I hated Uncut Gems but deeply admired Adam Sandler‘s career-altering performance as a manic gambling junkie. I was one of the early-birds who insisted it was award-worthy and the National Board of Review (among others) agreed, but industry voters didn’t buy in. A member of the Academy’s acting branch recently told the N.Y. Post that Sandler is “emerging as a truly great actor, but then he does cheesy Netflix comedies that are really dumb…Unfortunately, actors become brands [and] Sandler’s brand doesn’t scream ‘Oscar.'”

Another actor said, “If Sandler has another great film, he’ll be nominated.”

The 21st Century Robert De Niro is a whole different being than he was in the late ’70s and early ’80s, which is when I began to study him first-hand in terms of parties and press encounters. Now he’s open, candid and even loquacious…playing the game. Back then he was some kind of holy monk oddball who was too special and sensitive to talk to anyone except close colleagues.

Shia LaBeouf on playing his asshole dad: “I think if you can empathize with the biggest villain in your life and scrape some of these shadows, it makes you lighter and free-er. When you lead with lightness and love, you can get to the heavy easier. Anger and the rough shit is very easy. It’s the other stuff that feels quite difficult.” HE: Honey Boy is an honest, respectable effort, but I didn’t feel this empathize-with-dad element at all. From the very beginning I was muttering to myself “okay, here we go…we’re stuck with this boorish dickhead for the whole film.”

Side observation: The collar on the white shirt that LaBeouf is wearing looks awful. If you must wear a collar buy Italian-made shirts with smallish, narrow or button-down collars. Or better yet banded collars.