I’ve been sent two more reports of Jesse James dissing by Warner Bros. distribution execs — one from Las Vegas Review Journal critic Carol Cling, another from Salt Lake Tribune critic Sean Means.

Cling says she received an e-mail from Phoenix-based Allied Advertising (which handles screenings etc. for the Las Vegas market) two days ago, saying he/she had just heard that The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford “will be opening this Friday! If possible, I would like to set a press screening, but I think it may be too late…let me know if there’s still time.”

Cling’s account of what happened after this is confusing (to me anyway), but the bottom line is that she couldn’t work in the James screening or a review of Andrew Dominik‘s film by her Tuesday deadline.

“Now I’ll have to check out Jesse James on my own time,” she says. “Not that I mind, but this is exactly the kind of movie that needs critical support, and the studio seems to be doing everything they can to subvert that.”

Means wrote today that The Assassination of Jesse James “is getting good reviews, scoring a 73 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and an A in Entertainment Weekly. It’s got Brad Pitt in it, for heaven’s sake…so why is Warner Bros. giving it the shaft?

“The movie, is slated to open this Friday in more cities, including in the Salt Lake City area. That was news to Salt Lake critics, who were informed Monday morning by Warner Bros.’ regional representatives in Denver. Those reps, God bless ’em, have scrambled to set up a press screening so the Salt Lake critics could see and review the film.

“Alas, their efforts seemingly have been sabotaged by the studio, which can’t seem to find a print available for a pre-screening. At the moment, there’s hope for a Thursday late-morning screening — almost too late for most papers’ deadlines — but nothing confirmed.”

Plus the Newark Star Ledger‘s Stephen Whitty has linked today to the mishegoss and threw in some comments.