From a video taken in Mar-A-Lago this morning…

Woody Allen used to play wimpy guys like Casey Davies, except the temporary karate class remedy would be dispensed with in a first-act montage and then Allen would move on to the actual story. Now “the karate class” is the whole thing. You can feel the thin-ness, the micro-focus.

Directed and written by Riley Stearns, The Art of Self-Defense (Bleecker Street, 6.21) costars Jesse Eisenberg, Alessandro Nivola and Imogen Poots. No interest, zip, forget it. That look of intimidation of Eisenberg’s face = later.

The slogan on those Long Shot posters reads “unlikely but not impossible.” Obviously the marketers behind this political-minded Seth Rogen-Charlize Theron romantic comedy (Lionsgate, 5.3) know they have a tough sell on their hands.

Theron plays Charlotte Field, a 40ish Secretary of State planning a run for the White House, and Rogen plays Fred Flarsky, a political journalist whom Theron hires to be her speechwriter, in part because she babysat for him “20 years earlier,” according to one review.

You think? In real life Rogen is 37 going on 55. He didn’t need a babysitter when he was 17 — Theron more likely babysat him 25 or 30 years ago, when he was 12 or 7. A quarter century ago Theron was 18 — a perfect babysitting age.

Long Shot screened last night at South by Southwest. Sight unseen, Hollywood Elsewhere agrees with Peter Debruge’s skepticism about this bizarre romantic pairing.

Debruge: “There are two high-concept male fantasies operating here: There’s the one in which a man-child finally gets to seduce the sexy babysitter, interwoven with another about the chances that the country’s most gorgeous/powerful woman — ‘I dreamed I was president in my Maidenform bra’ — might risk it all to be with someone like Flarsky.

“The odds? The movie’s new title says it all.

“More creepy than romantic, more chauvinist than empowered — and in all fairness, funnier and more entertaining than any comedy in months — Long Shot serves up the far-fetched wish-fulfillment fantasy of how, for one lucky underdog, pursuing your first love could wind up making you first man.

“Granted, society’s notion of what kind of romances are deemed acceptable is shifting awfully fast, so I could be wrong about this.. [But] there’s an alarming disconnect [in] whatever unconventional sex appeal Field sees in [Flarsky].

“If the sexes were reversed, Rogen would be the dumpy girl with curly hair and glasses waiting for his mid-movie makeover. But because Flarsky’s a dude, he doesn’t have to change at all; it’s Field who has to make all the concessions to be with him — which would surely be a point of contention in a properly engaged satire.”

I’ve been to the Musee Picasso twice in Paris, and while “Guernica” was hanging at MOMA I stood before it at least two or three times. How did I manage to enjoy these experiences, knowing what kind of a fuck Pablo Picasso was with his wives and lovers?

Simple — I put the bad stuff in a wooden box. It’s called compartmentalizing.

Same deal while watching Alfred Hitchcock films. How can I enjoy The Birds while knowing what Hitchcock put poor Tippi Hedren through during filming? Just shut it out. I’ve heard stories about others but I won’t go there. I can do this all night long.

History constantly reminds that a lot of famous, talented people have treated others cruelly, brusquely or otherwise brought pain or trauma into their lives. I wish it didn’t go with the territory but it seems to. Not always but often enough.

1966 dark green Mustang fastback (Steve McQueen, Bullitt); 1964 light-green Aston Martin (Sean Connery, Goldfinger); 1938 Plymouth DeLuxe (Humphrey Bogart, The Big Sleep and High Sierra); 1977 Pontiac Trans Am (Burt Reynolds, Smokey and the Bandit), 1963 Volkswagen Beetle (The Love Bug)…I don’t care about this. Not a big car guy. But I do hate the idea of Middle Eastern corporate architecture.

From N.Y. Post “Page Six” story by Derrick Bryson Taylor: Memes floating across social media show Kate Beckinsale, 45, and Pete Davidson, 25, engaged in some serious lip-locking while Queer Eye star Antoni Porowski awkwardly sits next to them. One meme shows Beckinsale in the middle with a caption over Davidson reading, ‘Guys with problems from childhood whom I can ‘fix.’” A caption over Poroswki reads, “Wholesome guys with good paying jobs who text back and have no baggage.” Beckinsale commented on it saying, “Antoni is gay, if that helps clarify at all #queereye.”

HE comment #1: The fact that Beckinsale openly (if very briefly) considered the idea of boning Porowski tells you she’s theoretically open to other potential boyfriends, which should give Davidson pause. HE comment #2: Davidson’s tattoos are appalling, absurd. (Especially that amateurish heart tattoo behind his ear.) And his fashion sense! Anyone who would wear skeleton sneakers with pink socks…forget it. I give this relationship another month or two, at most.

David Modigliani‘s Running with Beto, a behind-the-scenes look at Beto O’Rourke‘s rise to political fame and Senatorial campaign against Ted Cruz, just had its big debut at South by Southwest. It’s a good film, apparently. O’Rourke (who is definitely taking his sweet-ass time about formally announcing his Presidential candidacy) showed up after it ended, answered questions, etc. Pic will debut on HBO on 5.28.

Beto O’Rourke dodges the inevitable “When are you announcing your presidency?” question for the zillionth time. But not without finding a galvanizing hook. #sxsw pic.twitter.com/wLQzuWnu0R

— erickohn (@erickohn) March 9, 2019

Yesterday Jordan Peele‘s Us (Universal, 3.22) was universally praised after debuting at South by Southwest. I’ve read three or four reviews and it definitely sounds good. However — and this is a big “however” — you can’t trust SXSW critics. They’re too genre-friendly, too geekboy, too determined to celebrate Austin world premieres, too invested in identity politics, too caught up in the under-40 hipster narrative. The only way you can be really sure is after Hollywood Elsewhere and other discerning types have had a looksee. Critics who know their stuff and never modify their views for political reasons. I’m not saying I won’t also be impressed by Us — I may well be — but hold your horses until the hardcores have had their say.

Triple Frontier, you’ll recall, is about five commando types robbing tens of millions from a South American drug dealer. I wrote…hell, everyone wrote that it doesn’t pay off until the second half, which is when things start to go badly and it becomes a grueling ordeal mixed with a Treasure of Sierre Madre-like parable about greed. That’s the all of it, the point of it — how greed leads to death and self-destruction.

In short without the second half Triple Frontier isn’t much — a sturdy if unexceptional heist film.

Manohla Dargis‘s N.Y. Times review doesn’t even allude to the second half. She describes the basic situation, the characters, the opening gun battle in a city in “South Americaville,” the reluctant process by which the five thieves (Oscar Isaac, Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, Pedro Pascal) agree to take part in the robbery, the dense and humid jungle atmosphere, etc.

But she doesn’t even cast a sidewqys glance at how it all pays off. She doesn’t even say “the story takes a downward turn later on,” etc. She was so unimpressed that she ignored the basic story strategy.

There’s a moment during the second half that I’ll never forget — when a section of a winding mountain path gives way and a donkey, loaded down with bags of loot, goes tumbling down a steep grade with the currency floating in the air and scattered to the four winds. I’ll never forget this scene for the rest of my life.

Does Triple Frontier stand up to the famous Howard Hawks standard — “three great scenes and no bad ones”? Perhaps not, but it has at least two great scenes (the chopper crash and the donkey), and that’s something.

Before the start of every press screening, there’s always at least one bigmouthed sociopath who’s determined to “perform” for everyone else. A person, I mean, who regards a quiet screening room occupied by 25, 30 or 35 colleagues as a kind of Comedy Store venue…as an opportunity to do a little stand-up…a chance to broadcast each and every banal, eye-rolling opinion that comes to mind with a loud, close-to-bellowing voice.

The douchebag usually “performs” with a partner who acts as the straight man — a sitting guy who always says “uh-huh,” “yep,” “oh, yeah”, “hah-hah, yeah” and so on. The sitting journalist audience (i.e., people silently scrolling through Twitter on their smart phones) have no choice but to sit and listen to this ayehole go on and on about how he feels about this or that upcoming film or about how his junket interview went with Taron Egerton or Ben Mendelson. Or whatever.

These guys will talk and talk about anything and everything. What matters most to them is that others are paying attention.

The offending party is almost always a 40ish or 50ish guy wearing dad jeans — I’ve never seen women or gay guys pull this crap.

If the venue happens to be a large theatre (used for all-media screenings) and it’s not as easy to be heard, the performer will stand in front of his straight-man and lean against a row of seats — facing the rear of the theatre, back to the screen — so that every journo facing the screen is obliged to stare at him as he chats away.

They may not be able to hear every word, but they know he’s got stories and opinions — lots of them — and that he’s quite the gadfly and sharing like a motherfucker.

“The punchlines fly in Mindy Kaling’s script, sometimes too cleanly and quickly — it’s sharp and funny, yes, and also very clearly the work of a TV-trained writer. But that’s not always a bad thing: Late Night is wonderfully sharp when targeting (not infrequently) the cringe-inducing play-date nature of the most successful late night shows at the moment (summarized, most succinctly, as ‘Kevin Hart on a Slip ‘N Slide’), and those who’ve read Jason Zinoman’s excellent David Letterman biography will recognize the logistics of working for of a talk-show host who’s grown so disengaged and isolated, they haven’t ever met some of their writers.” — Jason Bailey, Flavorwire, 1.28.19.

Amazon will release Late Night on 6.7.19.

Early Friday morning “embattled” Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara sent a letter of apology to WB staffers about the Charlotte Kirk thing, which has prompted everyone in town to yawn and shrug their shoulders.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s Kim Masters and Tatiana Siegel reported this tale of sexual intrigue and resentment on 3.6.

If I was Tsujihara’s speechwriter and he’d asked me to rough out a statement that explains this mess, here’s how I’d put it:

Warner Bros, CEO Kevin Tsujihara.

Warner Bros. friends and colleagues,

By now, you’ve read that irksome Hollywood Reporter hit piece. You’re therefore aware that I’ve behaved in a somewhat embarassing manner, albeit not unlike each and every studio head and hotshot producer who has ever worked in this town, going back to the days of Jesse L. Lasky and Samuel Goldfish.

Please understand that I’m not proud of this — the applicable terms are actually “furious” and “mortified”. But you also presumably know, being adults, that hotshot executives like myself enjoy succumbing to certain behaviors during our all-too-brief periods of privacy. Because we have the money to throw around, because it’s easy to get away with stuff, because guys like myself are generally insulated from touchy consequences.

As long as we’re not being cruel or committing felonies or dancing naked before bonfires while wearing animal-head masks or, God forbid, being shadowed by our significant others, most Hollywood executives like to do what they like to do in the company of trusted friends and colleagues. Right? We’re all familiar with this syndrome or attitude. It’s called “kicking loose”, “letting our hair down”, “setting free the libertine.”

Presumably other Warner Bros. employees besides myself have sampled said behaviors.

The concept of privacy used to have some currency in our culture. Once upon a time journalists actually believed that persons like myself were entitled to sample forbidden fruit in their off hours — to behave in technically “sinful” but harmless ways, to cavort like less-than-perfect human beings, to play around like JFK did in the early ’60s, or like Roy Scheider‘s “Joe Gideon” did in All That Jazz. Those were the days!

I deeply regret having brought pain and embarrassment to the people I love the most, yes, but mostly I regret having been busted and publicly shamed by Kim Masters and Tatiana Siegel. What did I do, really, that was so terrible? I catted around with a pretty English actress, knowing full well I’d probably have to reciprocate with some casting favors. And so what? This kind of thing happens all the time.