I have flaws and issues. I am far from perfect. But at the very least I will never be accused of wearing the universal “bruh uniform” that each and every male from the age of 5 to 85 wears during warm weather.

This consists of (a) a loose-fitting, low-thread-count T-shirt (or Lacoste polo shirt or short-sleeve shirt with crazy-sick patterns), (b) preppy, knee-length cargo shorts (Ralph Lauren, Urban Outfitters, Patagonia), (c) unstructured baseball cap, knit cap or lightweight pork-pie hat and (d) sockless sandals, slip-ons, huaraches, white athletic sneakers or Crocs.

The exact same outfit. No variations or enhancements of any kind. The U.S. Army salivates over this level of sartorial regimentation. A worldwide submission to a casual-dress style that any non-invested observer would describe as absolutely totalitarian and Orwellian. Bipeds following orders, walking in step, singing the same song.

I’m not alone in this view. An eastern-seaboard film critic friend who recently moved to Los Angeles wrote the following last week: “I still cannot believe the way grown men dress in this town.” HE reply: “I guess I’m used to it. My initial thought was that you’re mostly talking about young GenXers, Millennials and GenZ, but now that I’ve thought it over, yeah…pretty much every male on the planet of whatever age wears this exact same outfit.” Critic friend: “They dress like they’re eight years old.”

Well, yeah, but to play devil’s advocate, I sorta get it. The bruh uniform is comfortable so why not? It’s not what you wear that counts, but who you are inside, etc. And who are you, by the way, to tell us what we should or shouldn’t wear, asshole?

Answer: I’m not saying you can’t or shouldn’t wear your bruh outfit, but does the fact that tens or even hundreds of millions are wearing the same identical threads and the exact same type of footwear and headgear…does that bother you in the slightest?

Does it ever occur to you to occasionally not dress like an obedient little factory drone? Does the fact that there used to be many different approaches to warm-weather dress before the brah uniform took hold…does that bother you in the slightest? The fact that individual style used to be an actual thing?

Once or twice a year a slack-off urge will take hold. I want to get it up but can’t quite. 24 hours of “off” energy. Today was such a day. It was complicated to some extent by having flown to New York Wednesday night (red-eye), and also due to various snarls, tangles and irritations, one of them being a $349 fraudulent charge to my business checking account. You don’t want to know. But I can feel myself starting to adjust to East Coast time. A voice is telling me Saturday will be better.

It’s not just which films are likely to play the Venice Film Festival (8.29 to 9.8), but which films aren’t. There’s always a reason when a presumed award-season hottie doesn’t get invited or decides against attending. It isn’t necessarily a downish harbinger when this happens, but it does tend to indicate that vague uncertainties may be stirring the pot.

In addition to Damien Chazelle‘s First Man taking the opening-night Venezia slot, the other likelies, to hear it from Variety‘s Nick Vivarelli and Deadline‘s Pete Hammond and Nancy Tartaglione, are as follows:

Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma will play Venice, but then most of as knew that. Paul Greengrass’s Norway, about the ghastly 2011 terrorist attack by a Norwegian rightwing loon who killed 77 people, most of them teenagers, is said to be more or less locked.

Bradley Cooper‘s A Star Is Born — beloved by name-brand actors and exhibitors, but perhaps not as much by others — is said to be more or less firmed. (Nobody knows anything.) Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite, which I’ve heard is good but “maybe not so period.”

Joel Edgerton’s Boy Erased, Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk and Francois Ozon’s Alexandre “will not be making the trip to Venice,” sources have told Vivarelli. Ditto Benh Zeitlin‘s Wendy — probably won’t open this year, much less playing Venice.

Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake is an allegedly good bet; ditto Felix Van Groeningen‘s Beautiful Boy, which stars Timothee Chalamet.

Saverio Costanzo‘s My Brilliant Friend, an Italian-language feature that will end up on HBO. Ditto Mario Martone’s Capri, Revolution.

Possibly Mike Leigh’s Peterloo; Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir and Yann Demange’s White Boy Rick.

I thought perhaps Steve McQueen‘s Widows, an alleged mix of social relevance with a heist film, might debut in Venice, but maybe not.

Laszlo Nemes’ Sunset is an alleged Lido lock.

No mention of Terrence Malick‘s Radegund, which was recently speculated as a possible Venice debut.

Variety‘s Brent Lang is reporting that director James Gunn has been whacked as the director of Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3. You know why two portly Disney execs led Gunn into a garage-level den and then popped him….you know it. Because of “a series of offensive tweets” about pedophelia and rape, except they date back to ’08, ’09 and ’10.

I’ve read the decade-old tweets in question, actually sent out in ’08, ’09 and ’10. Gunn was unwise to tweet flip-perverse remarks about man-boy contact, but he was (a) partly alluding to being in the company of convicted pedophile director Victor Salva and (b) being outrageous, like irreverent Type-A creative types are from time to time.

Disney, the studio behind the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, revealed the Gunn termination in the midst of San Diego Comic-Con. “The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’ Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values, and we have severed our business relationship with him,” said Disney chairman Alan Horn.

I don’t know Gunn personally but I know people who do, and I’ve never heard him described as some kind of intemperate, jabbering idiot. You don’t get to become a successful director of expensive, geek-friendly fantasy flicks unless you’re smart and careful and know how to play the game. Yesterday Paramount TV honcho Amy Powell went down for a similar-type offense — said wrong thing, exacerbated SJWs, etc. Maybe she and Gunn should get together this week and trade notes.

The Trump-boinked-and-paid-off-Stormy thing was diverting for three or four months. Ditto the Karen McDougal interview about her year-long affair with Trump. But they both pale next to the traitorous-Putin-lapdog thing.

One day we might hear a tape of Trump attorney-fixer Michael Cohen discussing a payoff with Trump a couple of months before the November 2016 presidential election…big deal. Will Trump and others be prosecuted for violating election campaign finance laws? Maybe. Will more embarassing or compromising details about Trump’s financial dealings come to light? Possibly. But none of this feels as sexy as it did last winter and early spring. All things must pass.

A few hours ago Paramount Pictures announced that Paramount Television president Amy Powell had been fired after making “racially charged” statements that were “inconsistent” with the studio’s values.

According to The Hollywood Reporter‘s Kim Masters and Lesley Goldberg, “the inciting incident occurred during a studio notes call for Paramount Network’s First Wives Club reboot, which is being penned by Girls Trip co-writer Tracy Oliver and will feature a predominantly black cast.” Powell allegedly expressed “generalizations about black women that struck some on the call as offensive.”

“A complaint was filed to human resources” which investigated the claims with the legal department and those involved on the notes call. Sources say Paramount considered discipline but decided to to fire Powell after she denied the allegations.” In other words, if Powell had confessed to racial insensitivity and/or p.c. wrongdoing and then begged for forgiveness she might have been spared the guillotine.

(l.) Former Paramount Television prexy Amy Powell; (r.) First Wives Club writer Tracy Oliver.

 Nobody has ever attained a high position of power and influence within a big studio without being extra careful about what to say, how to say it and whom to say it to at all times. Especially in this highly sensitive era when a single clumsily chosen word or phrase or the slightest indication of a politically incorrect sentiment on Twitter can land you in a heap of trouble.

What could Powell have said that ignited such a tempest? Sooner or later someone has to leak what it was that Powell actually said along with some context about what she apparently meant and how she might have put it more cautiously or sensitively.

Powell quote to L.A. Times: “There is no truth to the allegation that I made insensitive comments in a professional setting, or in any setting,” she said in a statement. “The facts will come out and I will be vindicated.”

A year from now Jennifer Lopez will hit the big five-oh, and she seems to be playing close to her age in Peter Segal‘s Second Act (STX, 11.21). Feels like a middle-aged Working Girl meets the Tootsie premise (i.e., landing a job under false pretenses, having to maintain a big lie in order to hold on to it).

It took me two glances to realize that the weathered white-haired guy interviewing J. Lo for a job at the 50-second mark is Detective Danny Ciello — i.e., 68 year-old Treat Williams. The trailer doesn’t even give Williams a fast close-up — the fact that Williams used to be a hot-shot, name-brand actor in the late ’70s and ’80s is completely ignored. Hey, man…I used to be in the big game.

I like this photo because the figures in Francis Bacon‘s painting seem to be interested in the kids eyeballing his work. Taken nine years ago at the 2009 Francis Bacon Centenary at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

So the black-and-white backdrop is supposed to raise associations with prison or chain-gang garb…right?

The true-life, written-about story behind Spike Lee‘s Black Klansman is a little bizarre, but I wouldn’t call it “crazy,” “outrageous” or ‘incredible” as much as odd and head-scratchy.

BlacKkKlansman is basically a police undercover caper film, based on Ron Stallworth’s 2014 novel (“Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime”).

At times it tonally feels like Starsky and Hutch or even to some extent like John Badham‘s Stakeout, especially as it involves the main cop protagonist falling in love with a girl (in this case an Afro’ed black activist played by Laura Harrier) who shouldn’t know what he’s up to, but whom he eventually confesses to. In this sense John David Washington‘s Stallworth is Richard Dreyfuss in the Badham film, and Adam Driver (as partner Flip Zimmerman) is Emilio Estevez.

At times the film also reminds you of some Clarence Williams III scenes from The Mod Squad.

Set in 1972, pic isn’t literally about Stallworth joining the Ku Klux Klan but a stealthy undercover investigation of the Klan, initiated when he was the first black detective in the history of the Colorado Springs Police Department.

After initial correspondence with the Klan, Stallworth received a call in which he was asked if he wants to “join our cause.” Stallworth answered affirmatively, and in so doing launched an audacious, fraught-with-peril inquiry.

SPOILER-ISH BUT NOT REALLY: Right away you’re telling yourself, “Yes, I know this actually happened and that Lee is using the facts in Stallworth’s book, but it made no sense for Fallworth to be heavily involved in this operation.” And it just feels crazy as you’re watching one crazy incident after another.

On the heels of last week’s Helsinki embarassment or catastrophe or what-have-you, President Trump plans to invite Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to Washington for another meeting in the fall. There is cluelessness and there is staggering, thumb-in-mouth cluelessness that stuns and mouth-drools.

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HE’s own Lisa Taback, generally regarded as one of the sharpest, shrewdest and best-connected award-season publicists and campaign strategists around, will become Netflix’s in-house campaigner as of 8.1. In other words she’s going to more or less orchestrate the awards-campaign for Netflix and Alfonso Cuaron‘s Roma, which will almost certainly be Best Picture-nominated. The following year Taback will presumably do the same for Martin Scorsese‘s The Irishman.

Netflix is obviously proud and cranked about Roma and The Irishman. The Taback deal means they’ll be going great guns on both in terms of award-season campaigning. A Best Picture Oscar will bestow an aura of class — an image upgrade like nothing else. Netlix is all in, money on the table, this is it.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg reported the Taback news earlier today.

Does this mean that Taback and her staff will be 100% exclusive to Netflix, or is there a little wiggle room? Taback has been working for First Man director-writer Damien Chazelle, for instance. The last paragraph in Feinberg’s story addresses this angle: “Under the terms of her Netflix deal, Taback, who declined to comment, will continue to consult with a limited number of her existing clients through the end of the current Emmy season and possibly through the end of the coming Oscar season, as well.”

While sitting for an interview with The Independent‘s James Mottram, Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts apparently said that Terrence Malick‘s Radegund, a German-language antiwar drama in which he costars, “is likely to premiere at Venice and/or Toronto during the autumn.” Or so Mottram has written.

I’ve heard differently. I was told a few weeks ago that Radegund probably won’t pop at the early fall festivals and will continue to hide out until the February 2019 Berlinale, if that. Malick has always taken his sweet-ass time in post. Roughly two years per film and sometimes longer — Tree of Life, To The Wonder, Knight of Cups, Song to Song. I actually wouldn’t be surprised if Radegund turns up closer to next year’s Cannes Film Festival or even, don’t laugh, during Venice/Telluride/Toronto of ’19.

But if Schoenaerts is correct and Radegund winds up playing Venice, Telluride or Toronto this year (i.e., eight to ten weeks hence), terrific. Having a film ready to show less than two years after finishing principal photography is a very un-Malick-like thing, but who knows?

There’s no reliable timetable when it comes to Mr. Wackadoodle. He likes to shuffle and re-shuffle and think things through, and then re-shuffle and re-shuffle and then toss the lettuce leaves into the air as he twirls three times while chanting, adding lemon and olive oil and re-shuffling all over again, and then going outside and re-thinking it all during long walks around dusk.

Besides Schoenaerts Radegund costars August Diehl in the lead role as an Austrian who ran afoul of German authorities during WWII when he refused military service over ethical/religious beliefs. Costars include Valerie Pachner, Michael Nyqvist (who died in June ’17, roughly ten months after giving his performance), Jurgen Prochnow and Bruno Ganz.