Excerpts from a 2.22 Vox interview with Mikhail Fishman, editor-in-chief of the Moscow Times, an English-language weekly published in Moscow. Fishman, a Russian citizen and an outspoken critic of Putin, has covered Russian politics for more than 15 years. The interview was conducted by Vox‘s Sean Illing:

Fishman: “In their habits, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump they’re radically different. Trump is a posturing performer, full of idiotic narcissism. He appears to be a disorganized fool, to be honest. Putin, on the other hand, is calculating, organized, and he plans everything. He also hides much of his personal life in a way that Trump does not.

“Then there’s also the fact that Putin is so much more experienced than Trump. He has more than 15 years of global political experience. He knows how to do things, how to work the system. He makes plenty of mistakes, but he knows how to think and act. Trump is a total neophyte. He has no experience and doesn’t understand how global politics operates. He displays his ignorance every single day.”

Illing: “What is the perception of Trump in Russia? Is he seen as an ally, a foe, or a stooge?”

Fishman: “The vision of Trump is basically shaped by the Kremlin and their propaganda machine — that’s what they do. During the election campaign, Trump was depicted not as an underdog but as an honest representative of the American people who was being mistreated by the establishment elites and other evil forces in Washington.”

Illing: “The Kremlin knew that to be bullshit, right? This was pure propaganda, not sincere reporting, and it was aimed at damaging Hillary Clinton.”

Fishman: “Of course. All of it was aimed at damaging Hillary Clinton. Putin expected Trump to lose, but the prospect of a Clinton victory terrified him, and he did everything possible to undermine her.”

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The 1984 Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim, James Lapine, Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters’ Sunday in the Park with George melted me down. And now a new production at the Hudson Theatre, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as George and Annaleigh Ashford as Dot/Mariem has opened to rave reviews.

It will run until 4.23, and if I had the surplus dough I would fly back to New York sometime in mid March to catch it. Experiencing the right kind of emotion and exaltation is all but priceless. You only live once, right? Cheers to Jake for reportedly nailing it — for the passion it took to invest himself 110% and enhance his vocal game, for allegedly matching Patinkin note for note and heartbeat for heartbeat.

From Ben Brantley’s N.Y. Times review: “Mr. Gyllenhaal translates the intensity that has characterized his most memorable screen appearances (including Brokeback Mountain and Nightcrawler) into a searing theatrical presence, in which his eyes are his center of gravity. He embodies one of Seurat’s favorite artistic dictums, ‘concentrate,’ with an unwavering focus that seems to consume and illuminate the dark.

“Mr. Gyllenhaal invests every note he sings with the rapt determination of someone trying to capture and pin down the elusive. Watch Seurat at work, dabbing specks of color on his canvas, and listen to the vigor (and rigor) with which he invests the repetition of those colors’ names.”

Beginning of Brantley’s review: “He is a thorny soul, a man neither happy nor particularly kind, and not someone you’d be likely to befriend. But when the 19th-century French painter Georges Seurat, reincarnated in the solitary flesh by a laser-focused Jake Gyllenhaal, demands that you look at the world as he does, it’s impossible not to fall in love.

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Get Out is a “trite get-whitey movie” by way of “a horror comedy for Black History Month,” writes National Review critic Armond White. “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner meets Rosemary’s Baby meets Meet the Fockers” meets Trayvon Martin meets Stepin Fetchit and/or Black Sambo.

SCREECHING SPOILER: “What was it, exactly, that the all-media screening audience at the new movie Get Out was cheering for when the black protagonist killed an entire family of white folks one by one?

“26-year-old middle-class black photographer Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) travels with his white girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) to her family’s idyllic exurban home and discovers a racist cult intent on siphoning black men’s mental and physical energy…Hollywood high-concept goes low and unfulfilled.

“Get Out is an attenuated comedy sketch in which serious concerns are debased. Pushing buttons that alarm blacks yet charm white liberals, [director Jordan] Peele manipulates the Trayvon Martin myth the same way Obama himself did when he pandered by saying, ‘Trayvon Martin could have been my son.’

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This 4-minute, 45-second clip from Alien Convenant (20th Century Fox, 5.19) is all about delivering a false-alarm joke that kicks in at 2:50 and ends at 3:30. Close to three minutes of group chit-chat and camaraderie, and then the 40 second payoff, and then another 75 seconds of aftermath. The late John Hurt would be amused.

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From Business Insider post earlier today: “After prompting by President Trump during a White House meeting with corporate CEOs, GE’s Jeff Immelt regaled [the participants] with a story about Trump hitting a hole in one while playing golf with Immelt.

“We were trying to talk President Trump into doing the The Apprentice…that was my assignment when we owned NBC,” said Immelt. “President Trump goes up to a par 3 on his course. He looks at the three of us and says, ‘You realize, of course, I’m the richest golfer in the world?’… then gets a hole in one.”

The group laughed, and Immelt concluded, “So I have to say, I’ve seen the magic before.”

The magic? Did Immelt sound like the most pathetic big-wheel kiss-ass of the 21st Century when he said that or what?

“It’s crazy,” Trump said to more laughter. “I actually said I was the best golfer of all the rich people, to be exact, and then I got a hole in one. It was sort of cool.”

Trump just made Jeff Immelt describe the time Trump hit a hole-in-one

Trump: “I actually said I was the best golfer of all the rich people” pic.twitter.com/6yB7oj6WJe

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 23, 2017

There’s an encased-in-cement contingent out there that insists on seeing La La Land — a love story that’s mostly about struggle, stress, career angst and romantic dreams not coming true — as some kind of slightly-too-frothy diversion. I’ve been repeatedly explaining that it’s hardly that at all. There’s exactly one light moment at the very beginning, and exactly two swoony romantic scenes — the rest is about what a bitch it is to make your career and love life work out. And yet the “too light” crowd refuses to back off.

Here‘s one of them — a member of the Academy’s publicist branch who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg:

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Author and former Chicago Tribune movie guy Mark Caro is back with his annual Oscar quiz, once again in the N.Y. Times. “I tried to make it a bit less tough or obscure,” he notes, “but that’s eye-of-the-beholder stuff.” Reference the Oscar.go.com nominees list as you’re answering the toughies.

Opener: If Moonlight‘s Barry Jenkins wins for Best Director (which he won’t), he will not become the second African-American winner in that category.

I’ve been ixnayed regarding a request to attend Friday’s Hidden Figures party at Spago, but I’ll share this all the same — a note from a Manhattan guy who gets around: “I’ve spoken with several Oscar voters in New York who voted for Hidden Figures in the Best Picture category. They could give a shit about a love letter to Los Angeles. They live here. I’m calling this as a huge upset possibility. The frontrunner is always vulnerable and HF is about something. Plus it’s a story no one knew.”

If Hidden Figures is surging (and I’m not disputing this), it’s a Hubert Humphrey surge — too little and too late. Or too regional.

Reading Robbie Collin‘s recent pronouncement that The Lost City of Z (Amazon/Bleecker, 4.14) is an “instant classic” really rankled my ass. It’s a slow, tension-free dirge — a film that inspires thoughts of escape with the first 30 minutes — with a dead-fish lead performance by Charlie Hunnam. Beware of the James Gray cabal! — they live in a different world than you or I.

From my 12.22.16 review: Around the 25-minute mark I was starting to feel concerned about how much longer The Lost City of Z would last. I looked at my watch…Jesus God, almost another two hours!

“I was sitting in a rear-center seat in Alice Tully Hall, and for some wimpish reason I didn’t want to get up and risk stepping on 15 or 16 pairs of feet on the way out so I figured, ‘Stop it…be a man and stick this out…you can do it.’

“I made it to the end but it was brutal, dawg. By the time The Lost City of Z I had concluded that I really, really don’t want to watch another movie with Charlie Hunnam in the lead.

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Quick wit, nice guy, open to the alpha, drawing from the well. But I’m not sensing a discerning Olympian sensibility a la Nicolas Ray, Spike Lee, Orson Welles, Samuel Fuller, Sidney Lumet, Charles Burnett or Stanley Kubrick. I’m sensing the mindset of an entertainer — a guy who’s looking to sell tickets, juice the customers, make ’em laugh. A black John Carpenter with a funny bone?

“Denzel Washington’s performance in Fences is big, bold and showy; Casey Affleck’s in Manchester by the Sea is quiet, understated and internal. Affleck had won almost all the awards until SAG chimed in. Washington’s is the kind of acting that the Academy loves to reward — when was the last time an oversized performance lost to a subtler one, or a performance as brilliantly understated as Affleck’s won? I don’t know the answer to that question, because it just doesn’t happen. Subtlety, sad to say, rarely wins acting Oscars.” — from Steve Pond‘s last and final Oscar assessment piece, posted today at 2:12 pm.

Note: I’m not going to personally fork over $20 bills to all comers if Affleck loses — you have to have a Pay Pal account.