Two days ago I was buying Aleve and some Emergen-C packets in a pharmacy, and I was waiting behind a 50ish woman who was having a couple of prescriptions filled. Except she wasn’t entirely certain or satisfied that the medicines she was getting were doing the job, and she was telling the pharmacist about all the aches and pains she’d been experiencing and asking for suggestions and yaddah yaddah. It went on and on and on. Eight, nine, ten minutes.

I’ve stood behind women like this before. She was apparently unmarried (no ring) and presumably a bit lonely, and here was a chance to have a nice nourishing session with the next best thing to the family doctor (which nobody sees any more because general practitioners don’t exist) — a pharmacist at a CVS store. And so I waited and waited and waited, as did the two people behind me. And this woman couldn’t have cared less. She needed counsel and advice, and she was a little worried and fretting and needed a friendly medical authority in her life, and she needed to talk about this and that and “are you sure because I tried this last week and if anything I felt worse,” etc.

On top of which the woman had one of those too-short quasi-pixie haircuts that so many hairdressers tell mid-50ish and 60ish women to try because longer hair doesn’t look good because their hair isn’t as thick or buoyant as when they were younger and looks raggedy if worn at a longer length and therefore emphasizes age. But this shorter cut has become so ubiquitous that if you’re a woman who’s reached that threshold (55 or beyond, let’s say) there’s nothing that makes you look older and says “timid and going downhill and planning to move into an assisted living facility ten years from now” than to wear your hair shorter.

There’s nothing more reprehensible in any men’s clothing department than Gold Toe socks. These are truly the sock of schmucks. John Travolta was wearing a pair when he danced with Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, and in my mind his stock dropped about 20 points right then and there. You’d have to be awfully clueless to walk up to a display of Gold Toe socks and say to yourself, “Out of all the socks being sold in this store, these are the shit!” If someone takes their shoes off and I can see they’re wearing a pair, I would immediately write them off. Just saying.

Collider.com’s Adam Chitwood confided today that the third trailer for The Dark Knight Rises will be attached to prints of The Avengers when it opens on 5.4. This is heartening news because henceforth we’ll all have a Dark Knight trailer to look at that doesn’t begin with a boy at a football game singing “Oh, say can you see…?” God, I hate that trailer! I literally flinch when I hear that soft eunuch voice.

For anyone who decided for whatever reason to avoid the writings and jabbings and riot-act readings of Christopher Hitchens during his 62 years on the planet, here’s a well-assembled summary on the Vanity Fair site.

Tweeted this morning by director Ron Howard from somewhere in rural England, where he’s been shooting Rush. Update: Pic was actually taken in Germany. Written by Peter Morgan,Rush is about the “championship battle” between James Hunt and Niki Lauda during the 1976 Formula One season. It costars Chris Hemsworth, Olivia Wilde and Natalie Dormer.

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For as long as I can remember Haiti has ruled as the #1 misery nation on earth. It is also, if you want to be cynical, the gift that keeps on giving for documentarians looking for some new tale involving agony and cruelty and God’s yawning indifference. There is only one solution for Haitians, and that is to get the fuck out of that country (through the love of baseball or anything else that works) and never return.

Each time a hopeful or encouraging action happens in Haiti, a much stronger counter-action comes along that nullifies and ushers in a renewed sense of despair.

David Darg and Bryn Mooser‘s Baseball in the Time of Cholera will have its world premiere at 6 pm this evening at the Tribeca Film Festival. Olivia Wilde is a co-executive producer. Subsequent screenings will happen Monday, 4.23 at 12 noon, on Friday, 4.27 at 9:45 pm, and on Sunday, 4.29 at 10 pm.

There are few things in life that are more clarifying and soul-soothing than to walk onto a Manhattan subway platform and check out a movie poster that’s been graffiti-ized and/or defaced in some way, and to realize in a flash that this — this! — probably represents the final audience-confronting reality, at least more than those reactions from the South by Southwest horror geeks and hyperventilators two or three weeks ago.

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Photos from the Les Miserables shoot indicate that director Tom Hooper isn’t looking to spiff up or Hollywoodize this musical rendering of Victor Hugo‘s 1862 novel. It’s a piece about the destitute poor of 1830s Paris and everybody looks like hell, particularly rail-thin Anne Hathaway‘s Fantine and her tennis-ball haircut. Actually, there’s one Hollywood-type “up” moment in this clip — i.e., a joyful smiling look between Hathaway and Hugh Jackman‘s Jean Valjean. But I can roll with it.

It’s time to finally face up to Nicholas Stoller and Judd Apatow‘s The Five Year Engagement (Universal, 4.27), which will screen for LA press stragglers on Monday. I’ve dealt with my general Jason Segel issues, but now I have to grapple with the fact that his head is at least 50% larger than the one belonging to Emily Blunt, who plays his fiance, and that he appears to outweigh her by at least 100 pounds, and that by the time he’s 40 or so…forget it. I’m not doing this again.

I don’t think my last Five Year Engagement riff (which ran over two months ago) got enough attention so I’m just going to re-paste it…eff it. It was called “Generation Delay.”

“I have this sense of having seen too many romcoms about under-40 couples (partly GenX but most GenY) taking the longest time to either find their ideal romantic partner or, having found him/her, taking eons to pull the trigger about moving in together or getting married or having kids or whatever.

“I’m telling myself that these films — the latest being The Five Year Engagement (Universal, 4.27) — are metaphors for a general sense of under-40 futility out there — cynical attitudes and expectations, shitty jobs, crappy paychecks and ‘the Boomers have screwed us so what’s the point of shouldering too much responsibility?…we can’t afford that much and who knows when the next recession will come?’

“You can’t turn off the hunger or instinct for love, sex and procreation, of course, and clearly there are thousands of rich or flush GenXers like Judd Apatow who’ve gotten married and have had kids, etc., but middle and lower-middle under-40s seem to be seriously ambivalent about taking the next step toward anything. They’d rather shoot the shit and hang out at cafes and text and go to Cancun and piddle around. Generation Flounder, Generation Procrastinate, Generation Wank.

“If this isn’t true why do I have a sense of so many movies and TV shows about romances that are endlessly delayed for this and that reason? Later.

“On top of which I can’t buy into any film in which Jason Segel, the Manatee of GenY comic actors, is the engaged bachelor or groom or guy in a serious relationship. I look at him and I think indulgence and corpulence. Ice cream, Hostess Cupcakes, cheesecake, cheeseburgers, bananas, peanut butter, pasta, etc. I can’t ‘be’ him and he can’t ‘be’ me as I watch one of his films.”

There are two Charlotte Rampling scenes in Woody Allen‘s Stardust Memories that are among the greatest of her career. They show the two sides of her character, Dorrie — one insecure, frazzled and ragged-edged and the other beautiful and serene. The infuriating truth is that however much guys might want an emotionally stable, not-too-complicated and positive-minded woman for a girlfriend or wife, they’re more often drawn to the half-crazy ladies. Partly (and I wish this wasn’t true) because the erratic ones are better in the sack.

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Variety‘s Jeff Sneider is reporting that Taylor Swift, of all people, is “circling the role” of Joni Mitchell in a film version of Sheila Weller‘s 2008 book “Girls Like Us,” which will be shot under the aegis of Sony Pictures and Di Bonaventura Pictures. It’s an appalling idea because Mitchell’s manner and speaking style always conveyed the churning soul of a poet and artist, and Swift, a country music aficionado, looks and talks like a none-too-introspective, looking-to-please pop personality. Mitchell is a world-class lady with oceans, rivers and tributaries within; Swift is a pond.

The director will be Katie Jacobs and the script is by John Sayles.

Like the book, the film “would examine the careers of singers Mitchell, Carly Simon and Carole King,” Sneider reports. “Swift does not have an official offer, but has been linked to the Mitchell role for several months as other actresses have auditioned to play Simon and King, including Alison Pill (Midnight in Paris) for the latter singer. Pic has not yet been greenlit, though it is tentatively skedded to start production later this year when the three leads’ schedules allow for filming.”

Swift has never played a lead or carried a film before. Her two movie appearances thus far have been as a fictional character in Valentine’s Day and as herself in Hannah Montana: The Movie.

Look at Swift in the above video and try to imagine her singing “Coyote” or “Amelia” with with any believability or conviction, much less playing the woman who wrote these songs. Get the fuck outta here.

Meryl Streep of 20 or 30 years ago, okay, but it’s impossible to imagine Swift portraying Mitchell as she’s described by reader Kevin Killian in this Amazon review of the book:

“Joni Mitchell isn’t sympathetic per se, but she has the integrated personality of a genius totally in love with herself and obsessed with her own reflection, so she’s great in a special way. Weller pokes amused fun at Mitchell’s vanity and enormous self-esteem, but we get the picture that, in her opinion at any rate, Mitchell actually is pretty fucking amazing.”

Woody Allen‘s To Rome With Love opened in Italy today, and NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli reports that Italian critics have shown “no love” for it. “Allen is a cult figure here, but reviews of his newest movie were lukewarm — nowhere near the charm, critics said, of last year’s Midnight in Paris. Critics called the movie superficial, banal and full of stereotypes, and said it lacks the irony and scathing satire present in most Italian postwar cinema.

“Several complained that Allen’s Rome is the one foreigners have in their mind’s eye even before setting foot here. And it’s a vision filtered through the prism of the 1 percent — the characters lodge in grandiose baroque-style rooms in five-star hotels and enjoy grand vistas from terraces the average Roman can only dream about.

“Paolo d’Agostini of La Repubblica quipped, ‘Can you imagine a Roman traffic cop living in an apartment overlooking the Spanish Steps?'”

The fact that Allen’s film has been dubbed (the lingua originale version is completely unavailable even in upscale Roman venues) probably diminishes some of the charm.

“The movie is a magnificent postcard of the eternal city,” Poggioli writes, “a carefree romp along cobblestone streets nestled between ancient ruins and Renaissance palaces. A soft yellow glow pervades every scene. It projects an image of the sweet life with all the charms under the Italian sun, set to the tune of old standbys like ‘Volare’ and ‘Arrivederci Roma.’

“Allen has said he grew up watching Italian cinema and was influenced by its grand masters. While there’s nothing neorealist in his latest movie, it has an echo of Fellini‘s The White Sheik, and Penelope Cruz‘s performance in one segment calls to mind Sofia Loren’s high-end call girl in Vittorio de Sica‘s Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

“The movie is made up of four separate vignettes about love swaps, mistaken identities and the cult of celebrity. One features Allen himself playing a retired, neurotic opera director who tries to make a star out of a man who can sing Pavarotti-quality opera, but only in his shower.

“In another episode, Alec Baldwin plays a famous architect vacationing in Rome, reminiscing about his youth in the city. Along the way, he meets a young American student, played by Jesse Eisenberg, who is love-struck by Ellen Page, playing a narcissistic young actress.”

The English-language version of To Rome With Love opens in the U.S. on June 22nd.

I was stunned and heartbroken by Google’s decision earlier this year to shut down Picnic, a photo-editing website that was clean and efficient and dumb enough for the likes of myself. There are various website and app options out there, but I needed a cropping, resizing, sharpening, tinting and contrasting tool that was really and truly moron-level. I wrote in early February that “it’s unconscionable of Google to remove a popular photo-editing software without offering some kind of replacement option.”

Well, Google or somebody heard the cries. Picnic ended this morning but there was a link to a site called Picmonkey, and it’s the best photo editing site for dumbasses that I’ve been able to find. I don’t know who created it or why I couldn’t locate Picmonkey until now, but thank God there’s a first-rate Picnic replacement that I can live and work with without breaking a sweat.