Alec Baldwin had been facing two counts of involuntary manslaughter over the the accidental killing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchin during the filming of Rust in New Mexico. But no longer.

He’s now out of the woods and standing clear and free. Two weeks before the start of the trial, criminal charges have been dropped against the guy.

We all knew it was a tragic accident, and that no reasonable person would argue that Baldwin loaded the western-style pistol. We all knew that the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was primarily responsible.

Baldwin’s lawyer Luke Nikas: “Mr. Baldwin had no reason to believe there was a live bullet in the gun, or anywhere on the movie set. He relied on the professionals with whom he worked, who assured him the gun did not have live rounds. We are pleased with the decision to dismiss the case against him, and we encourage a proper investigation into the facts and circumstances of this tragic accident.”

In the vicinity of the Colisseum, street peddlers have been selling this Roma Antica map to the tourists for decades. I bought mine (tightly rolled and shrink-wrapped) in ‘07, and for a good 15 years it hung on my dining room wall, mounted and framed.

I am eternally of this ancient city, or so I’ve always believed in my bones (or at least in my dreams). I actually lived there, I’m fairly certain, in one of my past lives. And what a comedown my lives have been ever since.

“So as through a glass, and darkly / the age-long strife I see / Where I’ve written and travelled in many guises, many names / But always me”

Eric Gravel‘s Full Time (Music Box) is a first-rate, expertly acted (Laure Calamy!), 100% genuine film about hard knocks and real, actual life, and is therefore worth about 20 Super Mario Bros or Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves combined, and at least 50 times whatever bullshit value you want to assign to John Wick: Chapter 4…I spit on all these films (especially Wick) and cherish the time that I spent with Full Time (aka À plein temps).

Even though, to be 100% honest, I found it spiritually exhausting toward the end. But that’s an intended effect.

The 40ish Julie (Calamy) can’t catch a breath, much less a break. She’s a divorced mom raising two toddlers in the too-far-away Parisian suburb of Collemieres (157 kilometers). She works as the top maid in a five-star Parisian hotel, having to leave super-early and always returning too late. And her husband is late with the alimony.

And then life gets even harder when a train strike hits. Julie has to beg, sidestep, wheedle, plead for assistance and bend the rules all the time just to keep her head above water. Raising two kids is a crushing responsibility for a single parent under the best of circumstances, but the strike makes life all but impossible.

Victor Seguin‘s cinematography and especially the editing by Mathilde Van de Moortel work hand in hand to create a thriller-like atmosphere. The cutting is straight out of the Bourne movies.

But when things take a turn for the worse at the two-thirds mark and — SPOILERS! — Julie loses her local childcare provider and especially when she apparently doesn’t land a better-paying job that she’s been interviewing for, I felt myself starting to wilt. I was rooting for this poor harried woman to somehow make it through, but I began to find it too exhausting and stressful…I just gave up.

Thank God things turn around at the end, but what a slog with the punishing commute and the two kids and the rail strike and doing it all alone…GOOD LORD!!!

It’s an excellent film nonetheless. I could easily see it again. Calmy’s performance is about as real and convincing as anything in this realm could possibly be.

HE to friendo earlier today: “Timothee Chalamet’s next actual film, I’ve read, is James Mangold‘s Bob Dylan thing. Allegedly an August start, according to Mangold. But the Kylie Jenner thing…why in heaven’s name would Chalamet, a man of at least some depth and aspiration, want to go out with an utterly empty vessel like Jenner, who does nothing except pose for semi-nude photos next to swimming pools and earn tons of money and party and so on? She doesn’t even act.”

Friendo to HE: “What’s his interest in her? Gee, I wonder.”

HE to friendo: “That’s it? Even in the throes of hormonal madness in my 20s and 30s, I always wanted to be with someone who had a little something internal going on…something in terms of exceptional style or artistic edge…a hunger for something more than just the usual temporary pleasures.”

2001 costar Keir Dullea, speaking in 2001 video essay (1:58): “Working with Stanley Kubrick blew my mind. You just were aware that you were in the presence of genius.”

I’ve always felt that genius is an overused and certainly an imprecise term, because it’s not any kind of fixed or constant condition within this or that individual.

What genius is, basically, is profound receptivity…an open door or window through which genius-level stuff flashes from time to time. Sometimes it blows hot and stormy, sometimes it’s just a whisper or a tap on the shoulder, and sometimes it’s both. It’s mainly just something that certain people channel or become a conduit of, and no more than that. It’s mostly a kind of fearless electric current… a crackling quality in the mind and spirit.

I felt it when I had lunch at The Grill with Leonardo DiCaprio in the summer of ’93. He was 18 and 1/2, and I knew right away that he had that snap-crackle-pop going on inside. But you know who doesn’t have it? Anyone who says that this or that person is flat-out imbued with eternal genius. I’m sorry but no.

In a riff called “Genius Visits When it Wants To,” I attempted to explain the same thing to Ringo Starr. His statement that Peter Jackson was a “genius” irritated me as much as Dullea did in the 2001 video.

Some HE commenters were appalled and irate that I had the temerity to offer this knowledge in a tweet. “Hold moley…How dare you discuss the limits of genius with a famous ex-Beatle!” they seemed to be saying. “You’re just a journalist…it’s not your place! You need to be obsequious!”

What I said: “As you know, Ringo, genius comes and goes. Sometimes it ignores, and then it changes its mind and suddenly flies into the room, and it’s wonderful when that happens. But you don’t tell it what to do — when you’re lucky it tells you.”

Anyone who uses the word “genius” should be regarded askance. It’s in the same league as “awesome”, “amazing”, “totally” and “absolutely.”

Danny Boyle‘s Steve Jobs premiered on 9.5.15 at the Telluride Film Festival. There was a thing that happened at Universal’s after-party that I’ll never forget. The reactions to Boyle’s film were up and down, this and that. Outside of the gladhanders, nobody I spoke to in the immediate aftermath was 100% about it.

I knew as I approached the gathering at 221 South Oak I knew I’d have to be careful not to say anything too candid. But I nonetheless found myself speaking quite honestly to First Showing‘s Alex Billington, and I soon realized he felt as I did, to wit: Jobs was a good, respectable, well-acted film, but it wasn’t very likable.

Boyle, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, costars Kate Winslet and Seth Rogen, three or four Universal publicists and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak were right nearby but we were cautious and careful. We kept our voices down to a murmur.

The small party began to fill up, and then Hollywood Reporter award-season columnist Scott Feinberg walked in and I went “hey, Scott!” and motioned him over, and without giving the invitation a moment’s thought Scott smiled but at the same time shook his head and went “noooo…no, no” (in a gesturing sense at least) and kept on walking toward the rear of the restaurant.

“What was that about?,” Billington asked.

“He doesn’t want to discuss anything with the filmmakers standing ten feet away,” I speculated. “He probably figured I’d challenge or debate him and he doesn’t want to do that within spitting distance of Seth Rogen. He’s just being careful.”

The general after-party etiquette is as follows: (1) An invited journo is obliged to be as fawning and gracious and complimentary as possible when speaking to talent or studio reps, although he/she is not obliged to lie outright about his/her reaction to the film in question; and (2) It is permissible for journos to mutter their true opinion of the film with colleagues if they happen to be out of earshot of talent or studio reps.

Please read paragraph #4 in HE’s 4.17 riff on the new Fatal Attraction limited series (Paramount +, 4.30). It’s based on a chat with a journo who’s seen most of the episodes. Fatal-ly woke, white-male condemning, portraying crazy Alex as a misunderstood heroine, etc.

In a 1997 speech called “Fighting the Culture War in America”, the late Charlton Heston, whom I regarded in the ’90s and early aughts as a wrong-headed guy because of his NRA representation, said something I agree with in a present-day context. Here, with edits, are Heston’s words:

“The law-abiding, Caucasian, middle-class Protestant or even worse, rural and apparently straight, or even worse, an admitted heterosexual, or even worse, a male working stiff…not only don’t you count, you are a downright obstacle to social progress. Your voice deserves a lower decibel level, your opinion is less enlightened, your media access is insignificant, and frankly, you need to wake up, wise up, and learn a little something from your new America. And until you do, would you mind shutting up?”

I didn’t relate to these words 26 years ago, but I do now. I didn’t even relate that much to the prickly political resentments that spawned Bill Maher‘s Politically Incorrect (’93 to ’02), or its title at least. I didn’t get on the anti-woke train until 2017 or thereabouts. What a difference a quarter-century makes.