My intuition is that the Harry Styles-Olivia Wilde relationship, which began during filming of Don’t Worry Darling in October of ‘20, was strongest in the early stages (like all relationships) but faltered when various pressures and complications began to weigh heavily. (Not to mention the ten-year age difference.) My sense was that the current had all but petered out by the time of Darling’s debut at the ‘22 Venice Film Festival. A two-year relationship means there was genuine spirit and substance. No harm, no foul.

It’s been patently obvious for several years (i.e., early ’17) that President Donald Trump was a criminal, anti-Democratic sociopath and bully boss grifter. The Biden administration has been in power for nearly two years, and Attorney General Merrick Garland has only just announced that potential prosecutions of Trump and his criminal colleagues will henceforth be seriously examined by Jack Smith, a special prosecutor.

People have been calling Garland a wimp and a foot dragger for many months now, and if you ask me for more than sufficient cause. Bring on the new Archibald Cox slash Leon Jaworski!

N.Y. Times‘ Michael Schmidt: “Special counsels were created to put distance between the politics of the moment and the investigative work of the Justice Department. Under the regulations for special counsels, the Justice Department will have to tell Congress about any major investigative moves that the special counsel wanted to take that were overruled by senior department officials. Also, the special counsel can be fired only for cause — essentially, for not doing their job.”

Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, Gabriel Clarke & John McKenna’s 2015 doc, states very plainly that Le Mans (‘71), the semi-legendary race-track pic, was the film that broke McQueen’s spirit as well as his legend to a significant extent, and that things were never quite the same after it.

In my mind McQueen had a great 14-year run from ‘60/‘62 (The Magnificent Seven, Hell Is For Heroes) to his last quality spurt (Junior Bonner, The Getaway and The Towering Inferno) that ended in ‘74. Call it 14 years. Okay, 15 or 16 if you count Wanted Dead or Alive.

But his Godly McQueen aura, that quietly measured and invincible thing that peaked with Bullitt, that Zen-like, supercool man-of-few-words + awesome motorcycle and Mustang-driving era was shorter — The Great Escape (’63) to Le Mans (‘17) or roughly an eight-year stretch. That’s all it was — eight years.

Tough words from author, NYU business school professor and podcaster Scott Galloway on Elon Musk, speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and starting at the 4:55 mark:

“I don’t think we’re seeing the unwinding of a company (Twitter), but the unwinding of a person (Elon Musk). Which I believe is part of a larger trend. As our society has become wealthier and better educated, the reliance on a super-being along with church attendance goes down. but people still look for idols. Into that void has stepped technology leaders, because technology is the closest thing we have to magic. [For a while] our new Jesus Christ was Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk has taken on that mantle. And every ridiculously mean, nonsensical, irrational move he makes is somehow seen as chess, not checkers. We’re just not privvy to his genius yet.

“I think [Musk[] is an individual who has demonstrated a total lack of grace, has no guardrails around him, and is going to see his wealth probably cut in half. Just a week or two after the close, this is already the second worst acquisition in history. This is someone who in my opinion shows a bit of a God complex. Someone who vastly overpaid in a fit of mania or seeing something we don’t see. Twitter is a company probably worth 10 billion, [and] Musk paid 45 billion for it. He thinks he can lay off half the staff and treat them poorly and disparage them and not [suffer] any ramifications. I think he’s a terrible role model for young business people. You can’t deny his incredible accompishments, but now he’s running three different companies.

“So this notion that we need superbeings…I have found that this notion never proves out. The Roman warriors who returned after a triumphant battle, and they would have a huge parade for them, and they would hire a slave to follow and whisper in the conqueror’s ear ‘all glory is fleeting, and you are only a man.’ I have never met a person who is infallible, Christiane. They all eventually screw up, and a universal pillar of truth is that the universe doesn’t want a consolidation of power among any country or any society or any individual.”

Today marks Sutton Wells‘ first full spin around the sun — born 11.17.21. Hollywood Elsewhere will be attending her birthday party on Saturday afternoon.