There was some grousing that Jordan Ruimy‘s 4.23 summary of a recent “private” screening of Luca Guagnino‘s Artificial (Amazon MGM), generally understood to be “The Social Network geared to the AI era,” may have mischaracterized this or that aspect. But not too much, as I understand things.

I’m certainly jazzed about Artificial being ultra-zietgeisty…one of those timely-topic flicks emerging as just the right moment.

It’s pretty much guaranteed to debut at the Venice Film Festival four months hence, and will probably open commercially in October or November.

Ruimy: “Pic’s first half mainly follows Ilya Sutskever (Anora‘s Yura Borisov), portrayed as idealistic, slightly naive brain of the operation — the one who truly believes in the bigger picture, much like Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network.

“However, as the film progresses, the spotlight gradually shifts to Sam Altman (Andrew Garfield, who of course played Saverin in David Fincher‘s 2010 classic).”

Garfield’s performance apparently starts out modest and grounded, but becomes larger as the film moves on. Jason Schwartzman and Cooper Hoffman “seem to be the quiet MVPs of the ensemble, Hoffman playing a co-developer in the film’s second act with Schwartzman playing a disgruntled tech innovator who delivers a monologue to Borisov’s character about the far greater risks of allowing AI to spiral out of control.”

As one might expect, “Artificial “is kind of two things at once…partly a love letter to Silicon Valley (especially San Francisco) focusing on the power players, and partly a warning about where all of this could be heading.”

Consider a hypothetical and answer honestly: If, God forbid, some kind of violent death was to befall President Donald J. Trump, how would you respond? Outside of deploring any act of murder that takes out any elected official or prominent person, what would be your gut reaction after the dust settles? Deep down, I mean.

We all understand, I think, that a sizable percentage of adults would not be emotionally devastated by Trump being iced. The general reaction would certainly not be like the nationwide response to JFK’s murder.

Official Wiki definition: “The Overton Window is the range of policies or ideas acceptable to the mainstream public at a given time, determining what politicians can support without risking their electoral chances. It shifts over time through social movements and media, moving from unthinkable to mainstream, impacting policy by dictating the boundaries of political feasibility.”

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Because I wasn’t hip or attuned enough, Devo‘s “Mongoloid” and “Jocko Homo” never quite registered. For me their cover of “Satisfaction” (’77 or ’78) was everything. I never followed them like a fan, but they’ve been happening ever since.

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I liked The Devil Wears Prada 2 well enough. I wasn’t blown away but felt moderately pleased…intrigued, placated. The last third brings it home. Great final shot.

Meryl Streep was 56 when she played Miranda Priestly the first time (2006), and while she looks quite good in the newbie…well, she looks fine. Her eyes are certainly more heavily mascara’ed than they were in ’06, and I think her perfectly styled white hair should have been worn a bit longer. I hate how aging people always seem to wear their hair shorter.

B.J. Novak‘s Vengeance (’22), which he wrote, directed and starred in, is one of the best films released this decade. And I loved his Harry J. Sonneborn character in John Lee Hancock‘s The Founder (’16). His Prada 2 character is Jay Ravitz, the smart-enough son of Runway publisher Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman), but I’d rather see him direct and write something ambitious again.

43 year-old Emily Blunt once again plays Emily Charlton, the sniffly, suffering Miranda assistant in the 2006 original, now a big Dior hotshot. Charlton was a somewhat marginal figure 20 years ago — in Prada 2 she’s still a supporting sidelight with a few zingers, but humming with unpleasant anxiety, tension and suspicion.

What’s happened to poor Justin Theroux, who plays Emily’s boyfriend, Benji Barnes? At age 55 his once-slender face has become heavier and his jet-black hair and beard have turned reddish brown, and his eyes seem decidedly smaller than they were 10 or 15 years ago. (Remember his hippy earthman character in 2011’s Wanderlust?)

I didn’t care for Patrick Brammall‘s Peter, a condo builder whom Anne Hathaway‘s Andy likes (i.e., wants to be with). He’s just not hot enough for her, and if I was a woman or a gay guy I wouldn’t even flirt with the idea of doing him. Brammall might have gotten away with this if he had lean, chiselled features, but his face is doughy and jowly, not to mention unshaven…nope. Seems like a nice-enough guy deep down, but that’s not enough.

Kenneth Branagh plays Stuart, Miranda’s agreeable husband…meh.

Lady Gaga‘s cameo performance is high voltage…a keeper. The second most noteworthy cameo is owned by Kara Swisher, who has a couple of chit-chat lines. Poor Tina Brown is barely glimpsed before the camera cuts away.

The Milan section contains three adoring drone shots of the Duomo at night, one noteworthy passage showing Streep standing inside the Duomo-adjacent Galeria Vittorio Emanuel II, and one overhead shot of Milan’s Sforza Castle.

Last night I finally saw David Frankel and Aline Brosh McKenna‘s The Devil Wears Prada 2 (7:25 pm show), and I’ll tell you right now it’s a sizable hit — 85% of the seats were sold, and that’s highly unusual for a non-weekend night at the AMC Westport.

Lo and behold, Prada 2 isn’t half bad. It’s mildly approvable. Mainly because it sinks in emotionally during the second half or the Milan section, which begins around the 70- or 75-minute mark. The first hour or so (the Manhattan section) feels thin and caustic and stuck in formulaic cynicism (i.e., everyone’s snappy, brittle, dismissive, highly competitive).

But it picks up, finds a groove. There were two mouthy ayeholes to my left who were loudly yapping during the first hour (read: flirting with boredom, less than fully engaged), but they finally stopped when the Runway gang flies to Milan.

We know going in, of course, that Meryl Streep‘s Miranda Priestly, queen of the now-weakened and downswirling Runway, will be dispensing her haughty, imperious dialogue…chilly, bitchy, withering put-downs.

Right away I was muttering to myself “I don’t want to sit through two hours of this…Miranda needs to dig into something else.”

We’re naturally drawn to the less guarded, more openly human characters — principally Anne Hathaway’s 40ish Andy Sachs, a respected journalist who returns to Runway after being shitcanned for no good reason. Equally humane is Stanley Tucci’s Nigel Kipling, but Tooch isn’t allowed to do much except provide the usual pithy commentary.

The plot is mostly about the shaky terms of survival for big-time journalism in the 2020s.

What is Prada 2 really about? The soul-nurturing high of having a great big-city job and the supreme satisfaction of doing it well. The last shot of the film, an outdoor drone shot that gazes through Runway’s office windows at night before pulling back to take in the entirety of midtown Manhattan, says it all.

I can’t finish this in time. I have at least seven or eight paragraphs in my head…later.

On HBO’s Togetherness (the debut was eleven years ago) Amanda Peet‘s Tina fell into an awkward, in-and-out relationship with Alex, played by the bright but pudgy and obviously-inappropriate-by-classic-standards Steve Zissis.

Now, in Matthew Shear‘s Fantasy Life (Greenwich, 3.27.26), she settles into a relationship with another chubby Jewish intellectual type (played by Shear).

The older but still radiantly attractive Peet is now boxed in — she’ll almost certainly never be cast as a partner, wife or significant other of a slender, good-looking guy ever again.

I’ve written about this lopsided dynamic before, and more than once.

HE agrees with the headline and sub-head of Guy Lodge’s Variety review…sight unseen, of course, but I can smell the coffee. Lodge may be a dweeb, but he’s a truly excellent wordsmith and is certainly no obsequious softballer.

And that’s music to HE’s ears.