All I know is, William Friedkin had the best four wives of anyone in Hollywood: French actress and beauty Jeanne Moreau, British actress and beauty Lesley-Anne Down, LA beauty and newscaster Kelly Lange, and then– for the last 32 years– American movie exec and beauty Sherry Lansing. So the whole movie thing? Doesn’t matter.

He told the Guardian in an interview four years ago that he left out the rest of his dangerous liaisons from his memoir.”I filled a hundred pages of Moleskine notebooks with my one-night stands, my affairs. But I decided they didn’t belong in a professional memoir. First of all, these are real people we’re talking about. Many of them were enjoyable. Some were abject failures. My wife said to me when she read the pages, ‘Of what purpose is this in a memoir? Of what purpose is this other than to titillate?’”

That was Sherry Lansing, wise and wonderful. Now you know why she was such a good producer.

Friedkin is 82 and coming out with a new movie next month that seems like it’s a mock documentary about demonic possession. It’s a riff of one of his five famous movies– this one, “The Exorcist,” from 1973. His other well known movies were three around that time– “The Night They Raided Minsky’s,” “The French Connection,” and “The Boys in the Band.” He made a brief Renaissance in 1985 with “To Live and Die in LA.”

The little but feisty Orchard is distributing “The Devil and Father Amorth.” Father Amorth is 91 and the official exorcist of the Vatican. Together, they went on house calls in Italy looking for the devil. Well, at least the food was good!

Ava Duvernay’s “A Wrinkle In Time” opens Friday– something you would know even if you lived on Mars. The promotional campaign budget is like something that rivals that of a G7 nation. There isn’t an existing being in any universe that doesn’t know about Oprah and Reese and Mindy and now even Sade.

“Wrinkle” is directed by Ava Duvernay and “Wrinkle” Jennifer Lee, adapted from the classic novel written by Madeline L’Engle in 1962. It’s Duvernay’s first narrative feature since her excellent “Selma.” On the way, she’s given us the Oscar nominated documentary “13th” and the hit mini series “Queen Sugar.” Duvernay, who began her career as a publicist (and a good one), has become a cause to reckon with, a brand name, and a popular member of the “new” Hollywood generation.

We really want to love “Wrinkle” because it’s from a female director working with the biggest budget yet. So the good things are what I looked for first– Storm Reid is terrifically appealing playing Meg, the tortured teen missing her scientist Dad (the likeable Chris Pine). Gugu Mbatha-Raw is truly lovely as her Mom.

And this is basically what happens: Three celestial beings show up in Meg’s backyard (played by Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling) to help Meg and her brother Charles Wallace –with their friend Calvin– to fight against a mysterious evil entity and find their missing Dad in the cosmos.

Visually ambitious, the film is commendably faithful to the book. The problem is that the film is scattered and at times overly preachy, without the whimsy or the pure enchantment of the source material. Witherspoon valiantly tries to inject humor, but she’s not helped by the flat script. Oprah is Oprah, like she is on “Super Soul Sunday” — kind of a vibrant cheerleader. It’s far from her best acting in movies like “The Butler” or even “Selma.” Kaling tries but just seems out of place. It’s not their fault because the film, for the most part, doesn’t flow. It’s jarring and you kind of never know where you are in the story.

Duvernay is grappling with a difficult narrative that doesn’t gel until late in the book– and now the film. It’s only in the third act that “Wrinkle” comes together and is genuinely touching, but it’s a shame Duvernay and Lee didn’t integrate those qualities from the first shot. Another problem is that because younger audiences are probably not as familiar with the book as other Disney films, this film needed to be easy to understand and fun to watch. With the scarcity of humor and the confusion of it all,  the enjoyment factor is a bit elusive at times.

This doesn’t mean “Wrinkle” won’t bring audiences, especially this first weekend. Young girls especially will love to watch Meg come into her own. And that is sincerely wonderful to watch. Duvernay is a gifted filmmaker, but this Herculean task of making such a quirky book into a film, even with the noblest of intentions — which the film does strive for — ultimately the pieces just don’t quite come together. A valiant, admirable effort though for all those involved.

Once upon a time. the Vanity Fair Oscar party was “the” place to be after the Academy Awards.

It’s where Ellen Degeneres met Anne Heche. It’s where Monica Lewinsky made her debut after the Clinton scandal. Old Hollywood mixed with new.

Graydon Carter, you see, had that sensibility. He took from Swifty Lazar and Dani Janssen, who knew the players. The Vanity Fair was so good up til last year that Elton John would come on over after his party peaked. (Not so this year, btw.)

Last year, there were all kinds of cool interesting guests apart from the Oscar nominees. I walked in with Mariah Carey and Pharrell (they weren’t together), Justin Timberlake was hanging out, LA Reid and Smokey Robinson had a whole corner.

The year before, it was Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio and whole gangs of the curious. Mick Jagger was a regular. There was frisson.

Alas, the party is over. The guest list read like the Indie Spirit Awards meets a trip to Target in Beverly Hills. A bunch of people didn’t show or weren’t invited, from French artist JR and Agnes Varda (nominated for Best Doc– I heard they weren’t invited) to Barbara Davis, the city’s most beloved philanthropist.

Legends like Jane Fonda and Warren Beatty were nowhere to be seen. Nicole Kidman probably went home.

If there were hot people in town, they gave their own parties. Jay Z rented out the garage at Chateau Marmont and invited 300 friends including, presumably, Beyonce and maybe even Solange. Quincy Jones went there and held court. Big black screens covered the entrances to the garage so even hotel guests couldn’t see who was coming or going. The music pounded like it was an express train rocking through a local station.  Extra security– big beefy guys with ear pieces– were stationed in even the strangest places.

Meanwhile, Madonna and manager Guy Oseary had their bash. This would explain where people Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone would have been (but not Warren Beatty– not at Madonna’s).

But back to Vanity Fair. The list of actors on the tip sheet read more like In Touch or TV Guide than…Vanity Fair.

It’s the end of an era maybe. I hope not. But we may have reached a generational change and there’s no going back.

Graydon’s Oscar party and sensibility was Old Guard- it came from Swifty Lazar and the original Spago-Ma Maison-Le Dome era. But almost every one is dead, or they’ve gone home. And no one at Vanity Fair has any kind of spiritual connection to the Old Guard– who would romanticize it now?

PS Guests included James and Lachlan Murdoch? Huh?

And PPS– Byron Allen’s party last night raised $1.5 million for the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. Elton John’s party raised $6 million for AIDS research. Vanity Fair’s party was…a party.

No big surprises tonight at the 90th Academy Awards. Guillermo del Toro won Best Director for directing the Best Picture, “The Shape of Water.”

Acting prizes were as predicted– to Gary Oldman for “Darkest Hour,” Frances McDormand for “Three Billboards,” Allison Janney for “I, Tonya” and Sam Rockwell for “Three Billboards.”

The Jimmy Kimmel hosted show was long — four hours– and its ups and downs like every Oscar cast. The biggest issue was the sequencing of awards– there was a good hour in there that was wretchedly dull. The bars in the Dolby Theatre lobby filled almost to capacity with nominees, celebrities and so on.More on that later tomorrow.

Adapted Screenplay: “Call Me by Your Name”

Foreign Language Film: “A Fantastic Woman”

Animated Feature: “Coco”

Visual Effects: “Blade Runner 2049”

Film Editing: “Dunkirk”

Animated Short: “Dear Basketball”

Live Action Short: “The Silent Child”

Documentary Short: “Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405”

Score: “The Shape of Water”

Song: “Remember Me” from “Coco”

Production Design: “The Shape of Water”

Cinematography: “Blade Runner 2049”

Costume Design: “Phantom Thread”

Makeup and Hairstyling: “Darkest Hour”

Documentary Feature: “Icarus”

Sound Editing: “Dunkirk”

Sound Mixing: “Dunkirk”