#Matt Damon’s new movie ‘Stillwater’ premiered in NYC

‘Stillwater’ splashes NYC

Matt Damon’s excellent new movie “Stillwater” premiered at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Sentries outside. Sentries inside. Selected elevators. Special tickets. Vaccination proof required. Staffers screened you. Ropes, lines, reporters in plastic cubbyholes. Guantanamo has more freedom.

Forget ushers, you needed MDs. The invite: “Do not attend if experiencing flu-like symptoms or have fever, persistent cough, shortness of breath, or were diagnosed with coronavirus or exposure to someone diagnosed with it.”

Based kinda, sorta on Amanda Knox’s four-year imprisonment in Italy, Damon — playing her small town construction worker father — says: “Oklahoma, where some of ‘Stillwater’ filmed, was great. Roughnecks who became friends got me 7:30 every morning, took me all over the state, showed me their oil rigs and what they do. At first apprehensive, weary, like — you making fun of us? After they understood what we were doing they had us home, met their families, invited us to barbecues. They were great.

“I filmed tough scenes. The European lawyer giving me the run-around? I grab his pen and like I don’t have it all together, in a flash of violence throw it across the room. The thought was I’m a f - - k up.”

Back to civilization. What’s it like to now be living among us?

“I love Brooklyn. Beautiful family neighborhood. Restaurants, places to hang out, walk the promenade. I love it. And I can still come over the bridge to Manhattan.”

About Hollywood: “I remember many early days auditions. Constant rejection. After your blood, sweat and tears, they’d go, ‘OK, thanks.’ And you go home. Only way to cope was with a group of actors all going through the same stuff. Just how it is. You get rejected until you don’t. Rejection’s constant. Feast or famine. It’s toxic. Either be a star or get nothing. No halfway. It’s still the nature of the business.

“I’d like to direct eventually. I’ve had a few near-misses but I loved writing with Affleck.”

Just then a cap-wearing Oklahoma pal came by to say: “We gave Matt beer, steak and potato stuffed with squash, onions, mushrooms all thrown in, steamed up, then we add beans, salad and chocolate cake.”

After hearing that menu I walked away from both of them.

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Holy rollers

Need a thank-you gift after a stay-over summer weekend? How about “Charles V Coronation Procession, With Pope Clement VII, at Bologne.” The title’s shorter than the 40-foot work. It’s dated — give or take a week — 1540. Was up 1854 in London Christie’s and 2011 New York Sotheby’s. You can now grab it cheap for $275,000 at Madison Ave.’s Arader Galleries.

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Now you know

People marooned indoors 24 months spend their hours sending me mail. Like Robert Myers’ “The Little Book of Silly What Do You Call Jokes.” Like: What do you call a blond who dyes her hair brown? Answer: Artificial intelligence. (This has zero relation to Mrs. Biden.) What do you call a skeleton out in freezing temperatures? A numb skull . . . No need to be grateful to me. I live to please.

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This land of ours

Please. My country. Please. Burning police cars. Burgeoning crime. Highest murder rate cities: St. Louis, Baltimore, Birmingham, Detroit, Dayton, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Kansas City, Memphis. Crime follows poverty, homelessness and the swamps where drugs are readily available.

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P.S. If Kamala located the border — or Europe which she also hasn’t seen — she’d find it easier to break into than to have crashed the screening of Matt Damon’s four-star “Stillwater.”

Only in New York, kids, only in New York.