Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Assorted Western sagas got lassoed together in “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.”

You’re told the film’s by “brilliant Ethan and Joel Coen.” How brilliant, who knows? They speak to nobody.

Liam Neeson: “I play a traveling impresario. We filmed in New Mexico. The odd thing is the horse who pulls my wagon knew me.”

Like what’s that mean? He’s seen your movies?

“You won’t believe it. I’m saying this horse knew me. He actually remembered me from another Western we made a while back. I love animals. When we worked together before I took special care of him. I fed him treats. Gave him apples.”

So this horse, he said, “Hi” when you walked over?

“He whinnied when he saw me. And pawed the ground.”

Wow. Beats even a Miley Cyrus reaction.

Co-starring is James Franco, Tyne Daly and Zoe Kazan, who hit the screening in floor-length fluffy Valentino. It’s not worn in the film. Wild West wagontrains weren’t big on Valentinos.

At the NY Film Festival, a Tim Blake Nelson said: “I play singing cowboy Buster Scruggs. You’d think, who am I to play a lead being short, small of frame, not handsome, not well-known? Only with the Coen brothers could this happen.

“They’re friends. I’m an actor who’s done 80 films. My character’s a killer but doesn’t kill unless he’s provoked. He lives by a code. In a sense, he feels justified. It’s self-defense.” OK.

A diminutive actor is the lead. Another actor is pals with a horse. Go see the thing yourself.

Listen, here’s what I’m hearing

With all our news about Putin’s little country, comes now “Adoption Roulette,” a new play at the Theater for the New City. True story of Americans adopting a Russian child. It’s Russki agents, oligarchs, Soviet spies and spider webs of truth about Russian adoptions. In it is Sachi Parker, Shirley MacLaine’s daughter . . . Original Cowsills band guys met the “Jersey Boys” cast backstage. Everybody happy, they compared melodic harmonies from the past . . . Oct. 23. The Pierre. American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic honor Daniel Libeskind. Years back our World Trade Center’s master plan architect was a musician playing accordion . . . Another kind of music: Donnie Kehr’s Rockers on Broadway honoring Michael Cerveris and celebrating something, who knows what, Nov. 12 at Le Poisson Rouge (the old Village Gate).

If TV could please try to pay attention to me

For me, Sunday was a day fit for a dog.

Channel One covered that day’s dog-and-cat event in a West Side church. Really? Their footage was of MY LAST YEAR’S Blessing of the Animals in an EAST SIDE church. OUR minister Stephen Bauman, OUR rabbi Peter Rubinstein, OUR 60th & Park’s Christ Church attendees.

Then “CBS Sunday Morning” aired its interview with me featuring Judge Judy. Today safety is staying under the radar so I OK’d the interview only to publicize my Sunday, Dec. 9, 2 p.m., Blessing of the Animals — free, open to all, no reservations — at Christ Church. Producers told me it would air in November. Instead they played it early October.

Another thing. A month or so ago I, a Jeff Glor fan, phoned to ask him something. Minus his number, I rang CBS’s press office. The man answering had me repeat my name. Then spell it. Then ask from where did I come? Who was I with? This was THE OFFICE OF CBS’S NEWS department. The BS in CBS is clear. Like my 3 ¹/₂-pound Yorkie Juicy, they, too, need a kennel.

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