Year: 2008

That too-long-in-the-works Barack Obama documentary from directors Amy Rice and Alicia Sams — the doc that began shooting in ’06 and may not be finished until sometime next fall (or so I read earlier this year) — will air on HBO, according to an exclusive report by Indiewire’s Eugene Hernandez.

This thing should be out in the world concurrent with or just after Obama’s inauguration. By next fall all kinds of headaches, heartaches and downturns will have kicked in and the vibe won’t be the same. The world demands a fast turnaround these days. It’s being edited by Sam Pollard . Filming will keep on through Inauguration Day.

“I was born in 1941. That was the year they bombed Pearl Harbor. I’ve been living in darkness ever since. It looks like things are going to change now.” — Bob Dylan speaking during an election night concert at Minnesota’s Northrop Auditorium. All fine and good, but what happened to “don’t follow leaders, watch parking meters”?

Identify, please. It’s a tracking shot pre-credit thing. Too easy.

Agreeing with my (two or three years old) suggestion that Russell Crowe should do whatever it takes schedule- and commitment-wise to land the role of Moe in the Farelly Brothers‘ Three Stooges flick, Hunter Lurie has come up with two inspired additions — Philip Seymour Hoffman as Curly and Robert Downey, Jr. as Larry. Please make this happen, God. Think about it. Perfect.

Lurie allows that “maybe Crowe is a funny guy” given that “hitting the hotel clerk in the face with a phone is a borderline-Stooges stunt on its own. No maybe about it, fella. One, you can’t nice or mellow your way into being funny — you need to be deep-down angry. Ask any honest comedian (or anyone who knows comedians). And two, I once saw a clip of Crowe at some Hollywood red carpet event when he grabbed the mike of an obsequious entertainment reporter (somebody from Access or Telemundo) and went into a Jose Jimenez-as-red-carpet-whore routine that I swear was one of the funniest improvs I’ve ever seen.

I have a slight issue with Lurie’s Photoshopping — Hoffman looks like his head was sliced off by a helicopter blade, or by Steve Martin‘s Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr — but I’m willing to let it slide.

Yesterday morning Indiewire‘s Eugene Hernandez tried to find a copy of the 11.5 New York Times trumpeting Barack Obama‘s win. “Unable to find one anywhere, I ultimately ended up at the Times building where many people had the same goal,” he writes. “I spoke with a few of the folks waiting on line and cut this together very quickly. Newspapers may be facing increasingly tough times, but on a day like yesterday, many of us still look to the printed page.”

If I weren’t sitting on a hard airlines terminal floor I might write my own riff about the passing of the revolting and homophobic Proposition 8. But it’s very difficult to be focused and productive in such a physically uncomfortable position. (Plus I’m too angry at Continental Airlines to think straight anyway.)

So let’s just say I’m also wondering, as Kris Tapley did earlier today, if an earlier release of Milk — which deals in part with the campaign against the homophobic Briggs Amendment (i.e., Prop 6) in ’78 — might have somehow raised consciousness and perhaps helped defeat Prop 8. I know, I know…pipe dream. The Orange County and San Joaquin Valley yokels would have rallied hard for Prop 8 no matter what.

“Some of the film’s most inspiring and, indeed, captivating moments come during the sequence that details the Prop 6 fight,” Tapley notes. “Consistently, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn ‘s career-best portrayal) makes the point, to paraphrase, ‘We have to make them understand that they know us.’ That message, I think, might have carried a lot of heft if voters had made it to the polls four weeks later.”

But I’m not a studio head and I don’t make these decisions. A studio’s priority is, of course, to shareholders, and “Milk” is likely to make more money in its current release plan than something earlier in the season. But you can’t help but wonder what might have been. And you can’t “give ’em hope” after the fact.

Continental Airlines did its casual best to put me there. I helped out some, I’ll admit, but it was mainly their doing. That’s how I see it, at least. It’s always “their” fault, right? The long and the short is that I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor at LAX, my initial flight long gone. Don’t ask, the milk is spilt, the day is shot. But you have to roll with this stuff.

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough exhibited shock and remorse a few minutes ago upon learning from The Page‘s Mark Halperin that Barack Obama‘s chief of staff will (according to the D.C. rumble) be Rahm Emanuel. “He is a partisan,” said Joe. “He’s Ari Gold‘s brother. Rahm Emanuel? Wow. Wow!”

I’m off to LAX and New York. I won’t be posting again until sometime this evening. Okay, maybe something from the lounge. I’m easy either way. Great day, great mood, all is well.

Spike Lee joked a little bit this morning on MSNBC about Jesse Jackson‘s tearful moment last night. It was a bit ironic, I thought, given Jackson’s “I wanna cut his nuts off” remark about Obama, which he was overheard saying last July. Nonetheless, Jackson’s heart had a lot of company last night. We were all feeling it, all one.