“Tim Robbins tried voting at his NYC polling place earlier today,” TMZ reported about an hour ago. “There was some kind of ruckus and the cops were called. Apparently Robbins has been voting at that polling place for more than a decade, but today his name wasn’t on the register.
“They told Robbins he had to fill out a provisional ballot but he didn’t want to do it. An argument erupted between Robbins and the poll worker. Robbins allegedly got loud and the poll worker said he was calling the cops. Robbins accused the poll worker of trying to intimidate him so he wouldn’t vote.
“Robbins [then] went downtown to the City Board of Elections to get proof he was good to vote.”
I arrived at the West Knoll voting location in West Hollywood at 7:02 am; I was out of there at 7:40 am. This guy kept coming out and saying “Orange table? Any orange tables?” I don’t know what orange meant but I was a green table guy. A nice vibe and thank fortune it didn’t take two or three or more hours.
This guy, this Doubt fan, keeps writing me about the film, acknowledging that I’m still under embargo but wanting to know if I think it’s a Best Picture contender plus an “actor’s movie,” or just the latter. It’s certainly an actor’s movie, I said, and arguably…make that certainly a Best Picture contender in that it serves a brilliant play with bracing clarity and authority, and when you throw in Roger Deakins‘ exquisite cinematography it’s a fairly impressive thing. A class act in every respect.
The guy’s latest inquiry is whether or not the ambiguity and suspense of the story (i.e., did he or didn’t he do it?) is still intact when film ends. He’s asking this because it’s been written by one or two persons who attended the AFI Fest screening that the suspense in the movie version is less than that rendered in the original stage play.
I answered that I asked director-screenwriter John Patrick Shanley about this angle at the AFI after-party, and that as far as he’s concerned the play and the film version deliver the exact same level of ambiguity.
Yesterday Daily Beast blogger/columnist Jessi Klein wrote a valentine to MSNBC’s David Gregory, whom I’ve written about myself.
I’ve never posted the trailer for Last Chance Harvey (Overture, 12.26), which went up a little more than a week ago. I’m speaking with a certain participant tomorrow so it seemed like the right time.
The trailer for F. Javier Gutierrez‘s Before The Fall, which I missed (naturally, typically) last Sunday at the AFI Fest, but which will have another showing Wednesday, 11.6 at 7 pm at the Mann Chinese. It’s said to be an artier, smarter, scarier Deep Impact — a film about a killer meteor about to hit earth and what everyone decides to do in the three days left before the Big Moment. It’s also known as 3 Dias.
“American Tune” courtesy of the people behind progressivefuture.org and Paul Simon.
The Hollywood Reporter‘s Paul J. Gough wrote last night that “the networks aren’t going to hold back calling the election for Barack Obama or John McCain if either gathers the magic number of 270 electoral votes.”
It’s therefore “possible, if not altogether likely, that the presidential election could be called before polls close in the west,” he writes. The networks are all claiming “they won’t make any predictions before their time. But executives say it would be foolish for them to sit on a projection if they’re sure, and it wouldn’t be fair to viewers.
The election will basically be over once the Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania tallies come in, which’ll be…what, somewhere between 8 pm and 9 pm Eastern or 5 pm to 6 pm out here?
