Apologies for not posting the exciting news about Robert Eggers‘ The Lighthouse playing under the Directors’ Fortnight banner in Cannes next month. Eggers’ last film, The Witch, is among the five greatest elevated horror films of the 21st Century; The Lighthouse, shot on 35mm black-and-white film and costarring Robert (“RPatz”) Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, is also elevated horror.

A24 calls it a “fantasy horror story set in the world of old sea-faring myths.”

Hollywood Elsewhere is presuming that the source of the horror will never be seen. If it’s shown it’ll be a goblin, ghost or sea creature of some kind. I’m personally leaning toward a sea creature — something without hands or feet, something slick and slithery like a seal, something that squeals. It’s a safe bet that it won’t resemble Guillermo del Toro‘s Creature From the Love Lagoon.

Tweet #1: “I hate admitting this, considering my partly (mostly) negative history with MCU, but Avengers: Endgame is pretty damn decent. A lot better than I thought it would be. Not just a geek-out. And yes, it DOES get you emotionally. I didn’t choke up, but I get why others have.”

Tweet #2: “I guess I could go farther than ‘pretty damn decent’. It’s an expert blend of high-end mythology, ultra-clever writing & breathtaking, super-swanky escapism by way of the Movie Godz. Endgame has definitely joined my MCU pantheon along with Ant Man, the first two Captain America installments, etc.”

“Yes, Avengers: Endgame is the most expansive film yet, and yes, it strives to provide emotional catharses for several of fans’ favorite characters. It’s even safe to say that Endgame shifts the focus from extravagant, effects-driven displays of universe-saving — manifold though they remain — to the more human cost of heroism, which comes at great personal sacrifice.

“That said, readers should also be warned that Avengers: Endgame hinges on the most frustrating of narrative tricks, and that no meaningful analysis of the film can take place without delving into some of the choices made by the Russo brothers and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.

“If Infinity War was billed as a must-see event for all moviegoers, whether or not they’d attended a single Marvel movie prior, then Endgame is the ultimate fan-service follow-up, so densely packed with pay-offs to relationships established in the previous films that it all but demands that audiences put in the homework of watching (or re-watching) a dozen earlier movies to appreciate the sense of closure it offers the series’ most popular characters.” — from Peter Debruge‘s Variety review, posted at 3 pm today.

Seriously and without checking, the top-of-my-head contenders are Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, probably Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Mean-To-Her-Subordinates, Julian Castro…that’s all I can think of. Eleven. Wait, John Hickenlooper for twelve!

Okay, now I’m looking it up and finding the names of Andrew Yang, Tim Ryan, Marianne Williamson, Eric Swallwell, Wayne Messam, Seth Moulton, Jay Inslee, Mike Gravel, John Delaney. A total of 21.

Ten months from now only five will be standing: Buttigieg, Sanders, Harris, O’Rourke and Biden. If and when Harris can’t cut the mustard (and I’m only saying she might not prevail), the #TimesUp and #MeToo genderists will freak out and throw around charges of a patriarchal conspiracy.

Biden, I predict, will gaffe himself to death and withdraw after the California primary. Sanders is a total pain in the ass, and his followers are worse…how to get rid of him?

Name the Seven Dwarves without checking: Dopey, Sleazy, Doc, Bashful, Grumpy…I’m stuck.

A semi-novel action genre concept — an older assassin confronts his younger hit-man self — in 3D HFR (60 or 120 frames per second) along with, I’m presuming, a standard 24-frame 3D version, as most people (including most critics) out there have resisted HFR. But not Hollywood Elsewhere! I eat that shit up.

“Semi”-novel because Rian Johnson sorta kinda got there first. In Looper, it was Young Joe (Joseph Gordon Levitt) vs. Old Joe (Bruce Willis), but their face-time meetings happened through time travel. In Ang Lee and Jerry Bruckheimer‘s Gemini Man (Paramount, 10.11), Will Smith‘s Henry Brogen, a salt-and-pepper assassin, confronts “Junior” (also played by Smith), a genetic copy with a younger cell structure.

One of the Gemini Man differences is that the older and younger versions seem to actually deal with the heavy-ness of their situation (not to mention the gobsmacking irony and wisdom-perspective stuff), while Looper pretty much kept things tactical.

From “Looper Dooper,” posted on 9.6.12: “The biggest disappointment, for me, is that the great haunting concept of an older guy (Bruce Willis) being able to give counsel to his younger, stupider, less wise self (Joseph Gordon Levitt) has been almost completely ignored, and that’s really a shame.

“On top of which Levitt’s made-up, CG-fortified Willis face is weirdly unformed and gets in the way of any potential investment. We all know what Willis looked like when he was costarring in Moonlighting and their faces, his and Levitt’s, just don’t match or seem even vaguely from the same family or country, even. The effect doesn’t work. Johnson should have cast Willis in both roles and CG’ed and de-aged him for his younger-self scenes.”

Keep in mind that Gemini Man was stuck in development hell for 14 or 15 years before Looper came along. Wiki excerpt: “Originally conceived in 1997, the film went through development hell for nearly 20 years. Several directors, including Tony Scott, Curtis Hanson and Joe Carnahan, were all attached at some point and numerous actors, including Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood and Sean Connery, were set to star.”

No thumbs-up hosannahs or celebrations until Hollywood Elsewhere sits through Avengers Endgame later today. You’ve read about fans sniffling here and there? Sincere pledge: If and when a scene even slightly nudges in the direction of lump-in-the-throat, I will say so without skipping a beat. My heart tingles at the thought of watching all these suited-up, handsomely compensated, impossibly smug actors ACTING with their patented dry-ironic deliveries. And oh, the Thanos pushback.

Down on my knees, begging. Just kill Robert Downey Jr.-slash-Tony Stark and shut him up for good. Forever. Until the end of time. Is that so much to ask?

Only Hollywood Elsewhere delivers the straight ramrod truth about the MCU. Ant Man forever, the first two Captain America installments (especially Joe Johnston‘s original), the first Iron Man and that’s pretty much all she wrote. Remember all the girly Black Panther whooping and cheering? But after it premiered and press-screened the clamor all settled down. Good spiritual Marvel film as far as it went (at least during the final hour), but everyone gradually calmed down. Same deal every time.