Joe Biden looks pretty good and handles himself like a grade-A smoothie. The car is cool. Michelle Obama arguably delivers the best performance. Nancy Pelosi is…she’s fine. I don’t get the John Boehner panda bear gag.

L.A. Times reporter Steven Zeitchik has explained what the Grace of Monaco conflict between Harvey Weinstein and director Olivier Dahan is basically about. Their dispute has resulted in two Graces — a darker French version vs. a somewhat lighter “Harvey Scissorhands” American version. Dahan’s French version will open the Cannes Film Festival, as if anyone cares. I don’t believe that anyone in my realm gives a toss…really. In my head all hopes for Grace of Monaco went south many months ago once the U.S. opening began getting bumped. Everyone smelled trouble, and nobody was all that interested to begin with. DOA, VOD…forget it.

“The Weinstein version of Grace apparently shows Grace Kelly‘s story as a light fairy tale with a strong dose of wish fulfillment,” Zetichik reports. “Dahan and producer Le Pogam have fashioned a more melodramatic‎ account that highlights Kelly’s hardships upon her arrival in the monarchy.” Zeitchik adds that Dahan’s original director’s cut “was far darker than either cut and is no longer in play.”

Compared to the 1954 original, it’s quite obvious that the new Godzilla in the 5.16 Warner Bros. release is plus-sized. This has been noticed and complained about by Japanese fans. The visual evidence is irrefutable. It’s almost certainly an allusion (subconscious or otherwise) to the obesity levels in this country, which have gone through the roof over the last two or three decades. Are you telling me that designing a fat Godzilla was…what, arbitrary?

Current version in Gareth Edwards’ film

Original model in 1954 Gojira.

TMZ and RadarOnline reported yesterday that on 4.28 Ben Affleck was allegedly banned for life from playing blackjack at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas. Affleck’s crime was counting cards, i.e., “advantage play” and/or “moving his money with the count.” Big deal. What got me was a sentence about “the 41-year-old actor [being] in Las Vegas earlier this week with wife Jennifer Garner so the pair could spend some quality time together before he heads off to Detroit to film the new Batman movie.” If there’s one place a married couple can’t find quality time under any circumstance, it’s Las Vegas. That toxic Vegas vibe I’ve written about several times is based upon attracting the most wasteful, emotionally immature, physically unattractive, spiritually undeveloped people in the universe 24/7. What husband or wife says to the other, “Hey, honey, we need to hit Vegas together so we can settle down and just be with each other and be gentle and intimate and nourish our marriage“?

Last January Everest star Josh Brolin and a 40-member crew shot scenes in Nepal (i.e., at a Mount Everest base camp, local airports and in Kathmandu) before moving on to Pinewood Studios. On 4.18.14, while an Everest second-unit crew was shooting remaining scenes at Camp II on Everest, an avalanche in a nearby area killed at least twelve Sherpa guides. Yesterday Brolin and s.o. Kathryn Boyd mass-mailed the following plea for Sherpa relief. “Any help (even the lowest number available) is greatly appreciated. We have never done this before but having just recently worked with many Sherpas, all of whom knew or were related to those recently killed on Mount Everest, we know this to be a very personal and serious situation. Please give anything you can and feel free to pass this email along to your friends and loved ones. We will make absolutely sure that monies donated will be received by those families directly affected by this tragedy.” Everest will open on 9.18.15.

Here’s to the legendary Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., who passed earlier today at age 95. Zimbalist was an old-style Republican whose best-known role was Inspector Lew Erskine on The FBI, the Quinn Martin series that ran from ’65 to ’74. But Erskine wasn’t cool. Zimbalist (an apparently interesting guy who fell under the sway of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for a period) unfortunately played an FBI agent and spread pro-FBI, pro-J. Edgar Hoover propaganda during a period in American history when it was really, really uncool to do that. At least Zimbalist delivered classic coolness as Stu Bailey, senior shamus along with Roger Smith and Ed “Kookie” Byrnes, in 77 Sunset Strip, which ran from ’58 to ’64. Zimbalist acted in several features (I remember his playing a commercial pilot in Airport ’75) but he was first and foremost a TV guy. His Russian-born father was a celebrated violinist.

From my 6.13.09 review of Robert Kenner‘s Food, Inc.: “[This] is a stirring film, all right. It makes you never want to eat anything other than organic fruit and vegetables ever again. It quite rightly raises suspicions that poisons are coursing through your system. And let’s face it — if you’re any kind of meat-eater or frequenter of fast-food joints, they probably are. On top of which you’re probably a bit more of a porker than you should be. Don’t think corporate America isn’t down with that.

In this Bloomberg video excerpt, Steve Wynn is basically saying that George Clooney is a molly-coddled, reality-detached lying drunk. Wynn claims that Clooney (a) is “a victim of [a] special prejudice” because he’s been so well-paid and so thoroughly coddled by the film industry, (b) is incorrect about Wynn, a conservative, having allegedly called President Obama an “asshole” and is incorrect about Clooney having called Wynn the same, either due to Clooney being an outright liar or a fantasist, and (c) that Clooney’s fantasy is perhaps due to his having been bombed on tequila when the incident in question happened.

Most of what Wynn says sounds like bullshit to me. I know Clooney somewhat (spoken to him two or three times, hung with him a bit on the set on Monuments Men) and he’s not my idea of a typical fiddle-dee-dee Hollywood jerkwad. He’s a straight-shooting hombre with refined taste in movies, and a guy who keeps his word. On top of which Wynn went to the wrong plastic surgeon. What’s with that jawline?

Clooney’s response: “[Wynn] said I live in a bubble. More of a bubble than Las Vegas? Honestly? He says I’m ‘money coddled,’ that I’m surrounded by people who coddle me. I would suggest that Mr. Wynn look to his left and right and find anyone in his sphere that says anything but ‘yes’ to him. Emphatically. I did not attend a private boys’ school. I worked in tobacco fields and in stock rooms and construction sites. I’ve been broke more of my life than I have been successful, and I understand the meaning of being an employee and how difficult it is to make ends meet.”

The late Bob Hoskins and the still-among-us Cheryl Campbell in a scene from Dennis Potter and Piers Haggard’s Pennies From Heaven (’78), a landmark BBC miniseries that put Hoskins permanently on the map. I tried re-watching one of the episodes after Hoskins’ passing, but it’s so dark and murky-looking (on YouTube, that is) that I gave up.

From journalist-critic Chris Willman, a longtime Entertainment Weekly staffer: “I have grain on the brain just because I’m an HE reader, so I couldn’t help but noticing a surprising amount of the stuff when I saw the restored A Hard Day’s Night at the Chinese during the recent TCM Festival. Grain doesn’t bother me, but it was noticeable enough on that big screen that I was conscious of it several times and thinking about how it may be an issue for some folks, if it looks on Bluray like it did in this new digital print.

“I guess I was most aware of it during outdoor daytime sequences, where the overcast English sky was anything but a pure blinding white. I don’t remember being aware of grain when I’d seen it in the past, but I tend to be accepting of grain in contemporary remasters, because I assume it’s there in the source material and I’m okay with that. I do wonder, Jeff, if it’ll be an issue for you or if I’m just overestimating what I saw.”

Wells to Willman: I’ll hold off until I see the Bluray, but this sure sounds like Criterion. I’ve never been aware of any strong grain presence in this film, but if your assessment is correct I guess we’re all going to have to get used to one.

I got the usual two hours of sleep (if that) on the LA-to-NY redeye. Whipped isn’t the word. Everything was either a struggle or an irritation as I trudged around Newark airport, frowning and scowling and staring at my iPhone screen. By the time I got to the corner of Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street to catch the F train down to my Brooklyn rental, I decided I just couldn’t lug those fucking bags down three flights of stairs, and then lug them back up again. So I popped for a $35 cab ride. My crib is on 11th Street near Prospect Park. I dropped the bags off and went over to the park and took a 45-minute nap on a bed of pine needles, in a nice shady spot. Now I’m sitting in a Connecticut Muffin on the southwest corner of Prospect Park. Montgomery Clift is buried in a Quaker cemetery not far from here.

Lewis Beale has posted a CNN.com piece about how the Star Wars franchise ruined the reputation of big-screen science fiction by dumbing it down and aiming at a younger, less thoughtful demographic. What he essentially means is that the huge popularity of Star Wars mde it easier for studio execs to nudge aside weightier, more thoughtful sci-fi projects.

“Science fiction is in fact one of the most creative literary genres around,” Beale reminds. “The best of sci-fi is filled with meditations on what’s out there, what makes us human, how technology is used and how it is changing us. It takes up issues of race, sexuality and quite literally everything else under the sun. It is essentially about ideas, not action, and that’s the problem, as far as Hollywood is concerned.