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A Washington Post-ABC News poll says that 54% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have no particular preference for any candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Joe Biden included.

Think about that for five or ten seconds. For months and months it’s been “Biden and Bernie in front, Biden and Bernie in front, Biden and Bernie in front” and yet — and yet! — 54% of likely Democratic voters are saying “no one in particular” when asked to name a candidate they currently support.

This means that support for Biden is soft. It means the majority is still sniffing around and kicking the tires with no strong passion for anyone.

On the other hand there’s a new Emerson poll stating that Biden is doing best against Trump in Texas, with Beto O’Rourke polling nearly as well.

Until yesterday I hadn’t realized that Kamala Harris is only 5′ 2″. I’m sorry but that changes things slightly. Hillary Clinton (5’4″ or 5’5″) appeared to be fairly short in her debates with the 6’2″ Trump, but Kamala is two inches shorter. That’s visually worrisome.

Beto O’Rourke is obviously going through a rough patch, but he’s the only front-polling Democratic candidate who is clearly taller than Orange Cheeto. He’s got him by two if not three inches. Don’t kid yourself: One of the reasons that Michael Dukakis lost to George H.W. Bush (Willie Horton and tank video aside) is that fact that next to Bush he looked like Rocky the Squirrel.

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HE correspondent Mark Smith has forwarded impressions of the Tribeca Film Festival’s screening of Francis Coppola‘s Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, which was shown this evening at Manhattan’s 3000-seat Beacon Theatre:

“From what I could tell, there is NO NEW FOOTAGE of anything.

“The French Plantation scene is IN — since I’ve only seen Redux once, I’m not sure if it was trimmed down, but it felt like 23 minutes (23 months, if you ask me) so I’m assuming it’s the same now as it was in Redux.

“Let’s Stop and Fuck Some Playmates is OUT…gone. Kurtz Reads Time Magazine is OUT. The extra bits with Duvall’s Kilgore are all IN, including the scene where he’s flying over Willard and the crew, them asking for his surfboard back. So as far as I can tell, Apocalypse Now: Final Cut = Redux minus Let’s Stop and Fuck Some Playmates minus Kurtz Reads Time Magazine.

“Picture quality-wise it looks terrific. The screen was huge, and the colors and contrast levels looked great. Whatever was done to the visuals to prepare it for this premiere (4K hyper-digital blah blah) didn’t strike me as a monumental change, but it looked FANTASTIC — make no mistake.

“Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s visionary Vietnam War epic when the newly restored Apocalypse Now: Final Cut arrives on 4K Ultra H Combo Pack (4K disc, plus three Blu-ray discs and Digital copy) and on Digital 4K Ultra HD for the first time ever on August 27 from Lionsgate. A special NAGRA myCinema theatrical release of Apocalypse Now: Final Cut can be experienced on the giant screen in select theaters nationwide on August 15.”

“What REALLY leaps off the screen is how otherworldly and exquisite Vittorio Storaro’s photography is. For me this is one of the ten best-photographed movies ever, and seeing a pristine version on a massive screen was an absolute joy.

“As for the sound, I was hoping that the Wagner helicopter attack would blow my kidneys out my ass, and I was not disappointed. Whatever system they set up there was fucking galactic. It was the loudest viewing experience I’ve ever had that wasn’t a rock concert. The bass SHOOK the joint. The sound was the big star of the night for me. Triple A-Plus.

“Coppola brought Duvall out before the screening began, and before they exited the spotlight Duvall bellowed “Charlie don’t surf!” into the mike and grinned like a loon.

“Soderbergh gave props to Walter Murch, who was in the crowd. (Also saw Michael Moore walking around in his Michael Moore costume.)

“The Coppola-Soderbergh q&a will most likely be on the Tribeca Film Festival site, so I won’t try to recap it, but Coppola was lucid and gregarious. When he said he was 80, my eyebrows shot up. What I did notice was that Soderbergh, obviously in awe of the herculean effort it took to make the movie, kept bringing the conversation back to The Set. His overall fascination seemed to be, ‘How the fuck did you manage to make a work of genius under all that pressure?’

“All in all it was a grand moviegoing experience, but I still feel the French Plantation scene should go.

Sent earlier this afternoon: According to Wikipedia Redux runs 3 hours, 22 minutes. Other sources have listed Redux as 193 minutes and 197 minutes. Final Cut (as you know) is listed at 3 hours, 3 minutes.

“I pray that a good portion of French Plantation scene is cut down, but since the difference in running time between Redux and Final Cut is only 19 minutes, and French Plantation runs over 23 minutes (!), I think it’s safe to say French Plantation will be there in some form, but hopefully shorter.

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I’ve been living in the same West Hollywood pad since ’91. The influence of Tatyana has led to all kinds of cleaning and re-painting and throwing stuff out. A month ago we tossed a large glasstop desk and an adjustable up-and-down chair that I’d been using as my default workspace furniture for a good quarter-century. You wouldn’t recognize the place now. Everything, it seems, is fresh, scrubbed and clutter-free.

Ex-wife Maggie and I outside the Picasso Museum in October ’87, either just before or just after getting married at St.-Julien-le-Pauvre.

Near Omaha Beach, Normandy, France — a day or two later.

[Click through to full story on HE-plus]

In the comment thread of my 4.24 Long Shot review, “AuggieBenDoggie” noted the basic premise — dorky, blunt-spoken journalist (Seth Rogen) falls for a dishy Secretary of State (Charlize Theron) who’s way, way out of his league — and asked if it isn’t the same basic idea behind Continental Divide (’81), in which John Belushi played a stocky reporter who tumbled for Blair Brown‘s Rocky Mountain scientist.

In both films the women reciprocate the feelings of the male journalists and actually invite them into their beds. Except that the Belushi-Brown pairing is a lot less of a stretch than the Rogen-Theron romance, which has struck some as fairly ridiculous.

HE reply: Yes, there’s a rough similarity between Long Shot and Continental Divide, but the latter — directed by Michael Apted, written by Lawrence Kasdan — is a much more grown-up, more emotionally earnest comedy — a galaxy apart from Long Shot. As in “actually tethered to a semblance of the real world.” Compared to Long Shot, Continental Divide is a Lubitsch film. And Belushi isn’t half bad as the tough, Mike Royko-like Chicago journalist.

By the way: Here’s a striking photo of Belushi’s sheet-wrapped body being rolled out of the Chateau Marmont in front of a journalist wolf-pack. It kind of reminds me of the last moments of Sunset Boulevard — the same mix of pity, sadness and lurid headlines. The photo is part of a Hollywood Reporter excerpt from Shawn Levy‘s “The Castle on Sunset” (Doubleday, 5.7), which I’ve read and highly approve of.

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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.”

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.

Hugs and condolences to friends and colleagues of Anonymous Content founder and producer Steve Golin, who passed yesterday from cancer at age 64. Obviously way too young, but a life well lived.
How else to describe a guy who produced or significantly assisted Spotlight, The Revenant, Babel, Beasts of No Nation, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, Boy Erased, Being John Malkovich, The Game, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, et. al.?

Only in the 21st Century film industry can you say with a straight face that a departed professional was “burdened with good taste,” but that was Golin for you. Inexorably drawn to quality-level projects, constitutionally incapable of producing crap and always with the reddish complexion, no hair to speak of, squinty eyes and grubby salt-and-pepper whiskers, Golin lugged good taste around like a bent-over mail carrier…like Charles Bukowski in the ’50s. But he never backed off, and producing ambitious, first-rate, critically hailed films was also his pride and levitation.

Steve’s big hallelujah moment happened in early ’16 when Spotlight won the Best Picture Oscar.

I last ran into Steve at the 2015 Middleburg Film Festival, when he was repping and taking bows for The Revenant and Spotlight. We talked for 35 or 40 minutes in a shuttle van between Dulles and Middleburg. He was a hustler, of course, like any good producer, but he seemed to really understand and believe in the transformative power of great filmmaking.

The film industry could use a lot more Steve Golins, and now it has one less.

The tragic but affecting story of Franz Jagerstatter is basically that of an Austrian farmer, spiritual seeker and pacifist who sacrificed his life for his convictions. He was drafted into the German army in 1940, but ultimately refused to fight on conscientious objector grounds. He was charged with an “undermining of military morale” and executed (beheaded) in mid 1943. In 2007 Pope Benedict XVI issued an “apostolic exhortation,” declaring Jägerstätter a martyr.

For what it’s worth, a 1971 film about Jagerstatter, titled “The Refusal“, ran only 94 minutes. We can probably safely presume that Malick’s version is a grander, deeper, more penetrating depiction than this 48 year-old film, but you can’t help but furrow your brow and wonder about the 180-minute running time.

Knowing Malick as I do and the fact that principal photography ended sometime in late August 2016, the first suspicion (or fear) that comes to mind is “sprawling,” the second is “precious,” the third is “whispery”, the fourth is “dandelion fuzz” and the fifth, obviously, is “indulgent.” But maybe not.

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Almost everyone hated David Robert Mitchell‘s Under The Silver Lake when it played at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. It was soon after reported that A24’s original 6.22 release date had been scuttled in favor of a 12.7.18 opening. That too was abandoned. Mitchell’s meandering noir is finally opening today, but without any cuts at all to the original 139-minute length. The thinking last summer was that A24 had almost certainly asked Mitchell to go back to the editing room and tighten things up, and perhaps even do a little re-shooting. Nope.

Original HE review, titled “Mitchell’s Wandering Fartscape“, posted on 5.16.18:

I’m sorry but David Robert Mitchell‘s Under The Silver Lake (A24, 6.22) is mostly a floundering, incoherent mess. Yeah, I know — Mitchell wanted it to feel this way, right? Ironically, I mean. Confusion and mental haziness are part of the impressionistic thrust.

It’s pretty much a textbook example of what happens when a gifted, financially successful director without much on his mind…this is what happens when such a fellow comes to believe that he’s a version of Federico Fellini in the wake of La Dolce Vita or 8 1/2 and thereby obtains the funds to make whatever the hell he wants, and so he decides to create…uhm, well let’s try an impressionistic fantasia dreamtrip about L.A. hipster weirdness and…you know, dreamy fantasy women with nice breasts and impressionistic effluvia and whatever-the-fuck-else.

Two hours and 15 minutes of infuriating slacker nothingness…everyone’s vaguely confused, nobody really knows anything, all kinds of clues and hints about seemingly impenetrable conspiracies involving general L.A. space-case culture, bodies of dead dogs, cults, riddles and obsessions of the super-rich.

It’s basically about Andrew Garfield absolutely refusing to deal with paying his overdue rent, and neighbor Riley Keough, whom he tries to find throughout the film after she disappears early on, doing a late-career Marilyn Monroe with maybe a touch of Gloria Grahame in In A Lonely Place.

Under The Silver Lake is Mulholland Drive meets Fellini Satyricon meets Inherent Vice meets The Big Lebowski, except Lebowski, bleary-eyed stoner comedy that it was, was far more logical and witty and tied together, and with an actual through-line you could more or less follow.

I felt the same kind of where-the-fuck-is-this-movie-going? confusion that I got from Paul Thomas Anderson‘s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon‘s novel of the late ’60s.

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In a brief interview with USA Today‘s Brian Truitt, Quentin Tarantino riffs on Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), the lead characters in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (Sony, 7.26).

In so doing Tarantino (a) gives props to HE’s theory that Dalton is largely based upon Burt Reynolds circa 1969 (and not so much Clint Eastwood) and (b) hints that the “deadly” Booth will violently settle some business, most likely during the third act.

According to Tarantino, Dalton is “a man full of inner turmoil and self-pity for not being in a better position, career-wise. But as is Rick’s way, he blames everybody but himself.”

That’s Reynolds, all right. He belly-ached a lot in the late ’60s about how he couldn’t break into A-level features, and then, when he was a big shot, about how he couldn’t land leads in prestige-level, Oscar-calibre films. Eastwood sure as hell wasn’t complaining in the late ’60s. In ’68 and ’69 he was building his brand with Hang ‘Em High, Coogan’s Bluff, Where Eagles Dare and Paint Your Wagon.

Somewhat curiously, Tarantino describes Booth as an “indestructible World War II hero” and one of the “deadliest guys alive” who “could kill you with a spoon, a piece of paper, or a business card. Consequently, he is a rather Zen dude who is troubled by very little.”

Okay, but how and why would an indestructible killing machine figure into a film that’s allegedly focused on hippy-dippy, head-in-the-clouds, peace-and-love-beads Hollywood? Why bring up killing at all when the 1969 Hollywood milieu was all about getting high and flashing the peace sign and reading passages from the Bhagavad Gita? Exactly — at a crucial moment Cliff will somehow go up against some folks who need to be corrected or otherwise interfered with — i.e., the Manson family.

Even though Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood wasn’t announced as a Cannes Film Festival selection this morning, Hollywood Elsewhere is confident it’ll be included. (A well-positioned little bird has told me not to sweat it.) What I’d like to know is, what the hell happened to Pablo Larrain‘s Ema, which also wasn’t announced? Was it deep-sixed, as rumored, because of an alleged Netflix acquisition?

As expected, Pedro Almodovar,’s Pain and Glory and Terrence Malick‘s A Hidden Life were also announced, in addition to Dexter Fletcher‘s out-of-competition Rocketman and Jim Jarmusch‘s previously confirmed The Dead Don’t Die (competition), which will open the festival on Tuesday, 5.15.

HE is all hopped up about Marco Bellocchio‘s The Traitor, allegedly some kind of Godfather-ish crime and betrayal flick.

I’m also regarding Nicolas Winding Refn‘s non-competitive Too Old to Die Young — North of Hollywood, West of Hell warily, but with a muted excitement. It’s not a feature but a segment or two from an Amazon crime drama series, starring Miles Teller and Billy Baldwin, that’s slated to pop on 6.14.19.

HE regrets to confirm that Xavier Dolan‘s Matthias & Maxime is now an official competition selection, as Dolan has almost always infuriated me, the exception being Mommy, which I was half-okay with despite hating the lead performance.

Ditto Bong Joon Ho‘s Parasite (competition), as HE had enormous problems with the grotesque, family-friendly Okja (“A well-directed megaplex movie for kids, and cliche-ridden like a sonuvabtich”). I respected but didn’t exactly surge with pleasure over Snowpiercer and The Host, but…well, BJH just rubs me the wrong way. Always has, always will.

Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne‘s The Young Ahmed will also play in competition….the respectably relentless Dardennes! Not to mention Ken Loach‘s Sorry We Missed You…Loach! And Ira Sachs‘ Frankie.

I’m not down on my knees but what happened to Benedict Andrews‘ Against All Enemies, the Jean Seberg movie with Kristen Stewart?

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