In a national poll of average American voters (7.6 thru 7.8), Emerson has found — are you sitting down? — that Donald Trump nudges out Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, 51% to 49%.

This isn’t a dream — it’s a nightmare. 51% of the respondents actually stated that it’s better to stick with the compulsively lying, amoral, raping, racist, criminal, traitorous, climate-change-denying, ADD-afflicted authoritarian fraud that they know than three liberal accomplished Dems whom they don’t know so well.

That’s it…between this and the climate disaster that will be lapping at our shores within 70 or 80 years, this country is officially finished. A slight majority of voters actually prefers the most odious, incompetent and self-deluding U.S. president in the nation’s history because they don’t like the idea of a woman of color from Oakland, a progressive bespectacled schoolmarm or a brilliant, 37 year-old gay teenager taking his place. These are their actual persuasions.

It crushes my spirit to acknowledge this, but “Typewriter Joe” Biden is the only one who has Trump beaten by a significant margin (53% to 47%).

Emerson quote #1: “Fifty-seven percent (57%) of voters said they followed the Democratic debates. A plurality of viewers, 30%, said Harris had the best debate performance. Eighteen percent (18%) of voters said Biden performed the best, 13% said Warren, and 10% chose Sanders. Conversely, when asked which candidate had the worst performance, 19% of voters said Biden, 15% said Sanders, and 13% said O’Rourke performed the worst. ”

Emerson quote #2: “President Trump’s approval has ticked up one point from the June national poll, with 44% approval and 48% disapproval. In June, the President’s approval was at 43% to 48% disapproval. Trump continues to hold a strong lead in the Republican primary with 91% of the vote against former Gov. Bill Weld at 9%.”

Emerson quote #3: “The most important issue for voters in deciding their vote for President is the economy at 26%. Healthcare is the second most important issue for voters at 21%, followed by immigration at 17%, and social issues at 16%. There is a party divide however, as among Democratic primary voters, 29% chose healthcare as the most important issue, followed by social issues at 22% and the economy at 14%. With Republican primary voters, 42% chose the economy as the most important issue followed by immigration at 25%.”

Last night I read a 2018 draft of Todd Phillips‘ Joker, written by Phillips and Scott Silver. It’s Scorsese-ish, all right — set in 1981 “Gotham,” tingling with echoes of Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy with a little touch of Death Wish. The basic philosophy is “the world’s a venal, plundering place so who can blame Joaquin Pheonix for becoming a killer clown?” It’s a stand-alone but at the same time it definitely feeds into the Batman legend.

“If you can’t throw away $100 million dollars on a Ben Affleck action film that no one will watch, what is the point of even being in the movie business?” — genius-level line from Richard Rushfield‘s latest, just-posted Ankler column.

“As a woman unraveling while struggling to make sense of the deaths of her husband and son, Diane Kruger showed she could carry a movie in Fatih Akin‘s In the Fade. But she needs more textured material than she’s given in The Operative, a choppy espionage thriller.

“Pic casts Kruger as a Westerner making bold moves to disentangle herself and right a wrong after years of undercover Mossad activity, pulling in Martin Freeman as her former handler to help facilitate her exit. Writer-director Yuval Adler connects the dots of the convoluted plot with reasonable clarity, but The Operative only intermittently builds suspense.” — from David Rooney‘s Hollywood Reporter review.

Boilerplate: “The Inglourious Basterds actress plays an undercover Mossad agent who is sent to Tehran, Iran, where she masquerades as an English teacher in order to gather information about Iran’s secret nuclear program in this John le Carre-style spy thriller. Written and directed by Israeli filmmaker Yuval Adler (Bethlehem), the psychological espionage thriller is based on the spy novel “The English Teacher” by former Israeli intelligence officer Yiftach Reicher Atir.

Six days ago Pure Cinema Podcast posted a nearly three-hour interview with Once Upon A Time in Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino. Fascinating stuff, good chatter, etc. But honestly? I’m a little miffed that Tarantino avoided mentioning the obvious Burt Reynolds similarity when describing Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Rick Dalton. I’m almost wondering if QT is dodging the Reynolds thing out of spite.

Dalton is Quentin’s character, obviously — a macho TV actor who found his initial footing in the late ’50s and early ’60s but has been struggling throughout the ’60s to land a decent role in a strong A-level movie. So he can compare Dalton to any fucking real-life actor he wants. But to sidestep Burt Reynolds, especially given the buddy-buddy relationship Dalton has with Brad Pitt‘s stuntman character Cliff Booth, is disingenuous. Fair is fair and upfront is upfront.

I not only explained but predicted it all on 4.14.19: “Tarantino will probably tap-dance or shilly-shally when some journalist asks him this point blank, but Dalton-Reynolds fits together perfectly. The 1969 career situations of DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton (struggling, pushing-40 TV actor) and Pitt’s Cliff Booth (Dalton’s same-aged stuntman-buddy) mirror that of Reynolds and stuntman pally Hal Needham. Fucking obvious. Okay, with a little Clint Eastwood thrown in.

“In ’69 Reynolds, who had been acting on TV since the late ’50s (when he was in his early 20s), was a steadily working but diminished ‘known quantity’ who was more or less poking along with B-level features like Sam Whiskey and 100 Rifles and short-lived TV series like Hawk and Dan August.

“Reynolds had been trying and trying but was unable, during the first year of the Nixon administration when he was 33 years old, to break through into the bucks-up realm of A-level features. And then, after 15 years in the business (when he was 20 or 21 he was told he couldn’t play a supporting role in Sayonara because he looked too much like Marlon Brando), Reynolds finally made it over the hump and became BURT REYNOLDS.

“He accomplished this with the one-two-three punch of (a) his breakthrough lead role (studly survivalist Lewis with the bow-and-arrow) in John Boorman‘s Deliverance (’72), (b) that Cosmopolitan centerfold and (c) becoming a talk-show star with his amusing, self-deprecating patter in chats with Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin and David Frost.

“In the space of a few months Reynolds was no longer Mr. Semi-Obscuro but suddenly the cool guy whom everyone liked and admired.”

Here’s how Tarantino described Dalton on 7.3:

“He’s a bit like George Maharis, he’s a bit like Edd Byrnes, he’s a bit like Tab Hunter, he’s a bit like Fabian, he’s a bit like Vince Edwards. These are all guys that were handsome kind of he man…Ty Hardin, a certain kind of leading man that were handsome and most of them were kinda rugged. They spent their careers running pocket combs through their pompadours.

For what it’s worth, the snippets of Renee Zellweger‘s performance in this Judy trailer seem to have that certain snap-crackle-pop. No telling how the film will play, but Zellweger will probably land a Best Actress nomination. Performances of this type usually do. Rupert Goold and Tom Edge’s film will open on 9.27 via Roadside (a likely Toronto Film Festival headliner), and in England on 10.4.

Boilerplate: “An adaptation of the Olivier- and Tony-nominated Broadway play End of the Rainbow, Judy is about Garland’s last few months during a run of sell-out concerts at London’s Talk of the Town.”

I didn’t know or care much about personal problems, alcoholism and pharmaceutical abuse when I was a kid, but Judy Garland was the very first Hollywood star whom I associated with these issues. After seeing The Wizard of Oz at age seven or eight my mother (or was it my grandmother?) mentioned that Garland’s adult life was a mess. I never forgot that.

Garland had ten good years (mid ’30s to mid ’40s) before the gradual downswirl pattern (stress, anxiety, pills, self-esteem issues) kicked in. Garland was 31 when she made George Cukor‘s A Star Is Born, supposedly playing a fresh-faced ingenue but unvoidably looking like the battle-scarred showbiz veteran that she was. A barbituate overdose killed Garland at age 47, at which point she seemed 60 if a day.

Zellweger does all the singing, I’m told. I knew she could sing, of course, but sounding like Garland is another challenge.

Zellweger might be sufficient, good or great, but Anne Hathaway should have played Garland. She would’ve been perfect.

Liza Minnelli quote: “I just hope [the makers of this film] don’t do what they always do. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

I didn’t know Natalie Morales all that well before seeing Stuber last week. The viewing didn’t exactly broaden my Morales vistas. She plays the bright, somewhat frustrated daughter of Dave Bautista‘s bruiser cop — pretty much a rote, thankless role in a crudely written, brutally violent action comedy.

But I did come to know Morales in the below IMDB-produced video, in which the former Grinder and Parks and Recreation costar talks with real feeling about her worship of Buster Keaton. I had the same reaction to her words that I’ve had whenever I’ve seen a gifted but unlucky actor, a veteran of almost nothing but underwhelming films and TV shows, shine in a brilliant Broadway play.

“Aaaah, so that‘s who Morales is!”, I muttered to myself. “She not only gets Keaton but thinks her contemporaries need to wake up and shake off their resistance to watching classic black-and-white films.”

Stuber is Collateral reimagined and downgraded by opportunistic vulgarians. I’m speaking of director Michael Dowse, screenwriter Tripper Clancy and producers Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley.

It contains a predictably amusing performance by Kumail Nanjiani as an overwhelmed, too-sensitive-for-his-own good Uber driver, but it’s basically Kumail transferring his wry stand-up schtick to an action realm. Bautista struck me as too thick and gorilla-like to occupy the classic Schwarzenegger realm. Otherwise the basic idea behind Stuber is to bash, bruise, bludgeon and brutalize while leaning heavily on the cops-vs.-drug-dealers handbook.

Stuber appropriates Collateral‘s story and theme — a wimpish cab driver grows into a man of some consequence through an experience with a lone-wolf client with a violent job — while turning the dial up to 11. Torrents of coarse dialogue, gratuitous face-poundings, cartoonishly over-the-top stunts.

Variety‘s Peter Debruge wrote that Stuber “embraces the real-world physics of gunplay, car crashes and hand-to-hand combat.” Bullshit! The Daffy Duck vs. Yosemite Sam world, he means.

The opening day of Todd Phillips‘ Joker is less than three months off. Specifically 11 and 1/2 weeks. All over the world. Hence the Empire cover.

Posted on 4.3.19: “A sensitive simpleton, raised by a none-too-bright mom, wants laughter, joy and rapture from life. Alas, he finds little or none. Attempts stand-up comedy…nope. Starts wearing clown makeup full-time. Beaten, pummelled and tormented by a cruel, perverse, judgmental world. Finally snaps, becomes a demonic, broken-hearted figure whose motto is “life isn’t a tragedy — it’s a comedy.”

“I can’t be the only one who’s had it with Warner Bros. opportunists constantly returning to the same old drafty barn to milk the same old cow.

“30 years ago everyone thought Jack Nicholson had knocked it out of the park with his giggling creepo. But along came Heath Ledger’s version in 2008…the best, the absolute summit, the most delicious and diseased. And then eight years passed and the Joker was back in the form of Jared Leto…c’mon! And now a fourth version is upon us, and I’m not even thinking about Ceasar Romero.

“The Joker script (co-written by Scott Silver and co-director Todd Phillips) is an origin story, but Joaquin Phoenix was 43 or 44 years old when they shot it last year, and with his constant cigarette-smoking Phoenix looks at least 49 or 50. Who ever heard of an origin story performed by a weathered, somewhat haggard middle-aged guy with an embalming-fluid complexion?

“It’s one thing to be a tormented Donnie Darko as a child, a teenager or even an early 20something, but a 40something who’s nudging the big five-oh? And how does a mopey loser who’s been putzing around for 45 years…how does this guy suddenly morph into a notoriously demonic crime king?”

Truer words have rarely been recently spoken. It’s right below in black-and-white, but here’s my favorite excerpt: “The thing that I hate right now is that [film] criticism isn’t about [film] criticism any more — it’s about ‘how woke is this thing?’ And ‘is this woke or not?’ is a weird way of judging art.” Hats off to Sasha Stone for saying this clearly and concisely. Needs to be repeated and repeated again. In the Hollywood indie Sundance realm the late 20teens are the early 1950s — no question about it.

“I’m behind the camera on the producing side and I enjoy that a lot. But I keep doing less and less. I really believe that overall it’s a younger man’s game—not that there aren’t substantial parts for older characters…I just feel, the game itself, it’ll move on naturally. There will be a natural selection to it all.” — Brad Pitt to GQ Australia‘s Jake Millar.

Niki Caro‘s Mulan is another live-action digital remake of another Disney animated hit (i.e., 1998’s Mulan). Right away I can sense the carefully poised, vaguely antiseptic, myth-making ethos. We know this will be another link of Disney sausage, and yet I adored Caro’s Whale Rider and greatly admired McFarland USA. Set in China during the Han dynasty, it’s about a young Chinese maiden (Liu Yifei) who disguises herself as a male warrior in order to save her father during a Hun invasion. Also starring Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Yoson An, Gong Li, Jason Scott Lee. Is this a Hollywood Elsewhere film? Of course not.

One of the ways that rock stars and movie stars reside in the same general orbit is that they have a solemn responsibility to not suddenly look “older” in any kind of “wait a minute, what happened?” head-turning way. It’s part of the basic contract. They can gradually and gracefully age but no sudden hair loss. That’s an easily maintainable thing. They have to do a better job of coping with the ravages of time than Average Joes, and that means no weird hair dyes or expanding neck wattles.

Mick Jagger has always understood this. Cary Grant set the standard 60 years ago when he played a Madison Avenue ad man at age 54 while looking 45 or even a tad younger. A year earlier Orson Welles defined the other side of the scale by playing Det. Hank Quinlan in Touch of Evil when he was only 42 years old, and yet looking like a dessicated wreck of at least 60 if not 65 years. This, trust me, was one of the reasons that North by Northwest made five times more dough than Touch of Evil. You can argue and put me down, but people prefer examples of defying the inevitable rather than submitting to it.