The new Slumdog Millionaire trailer and Fox Searchlight site, up and out.

A slight tightening of the Presidential election numbers has kicked in due to the laziest, dumbest and most sheepish portion of the electorate going “hmm, gee, I don’t know.” Otherwise voters are dug in, polls are static (except for two — Fox News and Mason-Dixon — that fivethirtyeight’s Nate Silver says are off on their own beam), the new N.Y. Times/CBS News poll says that 59 percent of voters believe that Sarah Palin is not prepared for the job (up nine percentage points since the beginning of October), and I’m still picking up worried/on edge/unsettled vibes from this and that Obama supporter.

Good. Nobody should relax. I’m certainly trying not to. My attitude is somewhere between “chill down, it’s in the bag” and “it’s not in the bag, pretend it’s neck and neck, don’t ease up for a second.”

Has everyone on this side of the fence e-mailed those Errol Morris “People in the Middle for Obama” spots to at least five fence-sitting wishy-washies in their personal orbit (friends, family, co-workers, neighbors)? Has everyone e-mailed the latest “Vote!” video to at least five under-25s who’ve shown pronounced video-game addiction and/or ADD tendencies in the past?

Originally posted on 9.7.08 during the Toronto Film Festival: As far as it goes, Kevin Smith‘s Zack and Miri Make A Porno is smooth and winning, largely due to Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks‘ engaging, alive-in-the-moment performances as longtime pals and roommates who discover, to their surprise, that they’re in love with each other while making a low-grade, hand-to-mouth porn film.

Call this one definitely better (and certainly more smoothly shot and cut) than Clerks II, heads and shoulders above Jersey Girl, a bit funnier than Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, livelier and more entertaining that Dogma, almost as intimate and touching as Chasing Amy, much better than Mallrats and not as good as the original Clerks.

Within his familiar smart-but-easygoing-schlub persona, Rogen is on a roll these days, incapable of seeming rote or insincere, and he punches up the energy and aliveness in a way that’s obvious and ummistakable. And Banks matches him note for note with a game receptivity and good humor. As I was walking out, a journalist friend said, “Smith should thank God for Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen,” meaning that Smith is sorta kinda riding their coattails with this film, albeit in a way that bears his own ethos and sensibility.

Zack and Miri grooves right along in a good-natured, “let’s relax and be cool about being blunt and more than a little gross” sort of way.

It’s basically about the financially-strapped Zack (Rogen) and Miri (Banks), sharers of a ramshackle pad in funky Monroeville (a suburb of Pittsburgh where George Romero has shot two or three of his zombie movies), realizing that internet porn is a not-too-difficult way to raise quick cash, and giving it a try with no production money, a cheap video camera and a few friends as costars and assistants.

It struck me as a little bit weird that the sex scenes are shot with a static camera sitting on a tripod each and every time. Hand-held photography is obviously the way to go with films of this sort — get in there, get close, get it all, etc. But then none of Smith’s films have been shot with a loosey-goosey hand-held approach — visually he’s always been a very formal, almost rigid, director — so I guess it does sort of make sense.

It’s obvious that Zack’s scripting the sex scenes so that Miri won’t “do” anyone other than himsefl on-camera, and Miri being distinctly unsettled when Zack is offered an easy roll in the sack with one of the pic’s female costars, that they care deeply for each other.

Zack also experiences a creative awakening in shooting home-style porn, which gives a lift to his overall attitude and self-image. But the penultimate moment comes when he and Miri finally perform the deed on-camera, and their cohorts (and the audience, of course) realize it’s not much of an acrobatic, look-at-us! performance for all the right reasons.

It’s unrealistic, of course, that a hottie like Banks would be attracted to a schlubby guy like Rogen (unless we’re talking about the real-life Rogen, which is a whole different deal because then you’re talking a guy who’s bright, funny, famous and rich). But then Apatow has been pulling this fantasy crap in film after film, and now Smith (another rich, brilliant, super-successful geek with a weight issue) has picked up the torch.

In the real trenches of the real world, average overweight geeks do not schtup beautiful blondes with radiant ruby eyes, exquisite facial structure and perfect white teeth — end of story, end of proposition, total dreamworld. But the fact that this doesn’t get in the way of enjoying Smith’s film says something. To me anyway.

Rewritten Issue: At the end of Zack and Miri’s sex-on-camera scene, Banks sits up and starts collecting herself — we’re talking seconds after Rogen has dismounted — and we see that she’s wearing a short jean skirt. I would find this believable and even mildly hot if it happened in a Sam Mendes film (because failing to get fully undressed prior to sex is a natural sort of occurence), but I don’t believe for a second that Smith’s characters — hand-to-mouth GenXers from Grimville, Pennsylvania who are looking to make money by shooting a sex film that will sell — would get down on camera with the woman wearing a pushed-up jean skirt. No. Effin’. Way.

“The question now,” as N.Y. Times media columnist David Carr wrote today, “is how many people will be left to cover it.” Print people, he means. Yes, I too read this story online. I never read the print version of the Times, although, as I’ve said repeatedly over the last four or five years, I would be very saddened to live in a world in which you couldn’t buy the print edition. As I do six or seven times a year when I’m in a sentimental, old-fashioned mood.

Clint Eastwood‘s Changeling, going wide this weekend, is running 74, 37 and 19 — very heavily skewed towards older women, at least $20 million. The Haunting of Molly Hartley is at 43, 28 and 5. Rock n Rolla, going wide ,also has a 34, 22 and 1…nothing. Kevin Smith‘s Zack and Miri Make a Porno is running at 66, 33 and 13. Younger males, of course. Looking to be one of the better Weinstein Co. openings in a long while.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa opens on 11.7, and is now at 90, 38 and 9. Over-25 women with kids. Pretty good business. Role Models is at 44, 35 and 5….decent. Soul Men is at 59, 32 and 3. Quantum of Solace (Sony, 11.14) is at 70, 53 and 15 — very strongly male, both older and younger.

DIsney’s Bolt, opening on 11.21, is at 58, 28 and 3. Twilight, sure to be a big hit with under-25 women, is running at 44, 39 and 8.

Apparently this is the final, decided-upon poster for Valkyrie (MGM/UA, 12.26) for the U.S. market. It’s a fairly riveting image — strong, exciting, tells you it’s a solid thriller — but let’s be frank and acknowledge that one reason it’s working is that it’s pushing familiar buttons. My first thought was “kinda Reservoir Dogs-y.” Then Ocean’s 11 came to mind. Not that there’s anything wrong or unwise about that. These are two very popular films.

As I understand it, David Fincher was asked by Empire to write down his favorite films of all time, and to do so without thinking about it too much — just scribble ’em down! So as an exercise, I grabbed a notebook and did the same thing. I wish I’d been a little more foreign, a little more ’90s indie, a little more ’30s, ’40s and ’50s…but this is what happened. Live with it. I could have written down another 150 without blinking. Here are the two lists:

About a month ago Josiane Balasko‘s Cliente, about a 51 year-old businesswoman (Nathalie Baye) paying for the no-muss, no-fuss sexual services of a younger man, opened in France. This struck me right away as a good idea for an American remake. Especially with a classy, high-pedigree actress of a certain age — Kristin Scott Thomas or Meryl Streep, let’s say — in the lead role.

Over and over I’ve walked the aisles of Gelson’s and Ralph’s in the evening and seen women in business suits pushing their carts, alone and guarded and yet, you can tell, quietly hurting for something else besides this. Perhaps resigned to not having a relationship but not willing to turn themselves off to the extent that they have no life except work, sleep, girlfriends, exercise, pets, children and DVDs. If I were a producer I’d be looking into the remake rights as we speak.

Balasko, 58, has told N.Y. Times reporter Elaine Sciolino that her goals in making the film were twofold. One, “to shatter a long-held taboo in France” and two, “to send a positive message to middle-aged women who find themselves alone and wanting sexual fulfillment.”

Balasko says that “a lot of my friends are alone, lonely, divorced, and they can’t always reinvent themselves with another man and a new family So I decided to show a female client of a male escort. She’s not a victim but a woman who is in control of her life, her feelings, her sexual pleasure.”

Is someone going to tell me things are different for older single American women? That they don’t share the same situation, and don’t feel and want the same things? As long as they believe that satisfaction can be had with the proper safeguards and allowances for modesty?

Prostitution, says Balasko, “is the last sexual territory owned by men. [They] are in control of pleasure and have the right to buy it. Women do not.”

No, not Elvis as a semi-vampire, which seems (am I wrong?) to be the idea in Don Coscarelli‘s forthcoming Bubba Nosferatu.

I’m sorry but my Space Elvis idea (i.e., a script I wrote ages ago) is better: Elvis was kidnapped by aliens in August 1977 just before he died, and flown back to the aliens’ home planet. He was restored, cleaned up, de-drugged, probed, kept in a large home (facsimile of Graceland) for 32 years, and then returned to earth in 2009 as the same 42 year-old he was before only much thinner and full of vim and vigor and ready to rock out. Except nobody believes he’s the real Elvis (naturally) so the only gig he can get is performing as an Elvis impersonator.

AICN’s Quint recently spoke about Bubba Nosferatu to Paul GIamatti, who will play Colonel Tom Parker to Ron Perlman‘s Elvis Presley. Ron Perlman? This isn’t going to work.

I saw Coscarelli’s Bubba Ho-Tep at Cinevegas three or four years ago, and it was immediately clear to me that Coscarelli is a great idea man but not much of a filmmaker. The movie was slow, not well shot, the absurdity of the plot overwhelmed the versimilitude, it had no story tension, it felt cheesy, etc.

Giamatti shared some of the details in the Quint interview. “I don’t want to give too much of it away! So yeah, I’ll be playing Col. Parker, who.. You know part of the great thing about this is not only are these wonderful genre movies, but he’s actually taking a weird, interesting take on the whole Elvis myth and kind of investigating the whole Elvis myth in a really interesting way, so it’s got a lot of stuff about Col. Parker being responsible for a lot of what happened to Elvis and kind of literally making him a vampire in some ways, you know? A kind of a blood sucker

“It plays on a lot of things, this movie, in a great way and it’s got Sitting Bull in it and there’s a peyote trip in it that is amazing and it’s just a big leap beyond the other movie. It’s ten times more insane and bizarre and it’s great and hilarious, too. It’s funnier than the other one is even. It still ends up being this great character study of this Elvis guy.”

A day after speaking with Errol Morris about Standard Operating Procedure on or about 4.11.08, I wrote a piece titled “Morris Should Sell Obama.” The idea was to re-boot Morris’s brilliant spots for John Kerry in ’04, which focused on “real people” (mostly Republicans) who’d voted for Bush in 2000, but were going for Kerry that year.