Agreeing with my (two or three years old) suggestion that Russell Crowe should do whatever it takes schedule- and commitment-wise to land the role of Moe in the Farelly Brothers‘ Three Stooges flick, Hunter Lurie has come up with two inspired additions — Philip Seymour Hoffman as Curly and Robert Downey, Jr. as Larry. Please make this happen, God. Think about it. Perfect.

Lurie allows that “maybe Crowe is a funny guy” given that “hitting the hotel clerk in the face with a phone is a borderline-Stooges stunt on its own. No maybe about it, fella. One, you can’t nice or mellow your way into being funny — you need to be deep-down angry. Ask any honest comedian (or anyone who knows comedians). And two, I once saw a clip of Crowe at some Hollywood red carpet event when he grabbed the mike of an obsequious entertainment reporter (somebody from Access or Telemundo) and went into a Jose Jimenez-as-red-carpet-whore routine that I swear was one of the funniest improvs I’ve ever seen.

I have a slight issue with Lurie’s Photoshopping — Hoffman looks like his head was sliced off by a helicopter blade, or by Steve Martin‘s Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr — but I’m willing to let it slide.

Yesterday morning Indiewire‘s Eugene Hernandez tried to find a copy of the 11.5 New York Times trumpeting Barack Obama‘s win. “Unable to find one anywhere, I ultimately ended up at the Times building where many people had the same goal,” he writes. “I spoke with a few of the folks waiting on line and cut this together very quickly. Newspapers may be facing increasingly tough times, but on a day like yesterday, many of us still look to the printed page.”

If I weren’t sitting on a hard airlines terminal floor I might write my own riff about the passing of the revolting and homophobic Proposition 8. But it’s very difficult to be focused and productive in such a physically uncomfortable position. (Plus I’m too angry at Continental Airlines to think straight anyway.)

So let’s just say I’m also wondering, as Kris Tapley did earlier today, if an earlier release of Milk — which deals in part with the campaign against the homophobic Briggs Amendment (i.e., Prop 6) in ’78 — might have somehow raised consciousness and perhaps helped defeat Prop 8. I know, I know…pipe dream. The Orange County and San Joaquin Valley yokels would have rallied hard for Prop 8 no matter what.

“Some of the film’s most inspiring and, indeed, captivating moments come during the sequence that details the Prop 6 fight,” Tapley notes. “Consistently, Harvey Milk (Sean Penn ‘s career-best portrayal) makes the point, to paraphrase, ‘We have to make them understand that they know us.’ That message, I think, might have carried a lot of heft if voters had made it to the polls four weeks later.”

But I’m not a studio head and I don’t make these decisions. A studio’s priority is, of course, to shareholders, and “Milk” is likely to make more money in its current release plan than something earlier in the season. But you can’t help but wonder what might have been. And you can’t “give ’em hope” after the fact.

Continental Airlines did its casual best to put me there. I helped out some, I’ll admit, but it was mainly their doing. That’s how I see it, at least. It’s always “their” fault, right? The long and the short is that I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor at LAX, my initial flight long gone. Don’t ask, the milk is spilt, the day is shot. But you have to roll with this stuff.

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough exhibited shock and remorse a few minutes ago upon learning from The Page‘s Mark Halperin that Barack Obama‘s chief of staff will (according to the D.C. rumble) be Rahm Emanuel. “He is a partisan,” said Joe. “He’s Ari Gold‘s brother. Rahm Emanuel? Wow. Wow!”

I’m off to LAX and New York. I won’t be posting again until sometime this evening. Okay, maybe something from the lounge. I’m easy either way. Great day, great mood, all is well.

Spike Lee joked a little bit this morning on MSNBC about Jesse Jackson‘s tearful moment last night. It was a bit ironic, I thought, given Jackson’s “I wanna cut his nuts off” remark about Obama, which he was overheard saying last July. Nonetheless, Jackson’s heart had a lot of company last night. We were all feeling it, all one.

There’s an indication, at the very least, in a story posted last night from MSNBC “health writer” Melissa Dahl that the “Generation of Shame” was redeemed yesterday by voting in proportionately significant levels. I think I owe the under-25s an acknowledgment of this, given my suspicious attitudes about their commitments levels. They’re no longer the bad guys in my book. To go by Dahl’s piece, I mean. She’s saying they didn’t cop out, stood up, did right.

Dahl says they “voted Tuesday in higher numbers than in the last presidential election — and they voted more Democratic. Youth turnout appears to be exceeding 2004 levels, which was itself a year with a big surge in voters ages 18 to 29.

“What’s more, young voters may prove to have been the key to Barack Obama‘s victory. Young voters preferred Obama over John McCain by 68 percent to 30 percent — the highest share of the youth vote obtained by any candidate since exit polls began reporting results by age in 1976, according to CIRCLE, a non-partisan organization that promotes research on the political engagement of Americans between ages 15 and 25.”

“The effect that this election has had on me and on so many people is extraordinary,” Dustin Hoffman said late yesterday morning in his office. “[And] you naturally analyze why everyone feels this strongly.” It’s payback and redress for the malignancies of the Bush poisonings, of course, but, as Hoffman said, “There are so many layers, that this day in America, after eight years — we’ve paid our dues for today.”

This quote is from a Politico story by Jeffrey Ressner that went up last night, which is fine in itself, but I wanted to also re-boot Hoffman this morning because the Last Chance Harvey interview piece I posted yesterday afternoon was buried by last night’s Obama triumph. So here it is again.

I can’t say this with any more urgency. Somehow, some way, Peter and Bobby Farrelly have to get Russell Crowe to play Moe Howard in their Three Stooges movie, now that it’s finally been greenlit by MGM. Crowe is one of the funniest big-name guys out there. He knows what insanity is. He embraces it. I mean that as a compliment.

The Farrellys “will polish the script they wrote with Michael Cerrone and will direct the picture,” Variety‘s Michael Fleming wrote earlier today. The un-shot pic will open on 11.20.09.