As they were in New Hampshire, the polls were wildly off in gauging the thinking of California Democrats and independent voters. Virtually every one reported a day-to-day Obama surge and a neck-and-neck race between Clinton and Obama. One Reuters-Zogby-CSPAN poll published yesterday morning even had Barack ahead by 13 points. And yet Hillary wound up beating Barack 52 to 42. How could the pollsters have been so titanically wrong? What were they smoking?
Absentee ballots that reflected the Hillary-favoring situation two or three weeks ago played a part, I’m guessing. And race-gender Balkanization was undoubtedly a major factor. (“Beware over-40 Hispanics and Asian Americans!,” says the old soothsayer to the Obama team.) But still, on some level people had to have been fantasizing or flat-out lying to the pollsters. That or the old Bradley effect kicked in (i.e., voters got into the voting booth and just couldn’t quite pull the lever for a black guy). Pollsters aren’t making these numbers up so there has to be an explanation. Somebody needs to really study this and figure it out.

Talk about a misleading headline fronting a thin item. Slate‘s Kim Masters posted a short political story around noon titled “Hollywood Likes Obama” with a subtitle reading “But that could change.” It begins by saying that big Barack Obama supporter David Geffen must be disappointed by his candidate’s loss in last night’s California primary. Then it reports that Steven Spielberg, Geffen’s DreamWorks partner, is “isolated” in his support of Hillary Clinton “not only at the office but to some degree at home. ” Either the kids or Kate Capshaw are Barack supporters…whatever.
Masters then writes that “an associate says even Spielberg’s support for Hillary seems a bit dutiful at this point.” Then comes the subhead raison d’etre: “If [Clinton] emerges as the nominee, of course, industry enthusiasm will follow.” Yes, very true — kowtowing to power would be in keeping with the character of the big players in this town. And if Obama pulls ahead in March or April or next summer Hollywood will kneel before the conqueror. So the headline could have just as easily read “Hollywood Likes Obama” with a subtitle reading “And Clinton Support Is…Well, Not Exactly Surging.”

In my early-bird review of Paul Haggis‘s In The Valley of Elah (posted on 7.11.07), I pointed out that Haggis’s screenplay “is based on a true story that happened in the summer of ’03, and was first reported a year later in a Playboy magazine article by Mark Boal, called ‘Death and Dishonor.’
“It came from Boal interviewing Lanny Davis, a former U.S. Army M.P., about the death of his son, who had been reported AWOL following a tour of duty in Baghdad. Haggis bought the rights and created a somewhat fictionalized version, although he stuck to the basic bones.” I later provided various real-story links.
Here it is almost seven months later and Johnny-on-the-spot Movie City News is running a link called “The True Story of In The Valley of Elah.”

What this story needs is an ending. If we were all watching the movie (which we are) and we’d come to the third act (which we have), the lead character would need to do the final thing. I’m just saying….if.
I wouldn’t end it this way if I was the screenwriter, of course. I’d have the lead character and two loyal friends sucker the paparazzi into a Hollywood hills cul-de-sac, block their exit and then move in with flamethrowers and torch every one of ’em. And then the three perps would plead temporary insanity and get off with a suspended sentence and the jurors would carry them out, cheering.
Here’s a bold thought from CHUD’s Devin Faraci, by the way: “If, before she was committed, Britney Spears had been found dead with ‘oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine’ (better known as OxyContin, Vicodin, Valium, Xanax, Restoril and Unisom) in her system, the media would be full of talk about a druggie ODing. When Heath Ledger‘s toxicology report turns up the same drugs, it’s a tragic accident, and everybody makes sure to mention that he was prescribed these drugs. But what’s the difference, really? None, as far as I can see.”

Urgent message to Josh Brolin (who reads Hollywood Elsewhere): McG, whose direction of We Are Marshall only partly mitigated his longstanding rep as a mindless energizer bunny and one of Hollywood’s leading usurpers of the art of narrative cinema, has told 213’s Jason Coleman that he wants to cast you as the “dream Terminator” in Warner Bros.’ Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins.

Josh Brolin; McG

Your ship came in this year, Josh, and I’m sure your agent is telling you that right now is the time to strike the hot iron and take a couple of big-studio, hold-your- nose, straight-paycheck jobs to fortify your net worth. But not the third (technically the fourth) Terminator movie, man. And not with a spawn-of-Satan like fucking McG…please.
If you do this, in one fell swoop you’ll wipe out all the high-toned cred you accumulated last year from Robert Rodriguez, Ridley Scott and the Coen Brothers. It’s your life and your move. I’m just tellin’ ya man — not with McG. The fleas you’ll get from working with him will stay with you for years, I swear.

New York’s medical examiner report was predictably dry and succinct and non-judgmental, but the implication is that Heath Ledger didn’t care to calculate or remember which prescription drugs he’d taken, much less assess their combined effect upon his body. You can say “accident” over and over but the blunt answer is that Heath did it to himself. Like I wrote the day he died. A tree didn’t fall on him. Actions have consequences.
The pharma-names of the drugs found in his system are “oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine.” The common names are OxyContin, Vicodin, Valium, Xanax, Restoril and Unisom.
Everyone presumably knows that OxyContin — “hillbilly heroin” — isn’t a painkiller as much as a recreational drug that serious stoners take in order to experience a nice opiate-like high. Hydrocodone is found in Vicodin. Diazepam and alprazolam = Valium and Xanax. Alprazolam and doxylamine are sleeping aids commonly known as Restoril and Unisom. In other words, Heath loaded himself down with one heavyweight floater-downer, a fairly heavy-duty pain killer and four relatively mild drugs for alleviating anxiety, settling down, feeling loose and catching zees.
Do you think he said to himself, “Let’s see…I’ve got five or six downer meds in my system. I still don’t feel completely relaxed though. Maybe if I popped another Oxy? I wonder what Mary Kate would say…?”
The report didn’t mention the apparent amounts of each drug that Ledger had in his system. It would help to know this.

“The exit polls in the 16 primary states in which they were taken showed that the contours of the race as we’ve come to know them are still in place. Obama did well with African-Americans, men, the wealthy, those with college degrees, and liberal voters. Clinton continues to do well with women, older voters, Latinos, and those with less education and lower incomes.” — Slate political columnist John Dickerson writing this morning about yesterday’s voting.
The only place in the world in which people repeatedly dispute the claim that Hillary is supported by “those with less education and lower incomes” is the Hollywood Elsewhere reader-comments section. Starting this morning, will those who’ve resisted this generally accepted deduction (you know who you are) please shut the fuck up and stay that way — buttoned, zipped, mute — until further notice?

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who was briefly the Beatles’ spiritual guru in late ’67 and early ’68 until the bloom fell off with allegations of sexual impropriety, died in Holland yesterday. He was nonetheless a seminal figure in the Eastern-following spiritual movement of the late ’60s — psychedelic Godhead breakthroughs leading to dog-eared copies of the “Baghavad Gita” in college dorms leading, three or four years later, to the “Me Generation” personal fulfillment movement of the ’70s.

Say what you will about bedroom shenanigans but MMY spoke of immaculate and eternal truths, and at a crucial moment in history he prompted tens of thousands to turn a significant spiritual page.
Many sensed there was something less than magical (I almost wrote “vaguely deceptive”) about the assertions that transcendental meditation, if practiced devoutly, would drastically improve followers’ lives, but the outgrowth of all that energy and fascination was that hundreds of thousands of American-born spiritual seekers began to know what “satori” is and grasp the intimations of revelation in…well, loads of stuff but I’m thinking right now of the lyrics in “The Wind Cries Mary,” the Jimi Hendrix song. (“Jets” in their boxes, “clowns” gone to bed…seriously.)
My key Maharishi memory will always be John Lennon‘s Rolling Stone recollection about how the Beatles quit the ashram “after he confronted the guru about sex allegations. He said: ‘There was a hullabaloo about him trying to rape Mia Farrow and a few other women, and things like that.
‘The whole gang charged down to his hut. I was the spokesman, as usual, and said: ‘We’re leaving!’ He asked why and I said, ‘Well, if you’re so cosmic, you’ll know why.’ He and his right-hand men were always intimating that he did miracles.The Maharishi gave me a look that said, ‘I’ll kill you, you bastard!'”

Big Eyes, announced last night by Variety‘s Michael Fleming as the forthcoming “directing debut” of renowned screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, will be in fact their second stab at feature directing. Their first was a commercial wipeout called Screwed (’00), which was a pretty good piece on paper (i.e., an inventively plotted and certainly unpredictable script) and didn’t deserve the curses that fell upon it.

I haven’t read Big Eyes, a biopic of famed painter Margaret Keane (to be played by Kate Hudson) “whose distinctive creations featuring big-eyed children became one of art’s first mass-market success stories in the 1950s.” But given the withering contempt for Keane’s paintings in the art world and their general reputation as a mass-market joke (i.e., right next to those black velvet paintings that were so richly lampooned in the original 1979 version of The In-Laws), how can Big Eyes be anything but a portrait of a laughably mediocre artist a la Ed Wood?
Fleming’s story, written without the slightest indication that he’s in on the joke, says that Alexander and Karaszewski’s drama “covers Keane’s personal awakening at the onset of the feminist movement, leading to a lawsuit she filed against her husband, Walter, who claimed credit for her works.”

“Better the devil you know than the diffident debutante you don’t. Better to go with the Clintons, with all their dysfunction and chaos — the same kind that fueled the Republican hate machine — than to risk the chance that Obama would be mauled like a chew toy in the general election. Better to blow off all the inspiration and the young voters, the independents and the Republicans that Obama is attracting than to take a chance on something as ephemeral as hope. Now that‘s Cheney-level paranoia.” — from Maureen Dowd‘s 2.6.08 N.Y. Times column, titled “Darkness and Light.”
Oh, and the latest study-stats piece claiming that McCain’s chances are much better against Clinton than Obama.

According to MSNBC’s “First Read,” Barack Obama won last night’s delegate hunt “by the narrowest of margins, picking up 840 to 849 delegates versus 829-838 for Hillary Clinton.” (Does this tally include New Mexico, which Obama appears to have finally “won” in a squeaker?) Update: The Page‘s Mark Halperin says the current total is 908 for Obama, 884 for Clinton, not including superdelegates.
Obama “also won more states (fourteen to Clinton’s eight), although she won the most populous ones (California and New York),” the First Read summary says. “And Obama’s argument that he might be the most electable Democrat in a general election was bolstered by the fact that he won nine (ten with New Mexico?) red states versus four for Clinton.
“Yet with Clinton’s overall superdelegate lead (259-170, based on the lists they’ve released to us), and when you toss in the 63-48 lead Obama had among pledged delegates going into Super Tuesday, it appears Clinton has about 70 more overall delegates than Obama does (1140-1150 for Clinton versus 1070 to 1080 for Obama). It’s that close, folks…
“Obama’s Opportunity And Challenge: The calendar for the next couple of weeks favors Obama, as we head into February 9 (Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington State); February 10 (Maine); February 12 (DC, Maryland, Virginia); and February 19 (Hawaii and Wisconsin). In fact, in a conference call it held with reporters on Monday,
the Clinton campaign seemed like it was conceding those states when it didn’t mention those states, but said it was looking ahead toward March 4 (Ohio and Texas; don’t forget Rhode Island and Vermont) after Super Tuesday.
“Obama can certainly feel good about last night: He went toe-to-toe with Clinton in a Super Tuesday contest
that once seemed to favor her. And he’s on pace to have a significant financial advantage over Clinton. But as the AP’s Ron Fournier writes, “Obama still has much to prove. The potential for setbacks and mistakes is high.” At some
point, the question will have to be asked: When or how can he put her away? Of course, last night proves that Clinton faces that very same question regarding Obama.”

Obama is heavily ahead among African-Americans, under-30 voters; strongly ahead with men. He’s beaten Clinton in Georgia, Alabama, Illinois, Delaware…and he may win in Connecticut. But Hillary has the over-40 women, the over-40 Hispanics, rural whites (we all know what that means), the elderly, etc. And let’s face it — Hillary’s wins so far (Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee) haven’t exactly been whisker-thin.
What’s up with Hillary’s lopsided Massachusetts victory? Is anyone going to interpret the results in racist-voter terms, or is that absolutely not allowed? (Even if it’s, like, as real as the nose on your face?) And why is Obama slightly ahead in Connecticut? (“Urban” voters?) Why has Obama lopsidedly won North Dakota? Why has he won Utah? Some of it adds up, and some of it doesn’t.
Has Obama’s young-voter base come out in exceptional strength, or has a significant percentage of the under-30 and the college crowd stayed put in front of their TVs and computers today and tonight? (I’d really like to see some figures on this.) Either way, a large percentage of over-40 women seem determined to side with their mothers and not their children, and to go down to the sea in ships with Hillary, win or lose. Dispiriting. No champagne tonight.