So, last night, after deciding on a whim to go catch the midnight IMAX showing of the Wachowskis' hyperkinetic, candy-coated Speed Racer, I had a bit of a Gob Bluth moment. (As in, "I've made a huge mistake.") For, after the ticket had been purchased, Metacritic informed me that Racer is currently rocking a lowly 35, and some critics are really hating on it. (See, for example, wry film-snob Anthony Lane, who calls it "pop fascism" and ridicules the anti-corporate message as "faux-leftish paranoia." And even critics I tend to agree with, like Stephanie Zacharek and David Edelstein, seem to have loathed it.) And once i got to Lincoln Square, matters looked worse: As compared to every other midnight showing I've ever been to, the crowd was sparse to the point of non-existent. Did, I wonder, the Wachowskis have a Matrix: Revolutions-level bomb on their hands?

Maybe, maybe not, but Speed Racer really doesn't merit all the contempt being heaped upon it this morning. Mind you, Racer is definitely a movie for children, but that in and of itself shouldn't argue against it. (I've sat through considerably worse kids' movies in my day.) Basically, Racer is a preteen-friendly, maybe slightly overlong, summer pop confection, and it's no better or worse, narratively-speaking, than the Spy Kids flicks (all three of which did significantly better with critics.) And, in terms of eye candy, it pushes the envelope and showed me things I'd never seen before in a film, and at breakneck speed to boot. What, exactly, were all these critics expecting? Did they miss that this movie was based on a 1960's Japanese cartoon, and that one of the characters was a chimp wearing overalls? Speaking of which, I have even less fondness for Racer as a pop-culture product than I did Iron Man -- I wasn't born when the cartoon aired, I was living overseas at the age when I would have enjoyed it, and found it kitschy, dated, and dumb when MTV brought it back in 1993. So, this isn't the "nerdstalgia" talking: If I was between the ages of 5 and 11, I'd probably think this movie was just about the coolest thing I'd seen since...well, since Iron Man, I guess, but I still would've dug it. And, as a 33-year-old, there were more enough splendidly weird wipes, flashbacks, and fades to keep me interested through the rough spots.

If you've never seen the cartoon before, the gist is this: Boy drives fast, family applauds, monkey does something funny.

Oh, you want more? Ok, well, Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch, eventually), the second son of a car-crazy family (conveniently named the Racers), spends his school hours day-dreaming of the track and hanging with his pixie-cute (girl)friend, Trixie. (Christina Ricci, eventually.) But Speed's life takes a tragic and Kennedyesque turn when his older brother Rex (Scott Porter) is vaporized in an ugly car accident, some time after he'd left home angry with Pops (John Goodman) and Mom (Susan Sarandon). As such, Speed grows up to inherit the family racing mantle instead, and, as it turns out, he's pretty darn good at it, so much so that the ruthless head of an obviously evil corporate conglomerate (Roger Allam of V for Vendetta, still looking exactly like Chris Hitchens) wants Speed to race for his well-funded team. But, when Speed decides to stick with the mom-and-pop outfit instead, he incurs the wrath of the insidious Bad Guys, who now set out to destroy him. But, with the help of the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox...I think that's his jawline), the racing scion Taejo Togokhan (Korean pop star Rain...shouldn't this be Stephen Colbert?), and, of course, his loving family (also including little brother Spritle, handyman Sparky, and monkey Chim-Chim), Speed sets out to beat the odds regardless. And, hey, maybe he'll learn a few things about racing -- and life -- in the process.

And that's about it, folks...Like, I said, it's a kids' film. (And while maybe Speed Racer and his friends versus the Big Bad Oligarchy isn't nuanced enough for the likes of Anthony Lane, I'm guessing it'll resonate well enough for eight-year-olds.) Helping things along are a bevy of solid performances: Hirsch is a bit of a cipher as Speed, but it's hard to see how it could've been otherwise. Better are John Goodman and Susan Sarandon as the Racers. Both are excellent actors in their own right, of course, but it's good to see neither suffer from the Portmanitis that has afflicted other otherwise-respectable thespians in heavy-green-screen productions. And then there's Matthew Fox as Racer X, which is funny for several reasons. Not only is it absurdly perfect casting -- Fox looks and sounds exactly like the cartoon character -- but the sight of Fox intoning blandly (and occasionally bringing the kung-fu) in his leather Racer X outfit almost seems like it has to be a self-deprecating knock by the Wachowskis on their earlier franchise. (Well, at least I hope they're in on the joke. The Neo-isms of the final act are way over the top, and a lot of the secondary performances, from Speed's teacher to the goons dressed like From Hell extras to the fellow playing Inspector Detector, often seem like Eurotrash rejects from the heady days of Zion raving too.)

All that being said, you're not going to walk out of Speed Racer talking about the performances. The real star of the show is the hypersaturated, zippity-quick look of the whole enterprise. And, while I easily see how people could feel overstimulated to the point of nausea by it (or that it might very well be less captivating on a non-IMAX-sized screen), I was consistently diverted by the look of Speed Racer, and particularly when the brothers Wachowski experiment with some all-new tricks. The cartoonishly-integrated flashback wipes, while perhaps overused, are definitely a neat effect, as are the squiggly-enhanced kung-fu/romance scenes and the "radio" zooms. And the whole movie just has a bizarre wonder to it: Note the sequence just before the start of the desert race, for example -- It's like something out of a fever dream, The Sheltering Sky by way of mescaline-laced Skittles.

So, after all this, am I recommending the film? Well, it really depends on how much you [a] prize visual invention over everything else and [b] can hang with a story pretty clearly pitched at pre-teens. (Having played and enjoyed F-Zero, Wipeout, or SSX will help too, I'd wager.) As I said above, however cotton-candy-thin and dumbed down the plot, I'd never seen a movie that looked like Speed Racer before, and that counts for something in my book. Whatever its faults as a film, I feel I saw something...quite new...last night, and as such I'm willing to forgive Speed Racer probably having too many notes. In any case, it's definitely not as uniformly terrible as the press is making it out to be.

"So you've managed to create AAA and BBB securities out of a pile of stinky, risky mortgage loans. Boss, you are a genius." By way of Web Goddess, the Subprime mortgage fiasco, explained with profane stick figures.

''I think history is going to be very tough on him. But that doesn't mean he isn't a great story. It's almost Capra-esque, the story of a guy who had very limited talents in life, except for the ability to sell himself. The fact that he had to overcome the shadow of his father and the weight of his family name -- you have to admire his tenacity. There's almost an Andy Griffith quality to him, from A Face in the Crowd. If Fitzgerald were alive today, he might be writing about him. He's sort of a reverse Gatsby."

EW checks in with Oliver Stone's W (Dubya), examining, among other things, the hunt for Cheney. "Stone denies rumors that Robert Duvall turned down Cheney. And he won't comment on reports that he's talking to Paul Giamatti about the part. But casting has clearly been challenging."

You know, just when I thought Sen. Clinton realized she had been decisively beaten, and thus that it was time to beg off and let the healing begin, we get garbage like this: With West Virginia and Kentucky on the docket (and no more sizable African-American populations left on the calendar), Clinton toys dangerously with the race card yet again. "'I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,' she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article 'that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.'" Uh, riiiight. Because, as we all know, black Americans aren't hard-working at all, but rather "shiftless" and "indolent." "There's a pattern emerging here." That there is, Sen. Clinton, and your campaign seems to be on the wrong side of it.

I get it -- She was probably trying to make the same old point about her support among the white working class, and for whatever reason it came out disastrously wrong and inadvertently (I hope) conflated white and hard-working. But, even allowing for an unfortunate gaffe, this riff further illustrates the Clinton campaign's troubling penchant for denigrating African-American votes as less important than those of white folk. Simply put, they're not -- a vote is a vote is a vote, and Obama has more of them, eggheads, African-Americans, you name it. Nor do I agree with the dubious contention that white working-class voters who have backed Clinton in the primary will go for McCain in the general en masse. As I said here, when it comes to primaries and generals, we're talking apples and oranges. Past performance is no indicator of future success, or failure.

Just to do this properly, Sen. Obama wins North Carolina by 14 and comes within 2 in Indiana, effectively ending the race for the Democratic nomination. (Yes, it was already over, but now it's really, really over.) When I got home late last night, Clinton had cancelled all of her public appearances, and it seemed reality had finally set in. But, no, word this morning is she will press on, and continue to burn money and goodwill for no apparent reason. Still, even if her campaign remains gracelessly in denial, I'd expect high-profile Clinton supporters will soon close the deal for her regardless. (Former Clinton backer George McGovern, for one, has now switched to Obama and is urging her concession.) So, the upshot is we're done here, folks. It's all over but the cryin'. And Senator Barack Obama of Illinois is our Democratic nominee.

Update: Sen. Obama picks up four more supers (one formerly a Clinton supporter, so it's Obama +5 to Clinton's +1), while Sen. Clinton's Senate backers start looking for the exit. And May 20 is the new May 6.

Heya...just got home from an extended academic function. But...NC by 14, IN by 2? We're done. It's over. IT IS OVER, and not a moment too soon.

More tomorrow.

If you live in North Carolina or Indiana, please consider voting for Barack Obama today. (And to the Tar Heels: my home state of South Carolina went for Obama by 28: If you can't represent at least somewhat similarly -- and right now the polls are saying single-digits -- I consider the contest between us closed.)

"Elizabeth Edwards likes Hillary Clinton's plan for universal health insurance. Husband John Edwards doesn't much care for Clinton's 'old politics.' So goes the his-and-her debate in the Edwards household." In a new interview with People magazine, John and Elizabeth Edwards announce they're staying neutral. "Bottom line: the couple said they will not endorse either remaining candidate, saving their political capital for their own causes – his, fighting poverty; hers, fighting for universal health care."

To which I feel compelled to ask: What political capital? Let me get this straight. On the one hand, we have Barack Obama, the "change" candidate who has had the nomination in the bag, mathematically speaking, for several months now. On the other, we have Hillary Clinton, the candidate whose campaign Edwards himself memorably deemed "the forces of status quo," and who has left no GOP tactic untried to hack and slash a path to the nomination. And the Edwardses are neutral? That's not statesmanship. That is political cowardice, pure and simple.

I mean, this isn't a huge surprise: It's been an open secret for awhile that the Edwardses would likely stay neutral, partly (if not mainly) on account of Elizabeth's personal issues with the Obama candidacy. Still, I thought they'd eventually rise above their pique and get on board with the "change" they'd espoused for months and months on end. I've lost count of the number of times I've personally defended Edwards (usually from the children of doctors, who've been indoctrinated with the idea that malpractice lawsuits rank just below genocide on the list of Crimes Against Humanity, and thus that Edwards is merely some kind of rank profiteer living off their dear parents' hard work.) I applauded his candidacy in 2008, and even voted for the guy in 2004. But, really, this is the kiss-off: If they still can't manage to bring themselves off the fence at this late hour, I just can't take either of them seriously anymore as leaders or progressives. "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."

Several stills from the Coens' next, Burn after Reading, appear online, along with a brief synopsis: "Burn centers on Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), who has hit a bit of rough patch. He was recently fired from the CIA and decides to write his memoirs, naturally documenting government secrets along the way. His wife (Tilda Swinton) decides to steal the material to use in their upcoming divorce proceedings, but the CD mistakenly ends up in the hands of two doltish gym employees, Chad (Brad Pitt) and Linda (Frances McDormand). In response to Linda and Chad conspiring to sell the material to help pay for Linda's plastic surgery, the CIA dispatches Harry (George Clooney) to sort it all out at whatever the cost." And, if that doesn't sound like Coen comedy territory, check out Brad Pitt's hair.

Also in the image department, enterprising fanboys have rifled through the new Dark Knight trailer and kindly chopped it up into high-rez stills. The money shot of the trailer is this one, of course (unless you're Patrick Leahy), but I still want to see more of the Clown Prince of Crime...

Eat your heart out, Nicholson. Update: For the more Two-Face-minded, some purported concept art leaks. (Not for the squeamish.)

How do you say "St. Patrick's Day" in Spanish? A very happy Cinco de Mayo to you and yours.

"There he lies. God rest his soul, and his rudeness. A devouring public can now share the remains of his sickness, and his phone numbers. There he lay: poet, prophet, outlaw, fake, star of electricity. Nailed by a peeping tom, who would soon discover...even the ghost was more than one person."

Whatever happens in IN and NC, at least we're all assured of one excellent piece of news on Tuesday: My favorite film of 2007, Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, comes out on DVD tomorrow. (See also my pre-Oscar Youtube appreciation.) Due to my imminent move, I'm mostly divesting myself of extraneous possessions at the moment. Still, I'm very much looking forward to picking this up tomorrow.

"I'm not going to put my lot in with economists." As TPM noted, we seem to have finally reached the point where there are "no more sharks left to jump." For alas, Sen. Clinton's final, fraying tether to the reality-based community (and my general election vote, not that she'll be getting that far anyway) gave up its last this weekend, as she -- in defiance of her usual m.o. and very much in the manner of Dubya and the GOP -- deemed universal opposition to her gas tax pander to be merely a figment of "elite opinion". (She's also doubled down on her anti-Obama gas tax ads.) As Robert Reich noted: "In case you’ve missed it, we now have a president who doesn’t care what most economists think. George W. Bush doesn’t even care what scientists think. He rejects all experts who disagree with his politics. This has led to some extraordinarily stupid policies." (Rabid Clinton partisan Paul Krugman, also a member of the elite-economist cabal, has yet to weigh in on his being cast down as an enemy of the people.)

As it turns out, one of the salt-of-the earth proles at the event (self-identified as an Obama voter making less than $25,000 a year) called Clinton out to her face for this blatant idiocy: "'I do feel pandered to when you talk about suspending the gas tax,' the woman said, adding: 'Call me crazy but I actually listen to economists because I think they know what they've studied.'" Clearly, this woman will be requiring significant reeducation. "'How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.' 'Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.'" (Give Clinton credit: Her campaign has been a travesty, but it's been great fodder for Orwell references around here.)

In any case, regarding the big picture: Unfortunately for earlier hopes that we'd be done May 6, it's looking like tomorrow will almost assuredly bring a split, with NC for Obama and IN for Clinton. (That is, unless Zogby has finally broke out of its slump this cycle.) Meaning, of course, that Clinton will be even more mathematically eliminated. And yet, in all likelihood, we'll slog on to June 3. Yay. (With that in mind, each side picked up another super today: Kalyn Free of OK for Obama and Theresa Morelli of Dems Abroad for Clinton. But as Morelli only counts for 1/2 a vote, that's another 1/2-vote pick up for Obama.)

Update: make that two and a half: Obama picks up two more MD supers, Michael Cryor and Lauren Dugas-Glover. And it sounds like some of Clinton's CA supers are reconsidering their options.

Update 2: Apparently, economists still mattered in 1992.

Thank you, Hagatna: Sen. Obama wins the Guam presidential caucuses by seven votes, 50.1%-49.9%. (This means a 2-2 delegate split, but also puts Obama two closer to the magic number of 2025.)

On the super side, Obama picks up Brian Colon of NM, Inez Tenenbaum of SC, and Parris Glendening of MD (the latter two are UADs.) Clinton, meanwhile, gets Jaime Gonzalez of TX and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend of MD (also a UAD). So the day's super tally: Obama +3, Clinton +2. Adding 'em to the post-PA super count, that puts us at Obama 17, Clinton 11 (or Clinton down 23 from her needed 2-1 split.)

You know all the media hype we've been hearing of late about Obama's presumed troubles with white voters? According to a study by NYT columnist Charles Blow, the numbers don't bear it out. In fact, quite the converse: "The question is this: Have white Democrats soured on Obama? Apparently not. Although his unfavorable rating from the group is up five percentage points since last summer in polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, his favorable rating is up just as much. On the other hand, black Democrats’ opinion of Hillary Clinton has deteriorated substantially (her favorable rating among them is down 36 percentage points over the same period). While a favorable opinion doesn’t necessarily translate into a vote, this should still give the Clintons (and the superdelegates) pause. Electability cuts both ways." That it does. (See also Rural Votes.)

In the weekend trailer bin, Will Smith is legend, whether we like it or not, in the full trailer for Peter Berg's Hancock, also with Jason Bateman & Charlize Theron. And last week's Indy boot goes legit: Behold the trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (I dunno...Is it just me, or does Cate Blanchett seem hammier than a drunken Anthony Hopkins?) Also, The Dark Knight trailer follows suit tomorrow.

Update: The Dark Knight trailer is now up. Also, Aaron Eckhart seems to let slip a pretty major plot point in an interview with the LA Times. If you're staying spoiler-free, don't read this one (or Moriarty's telegraphing of the same here.)

You've probably already seen this making the rounds today. But since it's definitely in GitM's wheelhouse, The Empire Strikes Barack. A few inspired moments therein: the cantina, Admirals Ozzel (Penn) and Motti (Dean), Emperor Bubba, the media barrage, etc.

As far as Marvel characters go, I can't say I ever really cottoned to Iron Man in my comic-reading youth. Sure, I was aware of his backstory and his rogue's gallery and all that, just by dint of sheer osmosis. But, other than when he was hanging around the Avengers or engaged in some huge crossover like Secret Wars, I don't think I ever picked up an issue. (Besides, with his industrial-techy side and all the paramilitary hangers-on, Iron Man seemed a hero designed for the GI Joe/Transformers kids, which was never really my scene. Inasmuch as I read Marvel, I usually preferred the angst-ridden, verbose types (Spidey, the X-Men, etc.))

All of this is a long way of saying that, given I have no real reservoir of nostalgia for its titular hero, Jon Favreau's crisp, surprisingly fun Iron Man seems that much more of an achievement. (Yes, I'd say the movie of the trailer holds up.) Sure, it suffers from having to tell yet another variation of the increasingly worn origin story, and thus slips below the top tier of recent comics films freed from that obligation (X2, Spiderman 2, The Incredibles.) And it's possible that Iron Man's sheer, unapologetic summer-blockbusterness may rankle a few viewers out there. (Note the not-very-subtle Burger King and Audi product placements.) But, as far as origin stories go, I'd say Iron Man can hold its helmet proudly alongside Batman Begins and the Donner Superman, thanks mainly to its superb cast (and inspired casting). And, as the kickoff to what's by all accounts an absurdly-stocked fanboy summer, Iron Man sets an auspiciously high bar for the many features to come.

In this updated incarnation, Iron Man begins as a sequel of sorts to Charlie Wilson's War: A troop convoy containing genius weapons manufacturer Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), nursing a scotch, is upended and undone on a dusty road in Afghanistan, and the ne'er-do-wells responsible are somehow armed with Stark Industries' finest. Cut to the title card, then to 36 hours earlier, when we meet Stark in his natural locale, Vegas. The son of a famous "ironmonger" and member of the Manhattan Project, Tony is basically a cross between Bill Gates and Howard Hughes, an acerbic, alcoholic, womanizing billionaire who always knows he's both the smartest and the richest guy in the room. But after being near-fatally wounded by shrapnel of his own making and captured by an Afghan warlord in the aforementioned raid (Stark was in-country, with his Air Force pal Rhodey (Terrence Howard), to pitch his newest lethal invention to the Brass), the playboy industrialist undergoes a not-unanticipated moral awakening, thanks in part to the saintly doctor (Shaun Toub) who saves his life with an electromagnet and a car battery. After building a suit of armor to break out of his Tora Bora captivity, Stark eventually returns stateside a changed man. He's got an arc reactor (don't ask) for a heart, he's getting out of the Merchant of Death trade for good, and he's thinking about taking that whole suit-of-iron idea to the next level. This (literal) change of heart, however, doesn't sit altogether well with Stark Industries' chairman-in-regency, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), who -- despite his long relationship with Stark and his father -- may have his own ideas on how to proceed. Y'see, the weapons trade really tied the company together, so Stark's new digression will not stand, man.

The Dude's turn toward unctuous corporate villainy is one of the most potent secret weapons in Iron Man's arsenal. (Speaking of which, look for the explicit Lebowski name-drop.) A bald, bearded, leering, and obviously untrustworthy achiever, Bridges is great fun here as the eventual Big Bad -- he takes the film up a notch in every scene he's in. (There's long been rumors of a Tron 2.0 script involving Bridges' character having gone all Col. Kurtz somewhere up the datastream. I was thinking of that quite a bit during Iron Man.) But Bridges is not alone -- He's matched here every step of the way by Robert Downey, Jr., who's both a brilliantly unconventional superhero and a note-perfect Tony Stark (indeed, so much so that my brother tells me the recent Ultimate reboot has basically ret-conned Stark into Downey, Jr.) It's really hard to imagine any other actor in the role, or anyone else working as well. In fact, as with Batman Begins (give or take Katie Holmes), Iron Man is basically overstocked with talent at every position, from Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts (Stark's Moneypenny) to director Favreau as Happy Hogan (Stark's Foggy Nelson) to Clark Gregg (In Good Company) as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (although not that one -- he comes later.) I mean, when you've got Paul Bettany playing the voice of the computer (also a nod to Jarvis, Stark's Alfred), you know you're working with an embarrassment of riches.

If Iron Man has a problem, it's that, despite the prodigious talent on display, the movie is still somewhat hampered by the now-rote conventions of the origin-movie genre. I mean, I'm definitely of the fanboy temperament, but even I grew ever-so-slightly bored as Iron Man moved us through the usual paces (the awakening moment, the learning to use the new powers, the big reveal of the new suit, the final mano a mano, etc.) Still, Favreau and Downey leaven these moments as best they can, and -- as you might've guessed from Lebowski, above -- there're plenty of knowing winks throughout to keep the base happy. (Like I said, I'm pretty unfamiliar with Iron Man canon, but even I could figure out the nods to War Machine and the Mandarin.) In short, if you allow for the constraints of the genre, Iron Man is basically everything you'd want in a summer-y superhero blockbuster. And if they bring Downey et al back for the sequel, I'd definitely look forward to seeing Iron Man live again.

A fanboy programming note: If you're like me and the many others celebrating May Day (and the unofficial start of summer) tonight by reveling in the adventures of a dissolute American weapons manufacturer, don't forget to stay until after the credits...

"Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."

Do you remember the Iraq War of 2003? Remember those heady days of euphoria when it ended two months later, with only 139 American lives lost? Journey back with me -- TIME-LIFE style, if you will -- to the scene of our triumph: "Chris Matthews on MSNBC called Bush a 'hero' and boomed, 'He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics.' PBS' Gwen Ifill said Bush was 'part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan.' On NBC, Brian Williams gushed, 'The pictures were beautiful. It was quite something to see the first-ever American president on a -- on a carrier landing. This must be very meaningful to the United States military.'"

Well, today marks the five-year anniversary of our glorious victory, the day that "splendid little war" came to a close. Among those honoring the day, and the remarkable achievement of our Commander-in-Chief:

A doctrinal schism in Wellington? Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones goes on filming hiatus while PJ and his art director clash over their respective visions of Heaven. (Somewhere, Howard Shore nods ruefully.) Earlier, the project was stalled by Ryan Gosling leaving over "creative differences" the day before shooting, to be replaced by Mark Wahlberg (a la Stuart Townsend and Viggo Mortensen.) Take note, Mr. del Toro, before you rush to embrace animatronics...

So, I noticed last night that my old GitM coxing columns at Rowersworld, written a decade ago, had at some point disappeared into the midnight realm of the 404, and that my writings page was thus featuring tons of dead links. But, with the aid of the trusty Wayback Machine, I was able to recreate them again here, where they can reside until this entire site falls into its inevitable disrepair. I'm not sure very many of my regular readers are of the rowing persuasion (anymore). Still, in case y'all are interested, the articles are back up.

Also, while searching for the lost articles, I found this essay on how to throw your coxswain correctly, which references the pic above. Just to clarify, I have "a blissful smile" on my face mostly because we won, yes, but also because I'm fully aware it's early May in Massachusetts, and the waters of Lake Quinsigamond won't immediately close down my bodily systems. Getting tossed at Dartmouth in early April is considerably less blissful.

"'He has shown such mettle under fire,' Andrew said in the interview. 'The Jeremiah Wright controversy just reconfirmed for me, just as the gas tax controversy confirmed for me, that he is the right candidate for our party.'" A Clinton endorser since Day 1 of her candidacy, former DNC Chair Joe Andrew switches to Sen. Obama, and is ready for the fallout."If the campaign's surrogates called Governor Bill Richardson, a respected former member of President Clinton's cabinet, a 'Judas' for endorsing Senator Obama, we can all imagine how they will treat somebody like me. They are the best practitioners of the old politics, so they will no doubt call me a traitor, an opportunist and a hypocrite. I will be branded as disloyal, power-hungry, but most importantly, they will use the exact words that Republicans used to attack me when I was defending President Clinton." Heh.

Throw in DNC member John Patrick of Texas for Obama and AFL-CIO head John Olson of CT for Clinton and that puts our post-PA super count at Obama 11-5. Once you add the automatic add-ons from NY (Clinton +4) and IL (Obama +3), Clinton is down nineteen from her needed 2-1 split. Clinton -5, -10, -13, -19...anyone else noticing a pattern?

"I don't think it's brilliant economics; unfortunately, it may be good politics. The smart people say 'It's stupid,' and the people who aren't as schooled say 'At least it will do something for me,'...I don't know that anyone connects the dots: that there have been a series of politically expedient decisions...that have added up to an economic picture that is not at all rosy and in fact fairly disastrous." In an A-1 story this morning, the WP joins the recent general calumny against the Clinton-McCain gas tax cut (which Clinton is now campaigning heavily on in IN and NC -- Obama is now pushing back on TV.) "'You are just going to push up the price of gas by almost the size of the tax cut,' said Eric Toder, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington." Indeed, it's apparently such a dumb idea that even diehard Clinton cheerleader Paul Krugman is forced to concede thus. Of course, the reality of the situation hasn't stopped Bill Clinton from entering full-Pander Bear mode on the issue.

Update: Clinton doubles down, and introduces legislation promoting McCain's lousy idea in the Senate. Responded Obama: "It's a Shell game, literally."

Her 41 supermarket moment? As if I needed another reason not to vote Clinton: Though she may knock back boilermakers like us regular joes, the Senator has in fact never heard of Red Bull, the fantabulously addictive breakfast beverage which more often than not constitutes the best moment of my day. (This also means Clinton has lost another excuse for voicing her obliteration-happy nuclear ambitions last week...It wasn't the taurine talking.)

In other key findings: "Her fantasy date would be with President Abraham Lincoln [to which Sybil says back off!] She refused to choose between comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, said she likes both wine and beer, and wouldn't select either 'American Idol' or 'Dancing With the Stars'; she said her mother -- who lives with the Clintons -- keeps her up to speed on both programs." (The answers, as everyone not running for office knows, is Fey, beer, and neither -- both are garbage, not that I'd expect someone who prefers Grey's Anatomy to The Wire (as per Obama) and spends her free time trying to ban Grand Theft Auto to pick up on that.)

You can't make this sort of thing up. While Senators Obama and Clinton traverse the Hoosier state for votes, local GOP congressional candidate and all-around right-wing freakshow Tony Zirkle actually makes a campaign stop to laud Hitler's birthday. "'I'll speak before any group that invites me,' Zirkle said Monday. 'I've spoken on an African-American radio station in Atlanta.'" Uh...yeah. As a THND commenter noted, it's that sparkly Happy Birthday banner on the table that really pushes the thing into high comedy.

Via What's Alan Watching?, and much like these Battlestar Galactica images from two years ago, David Simon's Baltimore goes Springfield. (That's McNulty & Bunk down at the tracks above, but you probably already figured that out.)

Speaking of BSG, does anyone else feel like Battlestar is on the verge of entering late-season X-Files territory at this point? (Or as Starbuck (and MC Hammer) might screech, WE'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!!) I was never sold on the Watchtower Four or all the Vision Questing at the end of Season 3, but figured i'd see where the show goes thereafter...maybe the Cylons really do have a plan. But this season to me, the Cylon civil war notwithstanding, has seemed mostly meandering and purposeless, and last episode (particularly the Tigh-Ellen-Six stuff) bordered on incoherent and self-parodying. I'm not giving up on Galactica just yet, but the show is definitely starting to lose me.

By way of Supercres, more interesting casting has come in on Oliver Stone's W. Already a veteran of parroting fake news, The Daily Show's Rob Corddry will play Ari Fleischer, while chameleon Jeffrey Wright is in talks to play Colin Powell. Good and good.

Indiana is May 6. Indiana Jones is May 22. And, while WB's cadre of lawyers try to lock down various versions of the Dark Knight trailer, the new Kramerized Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull trailer has also popped up online. I'm still of 2 minds about Indy 4. It could be a great throwback, it could be Attack of the Clones...but at least we only have to wait a few weeks to know the score. (In fact, Indy IV will close out four weeks of Fanboy May(hem), beginning tomorrow with Iron Man, followed by Speed Racer (5/9) and Prince Caspian (5/16).

Regarding much-anticipated projects further down the pike, Guillermo del Toro has been confirmed for The Hobbit, as has Ian McKellen. "'Yes, it’s true,' he said. 'I spoke to Guillermo in the very room that Peter Jackson offered me the part and he confirmed that I would be reprising the role. Obviously, it’s not a part that you turn down, I loved playing Gandalf.'" I'm obviously hugely excited for this project, but, still...that second filler movie attached to The Hobbit sounds like it could end up being a colossally bad idea.

Update: Also out today, Edward Norton wrestles with the angry, powerful alpha male inside him in the new trailer for Louis Leterrier's Incredible Hulk. Pfff...Tyler could still take him in a fight.

"The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church. They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Reverend Wright thinks that that's political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I might not know him as well as I thought, either." After an unrepentant Jeremiah Wright ratcheted up the heat again at the National Press Club yesterday, thus bringing the punditariat to a full boil, an "outraged" and "saddened" Sen. Obama definitively cuts Wright loose.

A bit depressing that this had to go down, but, at this point, Obama really didn't have much choice. (Wright was practically begging for it, what with promoting the AIDS and Farrakhan stuff anew yesterday.) So, hopefully this helps bring an end to the sad diversion that was the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Now, perhaps we can move on to other matters, such as the Rev. John Hagee and the "Strangelovian" obliteration of Iran...

Update: While we all mull the fallout from Wrightgate II, consider this: Sen. Obama picked up two more superdelegates today, Rep. Ben Chandler of Kentucky and DNC member Richard Machachek of Iowa. I believe that puts the post-PA total at 6 for Obama, 2 for Clinton, meaning Sen. Clinton is now a full 10 behind where she needs to be to stay "alive."

Update 2: Count three more supers for Clinton, and now three more for Sen. Obama. The new post-PA tally: 9 for Obama, 5 for Clinton, meaning Clinton is down 13 from her needed mark.

Along with a slew of new posters (see also the snazzy 9/11ish one at Quiddity), The Dark Knight begins its trailer rollout today with -- of course -- another worldwide Joker-run scavenger hunt. (I for one am loving the confluence of my interests that is Jokerized dead-presidents.) In any case, once we budding fanboy detectives run the info through the Batcomputer and get to the bottom of it all, I'll post the new trailer here...

Update: After the scavenger hunt and some anagram work and duck-shooting, it seems the trailer will be here...next Sunday. (Presumably, it premieres before Iron Man on Friday.) Sunday? Now, that wasn't very nice.

Update 2: "This city deserves a better class of criminal, and I'm going to give it to them." In pure Joker fashion, it's been Kramerized and Youtubed regardless. Extremely poor quality, but this'll do until the trouble gets here. (I could do without the post-title goofiness, to be honest, but Heath's Joker still seems scarily spot-on.) Update 3: While bootlegs of the clip keep getting shut down (if you haven't caught it yet, it's still up here at io9), the "Jokerized" version of the trailer, handed out to raffle winners in the viral game, is nevertheless now on the tubes.

"To make progress, we must rise above the partisanship and the issues that divide us to find common ground. We must move the country in a dramatically new direction. I strongly believe Barack Obama is best positioned to lead the nation in that new direction." Along with Roger Waters and the Pink Floyd pig, Sen. Obama picks up another Senate super in New Mexico's Jeff Bingaman, thus putting him in the lead among his and Sen. Clinton's colleagues. Update: Clinton counters with NC Governor Mike Easley.

Meanwhile, over the weekend Matt Drudge ventured into the Wayback Machine to examine superdelegates' issues...with Bill Clinton in 1992. "'The voters haven't embraced Clinton, so I don't see any reason why I should endorse him,' Mr. Eckart said. 'Look at the exit polls. People have terrible doubts about this guy, and we're talking about Democrats.'" Cut to 2008, where, thanks to his recent transgressions, undeclared supers -- particularly African-American supers like my old rep, Jim Clyburn -- still don't think much of the man. "How do you play the race card on the ex-president of the United States? How do you do it? I would like to know how that's done and who they [are]. And I'd like to see these memos he's talking about. That's what's so bizarre about this,' Clyburn said". (Nor, it seems, is Pres. Clinton a fan of Obama, but that's not really surprising at this point, is it?)

"I feel that those citizens who say that have never heard my sermons, nor do they know me. They are unfair accusations taken from sound bites...I served six years in the military. Does that make me patriotic? How many years did Cheney serve?" I haven't watched the Sunday shows yet, but, if today's press is any indication, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is the big story in the news, after he delivered remarks in several venues aimed at defending himself against the recent media throng, as well as horrifying attempts by the like of George Stephanopoulos to McCarthify him on national television. (As I said here, we seem to have entirely skipped the rails when kindly ole Mike Huckabee is the biggest voice for tolerance and historical understanding in the conversation.)

At any rate, the return of Obama's Angry Black Preacher-Man prompted tut-tuts of electoral worry from Clinton-leaning concern trolls like like Salon's Joan Walsh, and the usual waiting for the other-shoe-to-drop from breathless political blogs like War Room and Ben Smith. What I haven't seen yet today, amid all the puttering from the press on the subject of Wright, is any attempt to put the Reverend's remarks in context of this weekend's highly dubious acquittal in the Sean Bell case. To wit, New York City cops shoot an unarmed black man and his friends 50 times and end up getting off for it, and, outside of Harlem, there's barely a shrug, including in the news media. Meanwhile, when it comes to anything and everything involving the fates of Natalee Holloway, Laci Peterson, and any other white damsel in distress, the press drone on about it endlessly, funnelling info to us months or even years after the cases have gone cold. But, as they say, this ain't Aruba, b**ch.

Is Rev. Wright angry? At this point, and as this weekend's fiasco makes clear, he has every right to be. Perhaps the press and the punditocracy could investigate more thoroughly why black America may be less inclined to think well of our nation at times, rather than working themselves into yet another holier-than-thou froth about occasional intemperate remarks, and/or endlessly fretting about their potential impact on the electoral whims of the white working class. God forbid these media asshats break out of their echo chamber bubble once in awhile and do some honest-to-goodness reporting. Heck, I'd be happy just to see a few of 'em think for themselves.

"In an interview yesterday, Hillary -- whose connection to President Clinton's 2001 sentence commutations for two members of the Weather Underground has become an issue since she tried to raise questions about Obama's acquaintance with another ex-Weatherman -- told 'Inside Edition' that she 'didn't know anything about' the 2001 clemency case...If it's true, it means that she got the worst briefings in the world when she was running for Senate in 2000 and the clemency issue was hot in Rockland County, and it means that Chuck Schumer didn't even bother to mention the issue to his fellow NY senator-elect/ First Lady after promising the widows of two dead cops to fight against one of the clemencies." Following her recent attempt to make hay from the Weathermen, Sen. Clinton gets caught in another obvious lie. Oops.

Meanwhile, following on the two he picked up yesterday, Sen. Obama scores another superdelegate in Oregon rep David Wu. "'We need new policies both at home and abroad,' Wu said in a statement. 'Like Americans, the international community wants to see real change in America and I believe that Senator Obama embodies that change.'" As you probably know, Sen. Clinton needs the superdelegates to break 2-1 her way from now herein for the comeback math to make any sense at all. So, since Pennsylvania (1 for Clinton, 3 for Obama), she's already 5 down on where she needs to be.

Fire up ORAC and break o