The RP’s favorite TV show premiere is less than a month away — Sunday, March 25. From their latest sneak preview, it turns out that despite her divorce from the series’ anti-hero, Don, Betty Draper — played by January Jones — is back.
Check it out:
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We at The Recovering Politician are proud to present the latest film feature of the multi-talented Renaissance Man, contributing RP Jason Atkinson. Without further ado, we present Underwater Love: Underwater Love from Flying A Films on Vimeo. Sundance Film Festival is going on AS YOU READ THIS. /Film has been killing it with the coverage. I’m linking their front page, as there will be plenty of stuff for you to read there. I seriously might as well just shut the post down after this one link, this is plenty to read. [/Film] This isn’t really about film, but the BBC television program Sherlock is perhaps the greatest item which involves film being made right now. Anyone who has managed to keep up with the show (its only out in Britain right now) is surely wondering about the possibility of a third season. I am happy to report that it will happen. And the two main guys will be back! [Deadline] They are making a film about Linda Lovelace, the porn actress-turned-anti-porn-vigilante. (Surely porn will make it into one of these debates Jonathan is keen on soon, right?) Amanda Seyfried is playing Linda Lovelace, and there are now some pictures of that happening. [Movie Blog] Spike Lee is making waves at Sundance with comments regarding the lack of diversity in cinema. I have to say, I agree with him. [WaPo] I hope you saw Katheryn Bigelow’s fantastic 2008 film The Hurt Locker. If you didn’t, rent it this weekend–it’s that good. Her next project is about Osama Bin Laden, and it was started before he was killed. After a bunch of rewrites, they are now casting people for the roles. News recently has Joel Edgerton as a lead–who was fantastic in this year’s film Warrior (go see that one too). [The Guardian] Netflix has had a rough time in the past several months. After all that business about raising their rates and splitting into two services, and then going back and forth, changing what they are doing, people are quite down on their business. Now comes news that HBO is now raising the rates they sell their shows DVDs to Netflix. I am a Netflix subscriber and enjoy the service immensely. I hope they turn things around soon. [/Film] My absolute favorite thing that has been released in the past year has been the BBC series Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Mr. Cumberbatch is very hot in Hollywood right now–he has a role in the Spielberg film War Horse out now and will be in next year’s The Hobbit. Now news comes that he will be working with JJ Abrams on the new Star Trek film. Exciting new for me, I think he is great. [Film Junk] There might be an Elton John biopic. If there is, Sir Elton wants Justin Timberlake for the lead role. I have nothing else to say about this. [The Movie Blog] OK, I admit it…I’ve been quite lax when it comes to my posting of Top Five pop culture lists. Last year, I shared my half-Lettermans of Favorite Breakup Songs, Favorite Hoops Books, Most Jew-ish Gentiles, Favorite “Docs” who Weren’t Doctors, Pretty Boys I Begrudgingly Admire, Guilty Pleasures, Pop Music Lyrics, Awful TV Shows with Terrific Theme Songs, Most Romantic Screen Scenes in the Rain, Worst Oscar Robberies of Italian-Americans, and Art Museums to Place on Your Bucket List. But it’s been a long gap since the last entry. A man’s gotta feed his family, you know? But due to overwhelming popular demand (OK, mostly because I was sick and bored at the end of the holidays), I offer my latest half-Letterman: The Top Five Medical Afflictions I Learned About Via TV Comedies:
I need to be a little delicate here, being that the RP Nation is a family audience, but until I saw the particular Seinfeld episode I post below, I had never heard of the much-too-common malady that plagues millions of American men (and disturbs many more millions of American women), called “shrinkage.” I just have never been the type of guy who looks down in a communal shower. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) While I knew and understood that uromysitisis (a Seinfeldian compulsion for public urination) was real, spectacular, troubling… yadda, yadda, yadda; as a Jewish guy, I’ve never had to worry about the shrinkage syndrome. (Hellooooooo!). But for all of you Gentile men (and Jew-ish Gentiles such as George Costanza), to truly become the master of your domain, watch the following public service announcement, and always remember, NO COLD POOLS FOR YOU:
Like most Americans, I rely on Dwight Schrute of “The Office” for most of my medical and health care advice. (What does Dr. Oz really know anyway?) Whether it is his enlightened views on “female issues” such as the menstrual calendar and yeast infections, his perspicacious insights about infant circumcision, or his well-versed policy analysis on health care reform and the animal kingdom, there is no scientific expert more astute than Schrute. So, it was quite touching when on a special espisode of “The Office,” we learned of a medical affliction that affected Dwight personally; in fact, one that made him that man-and-a-half that he is. Yes, fetal resorbtion. Watch below:
As I approached my Bar Mitzvah — the biggest moment of my pre-adolescent life, the very day that I would become a MAN — I lived in constant fear that my voice would change. My rabbi, Bernard Schwab, a truly holy man who had been blinded by diabetes, who had memorized the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) in HEBREW, had painstakingly worked with me for four years so that I would not only read my assigned portions with perfection but that I’d also hit the prescribed musical notes as mandated by the Torah scribers thousands of years before. I was scared to death that I would dishonor him — while blaspheming my faith and desecrating my people — by shrieking like a wounded frog. Because everyone knew that when a boy hit puberty, he immediately became a laughable, cacophonous clown, a shrill fool who, when singing, disturbed the peace, shattered mirrors, and made young girls cry. At least everyone who had watched the following episode of my very favorite childhood TV comedy, The Brady Bunch. (Turns out, I was the exception — my voice naturally transitioned down an octave. Also, unlike Peter Brady, I didn’t marry and then divorce a much-much younger winner of America’s Top Model, who now is offering to tweet a topless picture of herself if she acquires 300,000 Twitter followers: NSFW link) Read the rest of… As I travel across the country on business, I’m constantly asked what my much-smarter and much-more-popular sister, Jennifer Miller, is up to. Of Jennifer’s many projects, one is soon coming to fruition. Over the past year, she served as Co-Producer for “Hitting the Cycle,” a baseball-themed film that was written and directed by her high school classmate Richey Nash, and co-starring the legendary Bruce Dern. I’m excited to report that the film’s trailer has just been released. Watch it below and let me know what you think: The RP is neither stiff-necked nor arrogant enough to believe that the producers of the ABC freshman TV hit, Revenge, read his little-known Web site. However with Hollywood being run by Jews and liberals — the RP’s two core constituencies — we imagine that someone in the RP Nation knows the show’s producers. If you are one of those suitably connected, please share this open letter with them. Thank you – RP Staff. Dear Revenge producers: I’m really enjoying your new program. Sure, the plots are contrived, the writing sophomoric, and the thespianism over-emotive. But in the spirit of many of the best primetime soaps from my adolescence — Dallas, Dynasty, the ’85 Red Sox — it’s good ole cotton-candy fun, with plenty of beautiful people intertwined in delicious intrigue and hyperbolic conflict. And the writers are setting up a doozy of a climactic catfight between the protagonist Emily Thorne (played with considerable emotional nuance by Emily VanCamp) and her Lady MacBethian rival Victoria Grayson (the always-wonderful Madeline Stowe). Indeed, there are two special features that I enjoy the most. First, while the underlying plot is an obvious homage to fiction’s ultimate revenge fantasy, The Count of Monte Cristo (If you hadn’t picked that up by last week’s episode, the camera pans to a copy of Dumas’ classic on a character’s bookshelf), Emily’s face sometimes reflects conflicting feelings about pursuing vengeance against her enemies. Indeed, in its oh-so-unsubtle fashion, the series opened with one of my favorite Confucianisms: “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” I’ve written often about the value of forgiveness and the toxicity of holding grudges, and I hope the series ultimately reflects the downside of Emily’s pursuit of retributive justice. Read the rest of…
Hollywood, by the way, senses that politics usually does not sell, and it makes its accommodations to this reality. This spring’s “Adjustment Bureau” shunned its political story-line in its own advertising, and another momentary flash in the pan, Bradley Copper’s “Limitless”, tacks on a political sub-plot only in the final ten minutes (it works as well as trying to work a fender bender in the studio parking lot into the action.) Even a film that is unambiguously about a political figure, the upcoming “J. Edgar”, exists more because of the tangled webs that apparently existed in Hoover’s private life, than because he blithely abused the prerogatives of federal law enforcement through the terms of eight presidents.
Read the rest of… Lars Von Trier, director of the upcoming film Melancholia (which looks amazing), has un-apologized for his comments about sympathizing with Nazis. Probably not the best move. [/Film] Clint Eastwood is directing a movie about J Edgar Hoover, which will star Leonardo DiCaprio as the head spook. There is a trailer for it now. [Guardian] Netflix is splitting into two companies: Netflix, which will continue to manage their internet streaming service; and Qwikster, which will manage DVD rentals (and will add video game rentals). [Film Junk] Ryan Gosling has made some great films recently, and is in two films this year which are sure to be hits: Drive and The Ides of March. But, he might hang it up for good after that. [IFC] If you have never watched Arrested Development, you need to do that. Its a hilarious TV show, and has been floated as a movie for a long time. It looks like it might actually shoot next year. [Forces of Geek] New casting news from the next Tarantino film Django Unchained out this week. Are you as excited for this film as me? No, you aren’t. That would be impossible. [/Film] The Weinstein Company is one of the biggest film distribution companies in the world. One of its newest films, Butter, isn’t doing so hot. So, Harvey Weinstein decided to do something crazy: he invited Michele Bachmann (the lady who fights for girl’s rights to cervical cancer) to the Iowa premier. [The Guardian] The Toronto International Film Festival is going on right now. There is a lot of news about what films are being picked up for distribution. One film that I am excited to see, dark comedy God Bless America, was recently picked up. [Film Junk] Christina Hendricks might play Wonder Woman in a film about the DC heroine. This would cause me great joy. [IFC] Top Gun is being post-produced into 3-D. This is incredible stupid, but so was that movie. [The Movie Blog] |
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