There is a certain kind of comedian – the best kind, really – who is more truth-teller than entertainer. We laugh with them because they so perfectly capture with words what the constraints of polite society keep us from saying and sometimes even thinking. A short, incomplete list of these comedians would include Will Rogers,…
“The Campaign,” the new election-season comedy starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, does exactly what you expect it to. It delivers big, raunchy laughs, while offering soft satire of the American political system. It is the rare political comedy that will play in both DC and Peoria. The film succeeds the most when it lampoons…
The two-part episode is a television staple. Growing up, I remember watching two-parters for all of my favorite shows, and I always got that feeling that was a mixture of disappointment and excitement when I realized that a show was not going to be able to wrap up it’s plot in time. There is a…
In the aftermath of the massacres in Aurora, Colorado and outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, we are all searching for answers. What could we have done as a nation to prevent these tragedies and how can we stop them from occurring in the future? Much of the policy discussion that has occurred since the shootings has…
If someone in the future wanted to know what political and cultural issues Americans were grappling with in 2012, they would only need to go to the movies. Films as diverse as “The Hunger Games,” “Cabin in the Woods,” and “The Dark Knight Rises” have all been set in one specific social, cultural, and political…
Tonight’s episode was, by “Newsroom” standards, rather slight. There were no big surprises in it, and there was no real conflict either. The news team spent very little time debating how to cover the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and thus Sorkin did not spend too much time criticizing how the Bin Laden story was…
A few months ago, I wrote about the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, federal legislation that would end the use of chimpanzees in research and experimentation. At that time, I argued that the recent glut of films about primates (“Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” “Project Nim,” “Chimpanzee”) have reflected a cultural…
Last week, we looked at the odd casting of “The Butler,” an upcoming film about a White House butler who served seven consecutive presidential administrations. We have already fixed the casting problems with the Eisenhowers and the Kennedys. Today, we look at LBJ and the Reagans. Lyndon Johnson Who they Cast: Liev Schreiber Who they…
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