GAME CHANGE on hbo starring julianne moore as sarah palin and ed harris and john mccain

how is this not going to the most fun hbo miniseries ever

that should be "ed harris as john mccain"

Who is John McCain playing?

dammit

oh and WOODY HARRELSON as steve schmidt

This is based on that awful Mark Halperin book, right? It'll be amusing, I guess.

it is directed by the man responsible for meet the parents and austin powers and it will focus on the mccain campaign

max, mayb bcz this is in retrospect as depressing as any election ever

i mean im sort of assuming this is going to be a comedy?

I was about to be all "wau, real tour de force effort from Julianne Moore there" and then you had to clarify

Who's doing the script?

im assuming this is going to be a game changer

doyle from gilmore girls wrote it

it will focus on the mccain campaign

with a fiercely liberal cast and Hollywood's see-no-evil pose on Obama's hypocrisy? Git outta town

i thought ed harris was one of those hollywood republicans

morbs, you have matt damon

anyway i think morbs is right and that the writers and actors of the miniseries should operate as if they know what happens 3 years later

why not? i did.

haha

Ed Harris is way more imposing/intimidating than John McCain. (I also recall he sat stonily when Kazan got a special Oscar, so I assume librul)

goole maybe you're thinking of gary sinise?

okay i think this miniseries would be way more fun if morbs played cindy mccain as a savant who tells her husband all of the bad things obama will do during his first term but john hates her so much that he never listens, thus dooming his campaign

morbs i'm sure you'd look stunning in a blonde wig and some bright red lipstick

J0rd, you'll look better in it when we share a prison cell one day

i'm cool w/ that as long as we have a TV to watch mets games

talk about cruel and unusual punishment

max, the writer and director are the same as the HBO classic Recount, which I've never seen, but it's bound to be just as memorable.

http://www.danceproof.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Stop-Dancing-Design-copy.jpg

http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2011/news/110509/julianne-moore-300.jpg

Not to mention
http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com/img/upload/2011/05/mccainharris464/large.jpg

surm are you so fucking excited for this or what

the trailers for this are incredible

harris doesnt appear to be making many concessions to the real mccain, aside from not lifting his arms above his head

Written by one of the evil nerds from Buffy lol

Moore's Palin voice is even more nails on a chalkboard than the real Palin. No way I could take two hours of it.

this is gonna be the best tv movie ever!!!

ballot poll time

Written by one of the evil nerds from Buffy lol

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Wednesday, March 7, 2012 10:15 AM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the clueless cousin from mad men. game change: cure for the common political movie.

Recount was good/entertaining.

Same reaction to Recount--pretty good. I think Primary Colours is a little better still.

better than her southie accent in 30 rock yn

sorta feel like tina fey coulda done this just as good as JM, probably less hacky (just assuming/haven't watched the trailer/don't really care)

good for jonathan tho, finally found his place in sunnydale

I like Primary Colors quite a bit, despite the choice of POV.

pareene has a nice takedown of this totally pointless thing i will never see.

Post very much in character

kinda like OOOOH PALIN PALIN FUNNY DUMB IRRELEVANT PERSON is for others

Sullivan is apparently upset at Pareene.

Onion AV Club review doesn't sound promising. I saw W and really it was a waste of time. Judging from this review, it sounds like they basically took stump speeches, pundit talk, and press releases and lined them all up into basically a 2008 flashback, with little actual character development. Anyone else see this?

http://www.avclub.com/articles/game-change,70584/

“You remind me of myself,” McCain says. “We’re both reformers not afraid to thumb our nose at our own party.”

Lines like that are, in a nutshell, the problem with Game Change: This is supposed to be the inside story of the McCain campaign, with all its dysfunction, backbiting, and Hail Mary gimmickry, yet everyone speaks in stilted pundit-ese. Much like Oliver Stone’s failed biopic W., the film trots out a cast of skilled celebrity impersonators to regurgitate dialogue that seems lifted from press conferences or sessions with “The Best Political Team On Television.” No matter how uncanny the performances—and actors like Julianne Moore and Ed Harris get the nuances and temperaments right—the politicians and operatives in Game Change are not human beings. They are spouters of conventional wisdom.

harris doesnt appear to be making many concessions to the real mccain, aside from not lifting his arms above his head

― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Wednesday, March 7, 2012 9:15 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he really got the physicality "down" wouldn't you say

somebody must have done "The Thrilla from Wasilla" back then

lol yes

About 99,800 results (0.45 seconds)

Tempestuous Alaska should be a desert. Like, it's baked Alaska, but with sriracha or something on it.

conversely, political guys maybe dont write abt yr boners

He's writing about Game Change. Not talking honestly about his own response to Palin would be disingenuous.

I don't mean to press the point, but I can't see passing summary judgement on a writer because you disagree with him about this one particular point. Whatever he's doing there, Kael did as a matter of routine. And he is writing about a movie.

just stop the piece is blatantly shit lame and embarrassing

Sayeth you. Disagree.

fine just please spare us yr theories re writing when were loling at political writers perving out

Calm down. Lagoon, I genuinely enjoy your posts on the Republican thread. And if you'd like to spell out your problems with the piece in something other than this cryptic shorthand that you communicate in, I'd be glad to engage. But I don't think I've offered any theories thus far; I've said that it's perfectly okay--preferable, even--that a guy writing about Game Change be honest about his initial reactions to Palin. If you don't share those reactions, fine, leave it at that.

no u leave it at that

Hah I was gonna say the real SP actually kinda hotter than JM SP (even though out-of-character JM obviously way hotter) but this guy is ridiculous. The music in her voice? WTF?

yeah its a legit observation, but wouldve been better served by like two sentences max

I'm out of my depth here--I must hand off to Dr. Evil and duck out of this skirmish.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/32C0eKRQVt8"; frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Oops--stepped on my own punchline.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32C0eKRQVt8

hahaha, "oh behave!" he got you good icey.

internet hardman lyfe is tuff

know the difference between a pitbull and an internet hardman?

This seems like a fine thread to recount my own experience with SP.

I was in Maine visiting my aunt w dad and she was speaking in an airport hanger in Bangor. It was the middle of October. We went down to check it out and there were probably 500 or so people huddled around, listening to a pretty basic speech that lasted maybe 10 or 15 minutes. While we were there, there were a few democrat protestors holding up signs. The balls on these guys! Of course Palin supporters shouted "Get a job!" etc at them and they were escorted out. I took some photos of SP in the distance. That night the local news channel had a story on it and the footage they shows was kinda odd so i looked at my photos and it was from a totally different event. Also the news story said the turnout was something like 5,000 people.

banger in a hanger in bangor

*ar

The Dr. Evil clip was silly and infantile and rather embarrassing.

no u leave it at that

That was kind of the point...

(A little voice inside my head said, "Don't check back, you should never check back." Need to follow that voice.)

no hard feelings all i was saying was c'mon son

No problem. I read Hertzberg's Obama book, liked it a lot, so I'm defending him. And again, you always make me laugh on the Republican thread.

i like hertzberg but he's probably already feeling embarrassed by that column

hertzbergs good but im a little suspicious of his schtick

what is his schtick

"writing"

bonerz

his schtick in brief is psychologizing political proceedings from and here were coming to the part im suspicious of somewhat of a 'just a simple man' or outsider prospective

Unfrozen Caveman Political Pundit

ha yes i had to stop myself from writing exactly that

w/ palin this would be the best-looking election in decades

― max, Friday, August 29, 2008 4:05 AM (3 years ago)

i had a dream that i was romneys campaign manager, v much inspired by this film

who was your veep?

morbz

"Which papers do you read?"
"NONE OF THEM."

ha it took place during the present day primaries iirc so no veep, i spent the whole time being all why am i doing this i hate republicans i dont want him to win

Finally saw this. (Took my brother-in-law about 30 minutes to hand me a USB.) Do I want to wade into this again?

I thought it was basically as good as Recount. I didn't think it was nearly as good as the trailer with "American Woman." (Which was better than almost any film I saw last year.) Thought the best performance was given by Woody Harrelson; I don't know if I've seen more than half-a-dozen Harrelson films in my life, but I always find him impressive. Maybe I just get lucky and see the right ones. If they hadn't borrowed the book's title, they could have called it Saint John. Boy, McCain gets a pass.

I'm trying to think of a way to revisit Hertzberg's review without getting into his starry-eyed crush on the real thing, which caused such a commotion upthread, but it's inextricable from what he wrote. (The film is so careful to avoid the centrality of Palin's looks, it's bizarre--I think there are two brief mentions, one of them by Pat Buchanan.) And, big surprise, I think Hertzberg was exactly right--Moore's good in a studied, Joan Allen way, but she misses something fundamental. I totally understand why Moore had to come up with something other than what Tina Fey did. But in trying to convey what Moore was missing, I think of that moment in SNL's debate parody where Fey said, "Can I call you Joe? 'Cause I've got a couple of zingers where I call you Joe." She missed that. One moment made me laugh aloud: when Palin sees Biden doing some stretching off-stage just seconds before the debate and tries to mimic him.

lol yeah i loved that and really hope it actually happened

I thought it was basically as good as Recount.

i dug Recount more, because the specifics of the story weren't as familiar to me. game change is well done but i couldnt shake the been there, done that feeling. as far as hbo docudramas featuring caricatures of famous politicians, i prefer dennis quaid's clinton in the spesh relaysh

Going to a screening of Will Ferrell-Zach Galifjasuygckis The Campaign tonight, directed by Roach, with Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow as "the Motch brothers." The subtlety rolls on.

this has essentially replaced Pulp fiction as my "anytime I'm flipping through the channels and see this is on HBO I will turn it on" thing. So funny.

needs a sequel

Wow, Moore's great.

This was fun, well done if colored by the usual Halperin mush. Moore manages to be sympathetic as in over her head as well as breathtakingly ambitious and deluded.

Does reinforce some pro-Palin myths, like the one that she did the 2nd half of her convention speech from memory after the teleprompter broke (it didn't), or that she added the hockey mom joke off the top of her head (the handwritten signs were stage-managed like everything else), or that the fancy clothes were the campaign's fault instead of what she wanted all along (yeah right, her "I don't want to go back to Alaska" line near the end is closer to the truth). The 8th grade civics and history lessons were totally damning, and so was the idea that the debate could be successfully scripted in advance. She didn't do that well in the debate either, to anyone who actually paid attention, but the comeback narrative was irresistible to the press, and evidently to the screenwriters here.

Schmidt comes off best because he's the source, but the "celebrity" ad counterpunch was great politics and very effective, full credit. The idea that McCain shut down the attack dogs instead of just making them work under the radar at a distance (which is the usual approach anyway) is also self-serving, but the moment he took the mike away from the "he's an Arab" woman at the town hall and corrected her was a genuine mark in his favor, one missing from Obama's opposition ever since. The "it's not about you" scene at the end is a very nice bit of American political mythologizing.

Now I need to see Recount.

i liked recount more

Nice write-up, plasmon, most of which I agree with. One thing I won't do is give much credit to McCain for correcting that woman. As I've said before--and I was very attentive to the whole timeline as it unfolded--that came way too late; that stuff had been going on at McCain rallies for at least two or three weeks before he spoke up. Also, when he finally did, it was about a week after the stock market meltdown, when it was starting to become clear that he'd lose. To me, it was just a guy trying to salvage whatever goodwill was left towards him at that point.

i cancelled my hbo so i can no longer watch Game Change when it comes on, as I'm sure it still does from time to time

The look on Sarah Paulson and Woody Harrelson's faces when they realize that Palin doesn't know what the Fed is.

somehow i ended up watching this last night.

it was kind of unsettling to watch it in the trump era. seems like all of the collective madness of the mccain campaign happens every week now.

it was a more innocent time