comment #1

BoulderKid says ...

Dreyfuss looks the same as she did on early 90's Seinfeld episodes. Also, someone needs to get Jason Alexander something to do.

comment #2

Errol Flynnn says ...

Jeff covering tv?!?!?!

comment #3

Jesse Crall says ...

@BoulderKid: Agree on both counts, although Tony Hale was definitely on my "Let's find him a part" list. In the Loop was great although with every laugh there was this nagging part of me that thought "This movie isn't straying too far from reality, is it?"

comment #4

leeroy says ...

I love In The Loop, but the original show, The Thick of It, is the tits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAiFQQS3Pfc&

comment #5

chimbondasgloves says ...

This and Game Change in the same year?

comment #6

moviesquad says ...

Jeff is obsessed with anything Sarah Palin. HBO has put all their eggs in the Sarah Palin basket this year, and it doesn't look like it's going to pay off for them.

comment #7

George Prager says ...

At the 7:00 mark Nick Nolte tells Charlie Rose how Mickey Rourke wound up in THE THIN RED LINE
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/4527

comment #8

Storm Serge says ...

She doesn't look exactly the same, but she is aging remarkably well. Easy living when you have billions headed your way?

I would go one further on Wells comment re: tone and manner, some of it feels a carbon copy--not that there's anything wrong with it.

comment #9

cardboard displays says ...

Jeff covering tv?

comment #10

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

How many Sarah Palin parodies before we can officially declare HBO a stalker and she can get a restraining order on them?

comment #11

Eloi Wrath says ...

What makes anyone think this is a Sarah Palin parody? It's obviously not.

comment #12

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

"stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a somewhat self-absorbed, slow-on-the-pickup U.S. Senator who becomes Vice-President...and is then literally a heartbeat away from assuming the Presidency..."

Other than that, you're right

comment #13

Eloi Wrath says ...

http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/news/a355259/julia-louis-dreyfus-veep-isnt-a-sarah-palin-parody.html

comment #14

robbiefantastic says ...

liking the in the loop feel. and anna chlumsky renewing my 13 year old selfs "my girl" crush.....

comment #15

Krazy Eyes says ...

Looks funny.

What's up with all the "fucks" being bleeped but none of the "shits"? Is there some sort of new swear hierarchy I'm not aware of?

comment #16

jesse says ...

I love how Mgmax's argument is that this is clearly going after Palin because of this description:

"stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a somewhat self-absorbed, slow-on-the-pickup U.S. Senator who becomes Vice-President...and is then literally a heartbeat away from assuming the Presidency..."

Let's take a look at those Palin-like elements:

-"stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus" [doing no kind of Palin-like accent and clearly playing a character more in her wheelhouse than a specific Palin caricature]

-"as a somewhat self-absorbed" [a quality that applies to just about any politician minus the "somewhat"]

-"slow-on-the-pickup" [OK, maybe]

-"U.S. senator" [job Palin has never held and probably never will]

-"who becomes Vice-President" [NOPE!]

-"and then is literally a heartbeat away from the presidency" [a common phrase that has often been used to describe VPs, and based on this trailer I'm pretty sure describes an episode plot point, not the premise of the series, though I could be wrong about that]

But yeah, Mgamx, apart from those STUNNING similiarities to Palin's life...

Krazy Eyes, I'm sure it'll all be there on the HBO broadcast, but for what it's worth, FX and TBS, from what I've seen, don't bleep "shit" after 10PM (on Justified or Conan, anyway), but they do shy away from (or bleep) "fuck."

comment #17

Krillian says ...

Regarding the swear hierarchy, you can have 50 s-words and keep a PG-13, but two or three f-words puts you into R-rated territory.

And yeah, between this and only the doing the Palin chapters of Game Change, HBO's gameplan backfired.

comment #18

DavidF says ...

"What's up with all the "fucks" being bleeped but none of the "shits"? Is there some sort of new swear hierarchy I'm not aware of?"

Uh, yeah.
Do you watch TV or movies or interact with other humans socially?

Is there anyone out there who thinks shit and fuck are on the same swear-plane (however logical it may or may not seem)?

I thought it was only one F-word allowed to keep a PG rating but I'll defer to Krillian. Either way, X-Men: First Class gets points for spending that one in just the right place.

comment #19

Eloi Wrath says ...

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the "fuck" in a PG-13 has to be said in anger, and not a sexual use. Sounds like exactly the kind of lunacy the MPAA would go for.

Wasn't Armageddon one of the first films to test out the relaxed rule? Billy Bob Thornton says it a single time.

comment #20

Krillian says ...

Most PG-13s have one mandatory F-word in there somewhere. It's a sign the marketing team really wants that PG-13. Sometimes you can get away with two, depending on subject matter and how it's used (i.e. adjective form, yes; verb form, no), and very rarely you can get away with three times, like in The American President. Pretty Woman had 3, but subject matter pushed it to R. You'll notice three of four movies a year will have one f-word but then three or four uses of "frickin'". That's a producer saying "We need that PG-13."

This was a shift in the 1970's, as All the President's Men has six or seven in there but it got a PG.

PG-13 came about in 1984, when movies like Sixteen Candles (which had an F word) and Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom (which has a guy's heart ripped out), seemed too heavy for PG, but the studios really didn't want an R. Red Dawn was the first PG-13 movie, and over the years the line between G and PG has blurred to insignificance.

I did a paper on the MPAA in college.

comment #21

Raising_Kaned says ...

Congratulations, Krillian -- but isn't that somewhat elementary movie trivia knowledge? Here's a challenge for you: can you name the second PG-13 movie to be released in US theaters? It came out a scant 5 days after Red Dawn...

comment #22

Eloi Wrath says ...

I didn't realize fuck was allowed so far back. I thought it was a recent thing. That said, most of my moviegoing youth was spent watching edited-for-TV versions of popular blockbusters. The likes of Terminator 2 without a single swearword.

comment #23

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Let's look at it another way:

1) HBO makes a show about a female vice-president who's plainly meant to be kinda dumb.

2) HBO makes another show about a female vice-president who's plainly meant to be kinda dumb.

3) HBO's already denying it's about who I think it's about.

I can see HBO's obsession from my house.

comment #24

jesse says ...

Psssst, Mgmax... SARAH PALIN WASN'T EVER THE VICE PRESIDENT. So... that's no more than one female vice-president who's "plainly" meant to be kinda dumb. (And if In the Loop is any indication, the joke of this show will not be "boy, she's dumb!")

comment #25

Abbey Normal says ...

Kane @21: Henry & June, right?

comment #26

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Jesse, you are a tribute to the power of a fig leaf of deniability.

comment #27

jesse says ...

So pointing out that Palin was not exactly the VP is clinging to the tiniest scrap of deniability? So now anyone makes any show about a female VP, it's basically Palin-inspired because she was kinda-sorta almost one of those, if you squint a little?

And I wasn't just pointing that out as a difference between Veep and Palin... but to point out that you weirdly refer to Game Change, a movie based on a book about the 2008 campaign, a "show about a female vice president." It's actually perfectly Palinesque, to conflate a failed VP run with BEING the VP and therefore being ATTACKED anytime anyone else talks about a female VP.

Delusions of grandeur, buddy.

Have you seen In the Loop, Mgmax?

comment #28

jesse says ...

And for the record, I think it's kinda dumb that Game Change was refocused to be about Palin and McCain in '08, and not the presidential race as a whole; that's what I'd prefer to see a movie about.

But Iannucci has been at this political-comedy game for awhile, he generally doesn't write characters to be thinly veiled Primary Colors-style imitations, his work is pretty hilarious, it's absolutely ridiculous to spin a show that's of a piece with his other work as some kind of HBO-mandated vendetta against someone who was not actually elected to office.

comment #29

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

"No, Mr. Hearst, honestly, it's not about you at all. First of all, his mistress is an opera singer, not a movie star. Secondly, he has a mustache..."

comment #30

Krazy Eyes says ...

I'm pretty sure her character is a thinly-veiled satire of Geraldine Ferraro.

comment #31

arispil says ...

As long as parts of the scripts don't mimic actual dumb things Sarah Palin has said or done, Alaska comments et al, then who cares if its a veiled satire of her? After a few weeks no one will mention that except Sean Hannity and Jon Stewart. I'm looking forward to this - Julia has great comedic timing. Plus she's cute.

comment #32

Krillian says ...

Kaned - I want to say The Woman in Red with Gene Wilder.

comment #33

alexsn says ...

Mgmax obviously hasn't seen "In The Loop" or he'd just shut the fuck up and just be grateful Armando Iannucci is making a new show on our side of the pond.

comment #34

jesse says ...

In PalinWorld (which often consists of passively defending supposed attacks on Palin without actually defending HER, presumably because it's much trickier), the difference between a female VP played by Elaine from Seinfeld and a female VP candidate from 2008 is a minor cosmetic difference.

comment #35

alico says ...

The tone, manner and rhythm of Iannucci's In The Loop are all flooding back into my memory.