Tag: Politics as Entertainment (91-100 of 819)

Oct 4 2012 12:08 PM ET

Jon Stewart slams Obama: His problem wasn't body language, but 'mouth language' -- VIDEO

by
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , TV

Sorry, Big Bird: Jon Stewart thinks Mitt Romney unquestionably won last night’s first presidential debate. ”I’m sure President Obama now realizes, ‘Oh, preseason’s over. I should probably familiarize myself with my presidency, and learn some of the various numbers and things that go along with it,’” the Daily Show host told Good Morning America‘s Lara Spencer today.

And Stewart didn’t stop there. “It wasn’t so much [Obama's] body language as the mouth language that he was using,” he explained, citing the president’s frequent pauses as a tic that made Obama not seem “present” in the debate. He compared Obama’s strategy to the tactic Muhammad Ali famously used in his 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” match against George Foreman: “It’s the rope-a-dope, but instead of letting your opponent punch himself out, you just get beat up.” READ FULL STORY »

Oct 4 2012 11:00 AM ET

Obama/Romney debate is most-tweeted event in U.S. political history, for now

by
Tags: , , , , ,
PRESIDENTIAL-DEBATE.jpg

Just as “Call Me Maybe” lip dubs give way to galloping “Gangnam Style” videos, so must this year’s political conventions give way to the debates.

Back in early September, President Obama’s convention speech set a record on Twitter, driving around 52,756 tweets per minute — more than any other political event in American history. (History began in March 2006, when Twitter was invented.) Last night, though, that record was shattered when Obama’s debate with Republican challenger Mitt Romney generated up to 158,690 tweets per minute, according to a graph generated by the social media site itself.

All in all, Twitter reports that more than 10 million tweets about the debate were sent during its 90-minute run time. By contrast, Twitter users sent 9.5 million tweets about the DNC over the course of its three days. The RNC inspired around 4 million total tweets.

READ FULL STORY »

Oct 3 2012 10:34 PM ET

Big Bird winner of the debate -- on social media, anyway

by
Tags: , , , , TV
big-bird

Image Credit: Everett Collection

When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared early on in the first presidential debate Wednesday night “I love Big Bird,” but said he would still vote to cut funding for public broadcasting, everyone’s favorite oversized, yellow-feathered friend got a whole new level of fame: Internet fame.

During the debate, several twitter feeds popped up, including @BigBirdRomney, @BigBird, @FiredBigBird, and more, each gaining from hundreds to thousands of followers within minutes. There’s even a Big Bird for President Facebook page. #BigBird and his friend #OscartheGrouch both became Twitter trending topics during the course of the debate. Romney’s quip also spawned several memes and .gifs.

Twitter’s official politics feed, @gov, posted that there were “17,000 Tweets per minute for ‘Big Bird’ and 10,000 Tweets per minute for ‘PBS’” after that moment during the debate.

Some tweets from the newest birds on the Twitter block:

READ FULL STORY »

Oct 2 2012 05:15 PM ET

Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly discuss 'The Rumble' debate and their bromance

by
Tags: , , , , TV
stewart-oreilly.jpg

Image Credit: Peter Kramer/AP

When Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly take the stage at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium on Saturday night to engage in a political debate tabbed The Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium, their most partisan fans might be craving blood. After all, O’Reilly is Fox News’ looming, scowling conservative he-man, and Stewart is more than paying for his kids’ college education by routinely mocking Fox News’ style and substance four nights a week on The Daily Show. But as anyone who’s watched the adversaries joust on each other’s shows over the years, their relationship is anything but bitter. It’s more Oscar & Felix than Hamilton & Jefferson or Ali & Frazier, though Stewart suggests it’s even deeper than that. “I think it’s more Hepburn and Tracy,” says the comedian. “I think there’s a lot of sexual tension under there. Who’s who? It switches. It depends.” READ FULL STORY »

Oct 2 2012 10:07 AM ET

Jon Stewart to Arnold Schwarzenegger: 'Couldn't you just go to the future, then come back and kill that Arnold?' -- EXTENDED VIDEO

by
Tags: , , , , , , , TV

Who could have guessed that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Daily Show interview would focus much more on his politics — and much less on his personal life — than his recent 60 Minutes interview?

Sure, Jon Stewart didn’t entirely ignore Schwarzenegger’s cheating scandal. After joking that he and the Governator would have to address the elephant in the room — 1996′s “dreadful” Jingle All the Way, naturally — the Daily Show host asked Arnold to explain why he decided to release the scandal-soaked memoir Total Recall now, rather than waiting until his family’s wounds weren’t quite so raw. Stewart also evoked one of the action hero’s most iconic characters, asking his guest if he could “go to the future and then come back and kill that Arnold” — the one who fathered a child out of wedlock.

After that, though, Schwarzenegger and Stewart’s conversation moved away from the scandal. In the portion of the interview that actually aired on The Daily Show, the two discussed Schwarzenegger’s new state and global policy institute at USC and his bipartisan initiatives as governor. And things only got more interesting — provided you’re into politics — in the extended interview posted online. Here’s the interview’s televised first part:

READ FULL STORY »

Oct 1 2012 11:36 AM ET

Leonardo DiCaprio, Selena Gomez, Ellen DeGeneres want you to 'Vote 4 Stuff' -- VIDEO

by
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Amanda Seyfried. Edward Norton. Zac Efron. Tobey Maguire? No, it’s not an overstuffed ensemble comedy from the guys who brought you Martin Luther King Day — it’s a new PSA for Vote4Stuff, a nonpartisan campaign created by Maguire and his buddy Leonardo DiCaprio. Eat your heart out, Rock the Vote!

The video starts out silly — vote for “gays in the military, exclusively!” says Sarah Silverman; “I vote yes on cats. I know they’re up to something, but I like them,” counters Benicio Del Toro — but eventually gets serious. These celebs want us regular Joes and Janes to make short videos about the electoral issues we care about, some of which will be incorporated into the Vote4Stuff campaign later this month. It’ll be tough for any of those normal people-created clips to be as amusing as this one — but if you’re up for the challenge, you can learn more about Vote4Stuff on Facebook. In the meantime, let’s argue about which star’s fake political issue is the funniest:

READ FULL STORY »

Oct 1 2012 10:29 AM ET

Arnold Schwarzenegger on '60 Minutes': Several affairs to remember -- VIDEO

by
Tags: , , , , , , Movies, TV

Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t dodge tough questions during his big 60 Minutes interview last night — not even when Lesley Stahl asked him about his father’s stint as a Nazi stormtrooper. (The Governator said that growing up, talk of World War II was basically verboten — he didn’t learn about his father’s past until “much later.”)

After showing the newswoman around his childhood home in Austria, chatting briefly about using steroids during his bodybuilding days, and claiming that movie studios originally thought he couldn’t be a sex symbol like, say, that hottie Woody Allen (wait, whaa?) Arnold finally got to the topic most people are most curious about — his relationship with Maria Shriver.

After eight years with Shriver, Schwarzenegger strayed from his longtime girlfriend by having an affair with co-star Brigitte Nielsen while filming Red Sonja in the mid-’80s. (Younger folks will know Nielsen as the one who showmanced her “Foofy” Flavor Flav.) Schwarzenegger was fairly unapologetic while discussing the affair, both on 60 Minutes and, apparently, in his new memoir Total Recall. “You cheated on Maria,” Stahl pointed out, “and you don’t even write that you felt bad about it. You just write it.”

READ FULL STORY »

Sep 27 2012 05:43 PM ET

How author Adam Mansbach and Samuel L. Jackson reunited to 'Wake the F-k Up'

by
Tags: , , , , Books
wake-the-fuck-up.jpg

Just as early voting for our next president begins today in Iowa, Samuel L. Jackson popped up this morning in an unabashedly partisan campaign video urging lethargic Obama supporters to “Wake the F— Up.” If the tone and rhyming rhythm sound a little familiar, it’s probably because the video resembles Jackson’s narration of Adam Mansbach’s best-selling “children’s book,” Go the F— to Sleep. That’s no surprise since Mansbach himself teamed up with the Jewish Council for Education and Research and co-directors Boaz Yakin (Remember the Titans) and Kitao Sakurai for the video, which stars a concerned young girl who reminds her apathetic family that failing to actively support the president could cost them down the line.

Mansbach, who has two novels coming out in 2013 and a film adaptation of his Sleep best-seller in the works, had never met Jackson in person before, so he was excited to finally shake hands with the man who helped propel his book to the top of the charts last year. “When Sam came to the set about halfway through, there was a sense of almost euphoria because everybody pretty quickly realized, ‘Sh-t, this is really going to be good.’”

The author checked in with Entertainment Weekly to explain how and why he got involved.

READ FULL STORY »

Sep 27 2012 10:24 AM ET

Samuel L. Jackson makes anti-Romney video: 'Wake The F-- Up'

by
Tags: , , ,

Beloved character actor and Olympics enthusiast Samuel L. Jackson has a message for all the Democrats who just can’t get excited about the 2012 election: “Wake The F— Up.” That’s the name of a new pro-Obama video starring Jackson, which functions as a spiritual sequel to Jackson’s narration work on 2011′s novelty classic Go The F— To Sleep. The video finds a typical adorable young girl concerned that her family is less motivated in the current election than they were in 2008. Motivation arrives in the form of Samuel L. Jackson, wearing a beret and looking like a man who wants you to ask about the beret, go ahead, ask about it. When the girl’s older brother says that all politicians are the same, Jackson gets up in his face: “They’re all… the same?” When the girl’s older sister is spending too much time Facebooking, Jackson instructs her: “”Stop bulls—ing! Get out there and sell some cakes and cookies!” And wait till you see what he rhymes with “Fact-Ducker.” Watch the video: READ FULL STORY »

Sep 26 2012 12:49 AM ET

Ann Romney on 'Tonight Show': Mitt 'is a guy that I know cares' -- VIDEO

by
Tags: , , , , , , TV
ann-romney.jpg

Image Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Making her first late-night talk show appearance, Ann Romney stopped by The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any Beyoncé love, but there was plenty of talk about Mitt.

The wife of Gov. Mitt Romney seemed a bit nervous for her big debut, but Leno guided her through her remarks, as she first spoke about the emergency landing her plane had to make last week. Leno asked her about Romney’s odd-seeming comment,”[airplane] windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that.” The audience laughed, but Mrs. Romney just said that of course he didn’t mean it seriously, and that was just his was of showing that he was worried and he cared.

Romney Cares! could easily have been the theme of the interview. Beyond the airplane comments, Mrs. Romney emphasized how much her husband cares about America — particularly needed in light of Romney’s now-infamous “47 percent comment” caught on video. Asked specifically about the tape, Ann said, “This is  a guy that I know cares. …We care about the 100 percent,” and “There are two things [I know]: He cares, and he’s competent.” READ FULL STORY »

Advertisement

TV Recaps

Powered by WordPress.com VIP
'Star Trek': I'd rather be...