Update: Robert Kennedy Jr. apologized to family members for a Super Bowl spot that mimicked an ad run by his uncle John F. Kennedy during his 1960 presidential run.
“I’m so sorry if the Super Bowl advertisement caused anyone in my family pain,” Kennedy wrote on X/Twitter. “The ad was created and aired by the American Values Super Pac without any involvement or approval from my campaign. Fec rules prohibit Super PACs from consulting with me or my staff. I love you all. God bless you.”
Kennedy did pin the ad to his X/Twitter account, where it remains.
Bobby Shriver, Kennedy’s cousin, objected to the spot, writing that his mother Eunice “would be appalled by his deadly health care views.” Mark Shriver wrote that he agreed with that sentiment against the ad, and Maria Shriver retweeted her brother’s objections.
The spot was from the American Values...
“I’m so sorry if the Super Bowl advertisement caused anyone in my family pain,” Kennedy wrote on X/Twitter. “The ad was created and aired by the American Values Super Pac without any involvement or approval from my campaign. Fec rules prohibit Super PACs from consulting with me or my staff. I love you all. God bless you.”
Kennedy did pin the ad to his X/Twitter account, where it remains.
Bobby Shriver, Kennedy’s cousin, objected to the spot, writing that his mother Eunice “would be appalled by his deadly health care views.” Mark Shriver wrote that he agreed with that sentiment against the ad, and Maria Shriver retweeted her brother’s objections.
The spot was from the American Values...
- 2/12/2024
- by Ted Johnson
- Deadline Film + TV
Matthew Dowd has joined MSNBC as political contributor and analyst, in a role that will include field reporting about the threats to U.S. democracy.
Dowd, former political strategist for George W. Bush, last month ended his campaign for lieutenant governor of Texas. He previously was a longtime political analyst for ABC News, joining the network in 2007 and departing last year.
He made his first appearance in his new MSNBC role on Wednesday’s Deadline White House with Nicolle Wallace.
The network plans to feature Dowd in a “hybrid” role, in which he will go into the field across the country to report on the state of democracy in the lead-up to the 2022 midterms.
Dowd is the author of the recent Revelations on the River: Healing Our Nation, Healing Ourselves, and the founder of the group Country Over Party. He’s worked for politicians on both sides of the aisle,...
Dowd, former political strategist for George W. Bush, last month ended his campaign for lieutenant governor of Texas. He previously was a longtime political analyst for ABC News, joining the network in 2007 and departing last year.
He made his first appearance in his new MSNBC role on Wednesday’s Deadline White House with Nicolle Wallace.
The network plans to feature Dowd in a “hybrid” role, in which he will go into the field across the country to report on the state of democracy in the lead-up to the 2022 midterms.
Dowd is the author of the recent Revelations on the River: Healing Our Nation, Healing Ourselves, and the founder of the group Country Over Party. He’s worked for politicians on both sides of the aisle,...
- 2/2/2022
- by Ted Johnson
- Deadline Film + TV
Duck and Cover! And while you’re down there, enjoy a Flaming Atomic Cocktail! Loader, Rafferty & Rafferty’s influential documentary-satire uses authentic ’50s films and songs to illuminate the lies and myths about Cold War civil defense. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be like children in the face of a horror being characterized as an inconvenience to Americans insufficiently willing to Love the Bomb. And don’t forget to Sing: “Nobody’s worried ’bout the day my Lord will come, When he’ll hit, great God a-mighty, like an atom bomb!”
The Atomic Cafe
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1982 / Color+B&W / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / Street Date December 4, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Lloyd Bentsen, Richard Nixon,
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Hugh Beaumont, James Gregory, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Nelson Leigh.
Archival Research: Pierce Rafferty, Nan Allendorfer, Victoria Peterson, David Thaxton, Jon Else, Margaret Henry, Richard Prelinger
Film Editors: Jayne Loader,...
The Atomic Cafe
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1982 / Color+B&W / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / Street Date December 4, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur, Lloyd Bentsen, Richard Nixon,
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Hugh Beaumont, James Gregory, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Nelson Leigh.
Archival Research: Pierce Rafferty, Nan Allendorfer, Victoria Peterson, David Thaxton, Jon Else, Margaret Henry, Richard Prelinger
Film Editors: Jayne Loader,...
- 12/15/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Washington — Gonring, Spahn and Associates, the Los Angeles-based government relations, public relations, and philanthropy firm, is opening a D.C. office led by Kevin Ryan.
The firm, headed by Andy Spahn and Jennifer Gonring, has long represented clients such as Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Ryan, who has been vice president of Gonring Spahn, is being promoted to partner.
“The Washington of today is so unpredictable and it’s more critical than ever that our clients have a foot on the ground and a seat at the table,” Ryan said. In an interview, he added that there is a greater interest among clients in what is happening in D.C. The firm also has clients involved in telecom issues, education technology, and green energy.
Ryan lived in D.C. earlier in his career, working for the Democratic National Committee, and Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen’s 1988 campaign, and also on...
The firm, headed by Andy Spahn and Jennifer Gonring, has long represented clients such as Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Ryan, who has been vice president of Gonring Spahn, is being promoted to partner.
“The Washington of today is so unpredictable and it’s more critical than ever that our clients have a foot on the ground and a seat at the table,” Ryan said. In an interview, he added that there is a greater interest among clients in what is happening in D.C. The firm also has clients involved in telecom issues, education technology, and green energy.
Ryan lived in D.C. earlier in his career, working for the Democratic National Committee, and Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen’s 1988 campaign, and also on...
- 7/25/2018
- by Ted Johnson
- Variety Film + TV
Whatever Mike Pence and Tim Kaine say to each other in tonight’s vice presidential debate, you can bet it won’t be as good as the legendarily sick burn that Lloyd Bentsen dropped on Dan Quayle in the VP debate on Oct. 5, 1988. Bentsen was the Democrat, aligned with the not-exactly fiery Michael Dukakis. Quayle was the Republican, supposed to inject some Kennedy-esque swagger into the Republican ticket toplined by George H.W. Bush. Quayle, it soon became clear, was painfully outclassed. We’ll just let you watch the video. If you’re over 40, you’ve seen it many, many times before,...
- 10/4/2016
- by Tim Molloy
- The Wrap
Since World War II, U.S. presidents who have had more than a wee bit of Irish in them -- Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton -- have won voters with their charm and affability.
All three made trips back to the "homeland" and invariably received boosts (both personal and political) from the experience. A cynical version of that phenomenon, "The Matchmaker" is a trying-to-be cute romantic comedy swaddled around one Boston campaign worker's trek to Ireland to seek out the ancestors of her boss, a lunkish pol who needs the Irish-American vote to return to the Senate in Massachusetts.
Starring Janeane Garofalo as the traveling aide, this romantic comedy is about as romantic as a belch, although not as comedically subtle. Billed as a romantic comedy for those who generally don't like standard romantic comedies, this film has the potential to greatly widen that demographic. Actually, it exudes the kind of romance for those type of folks who like to take world tours without ever leaving the tour bus.
With roughly following the same geographic road map and plot line as Bill Forsythe's charming 1983 film "Local Hero", with Peter Riegert as a callow yuppie who is assigned to travel to Scotland to negotiate a land purchase for his oil company and subsequently falls in love with the pristine setting and unspoiled people, "The Matchmaker" is formulaic fodder glazed in green and hardened with the broadest of comedic elements.
Garofalo stars as Marcy, an overworked and jaded political pro who toils day and night for the re-election of self-styled Kennedy-type Sen. John McGlory. The brawny senator often likens himself to JFK, although he's clearly more a Ted Kennedy type. Not since Dan Quayle compared himself with JFK in a vice presidential debate with Lloyd Bentsen has such nonsense been uttered.
So right off we're presented with an unappealing lout running for the Senate and his snippy aide who, against her will, is sent off to Ireland to find his ancestral home and dredge up some sort of photo op for the doltish demagogue.
With a slug's sense of adventure, an elitist's disdain for everyday folk and a pisser's disposition, Marcy arrives in the Irish seaside town of Ballinagra. Although the setting is so picturesque that you would expect to see it in National Geographic, mopey Marcy carries on like a spoiled blue blood.
She's further distressed that she arrived in the middle of the town's Matchmaking Festival and, despite her obviously single status, resents the fact that all the local folk want to set her up. Incredibly, all the area's single menfolk show up at a campaign stop in hopes of matching up with her. Such a scene leads one to believe there is a severe female famine in Ireland.
Still, the film is sagely peopled by some colorful Irish, which, admittedly, is a redundancy. Screenwriters Karen Janszen, Louis Nowra and Graham Linehan have crammed in an array of appealing oddball, supporting characters, but, alas, they're more comic caricatures that are ancestrally more related to previous movies than, one suspects, small-town Irish.
Athough patently unbelievable, the romantic portion of the scenario is also doggedly predictable as Marcy develops a hate-love relationship with a quirky local (David O'Hara).
In general, Mark Joffe's broad direction lacks the precision and touch necessary to blend farce with romance. Even in the broadest fish-out-of-water terms, "The Matchmaker" sinks. In like manner, the performances are often cartoonish and, in Garofalo's case, largely unappealing. Constant mugging characterizes her performance, which turns on a dime midway through when she transforms from churlish ugly American to a swoony, in-love girl. It's a character leap too great to fathom -- nowhere along the way has Garofalo layered it with any subtleties or hints that there is something other than a lout lurking behind her sullen smirk.
On the plus side, supporting characters are well cast. Denis Leary is aptly snide as the political campaign's treacherous media guru, while Jay O. Sanders is marvelously dopey as the self-serving senator. In a small role, Saffron Burrows stands out as an elegant Irish lass who is The Real Thing, Kennedy-wise and classwise.
On the technical side, a mug at the pub for costume designer Howard Burden's character-perfect stitchings and to cinematographer Ellery Ryan for the magical, misty scopings.
THE MATCHMAKER
Gramercy Pictures
Producers Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Luc Roeg
Director Mark Joffe
Screenwriters Karen Janszen, Louis Nowra, Graham Linehan
Based on a screenplay by Greg Dinner
Line producer Nicky Kentish Barnes
Executive producer Lyn Goleby
Director of photography Ellery Ryan
Editor Martin Smith
Production designer Mark Geraghty
Costume designer Howard Burden
Music John Altman
U.S. casting Amanda Mackey Johnson, Cathy Sandrich
Sound recorder Brendan Deasy
Color/stereo
Cast:
Marcy Janeane Garofalo
Sean David O'Hara
Nick Denis Leary
Sen. John McGlory Jay O. Sanders
Declan Paul Hickey
Moira Saffron Burrows
Millie Rosaleen Linehan
Annie Olivia Caffrey
Michael Claude Clancy
Sgt. Riley James Ryland
Running time -- 96 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
All three made trips back to the "homeland" and invariably received boosts (both personal and political) from the experience. A cynical version of that phenomenon, "The Matchmaker" is a trying-to-be cute romantic comedy swaddled around one Boston campaign worker's trek to Ireland to seek out the ancestors of her boss, a lunkish pol who needs the Irish-American vote to return to the Senate in Massachusetts.
Starring Janeane Garofalo as the traveling aide, this romantic comedy is about as romantic as a belch, although not as comedically subtle. Billed as a romantic comedy for those who generally don't like standard romantic comedies, this film has the potential to greatly widen that demographic. Actually, it exudes the kind of romance for those type of folks who like to take world tours without ever leaving the tour bus.
With roughly following the same geographic road map and plot line as Bill Forsythe's charming 1983 film "Local Hero", with Peter Riegert as a callow yuppie who is assigned to travel to Scotland to negotiate a land purchase for his oil company and subsequently falls in love with the pristine setting and unspoiled people, "The Matchmaker" is formulaic fodder glazed in green and hardened with the broadest of comedic elements.
Garofalo stars as Marcy, an overworked and jaded political pro who toils day and night for the re-election of self-styled Kennedy-type Sen. John McGlory. The brawny senator often likens himself to JFK, although he's clearly more a Ted Kennedy type. Not since Dan Quayle compared himself with JFK in a vice presidential debate with Lloyd Bentsen has such nonsense been uttered.
So right off we're presented with an unappealing lout running for the Senate and his snippy aide who, against her will, is sent off to Ireland to find his ancestral home and dredge up some sort of photo op for the doltish demagogue.
With a slug's sense of adventure, an elitist's disdain for everyday folk and a pisser's disposition, Marcy arrives in the Irish seaside town of Ballinagra. Although the setting is so picturesque that you would expect to see it in National Geographic, mopey Marcy carries on like a spoiled blue blood.
She's further distressed that she arrived in the middle of the town's Matchmaking Festival and, despite her obviously single status, resents the fact that all the local folk want to set her up. Incredibly, all the area's single menfolk show up at a campaign stop in hopes of matching up with her. Such a scene leads one to believe there is a severe female famine in Ireland.
Still, the film is sagely peopled by some colorful Irish, which, admittedly, is a redundancy. Screenwriters Karen Janszen, Louis Nowra and Graham Linehan have crammed in an array of appealing oddball, supporting characters, but, alas, they're more comic caricatures that are ancestrally more related to previous movies than, one suspects, small-town Irish.
Athough patently unbelievable, the romantic portion of the scenario is also doggedly predictable as Marcy develops a hate-love relationship with a quirky local (David O'Hara).
In general, Mark Joffe's broad direction lacks the precision and touch necessary to blend farce with romance. Even in the broadest fish-out-of-water terms, "The Matchmaker" sinks. In like manner, the performances are often cartoonish and, in Garofalo's case, largely unappealing. Constant mugging characterizes her performance, which turns on a dime midway through when she transforms from churlish ugly American to a swoony, in-love girl. It's a character leap too great to fathom -- nowhere along the way has Garofalo layered it with any subtleties or hints that there is something other than a lout lurking behind her sullen smirk.
On the plus side, supporting characters are well cast. Denis Leary is aptly snide as the political campaign's treacherous media guru, while Jay O. Sanders is marvelously dopey as the self-serving senator. In a small role, Saffron Burrows stands out as an elegant Irish lass who is The Real Thing, Kennedy-wise and classwise.
On the technical side, a mug at the pub for costume designer Howard Burden's character-perfect stitchings and to cinematographer Ellery Ryan for the magical, misty scopings.
THE MATCHMAKER
Gramercy Pictures
Producers Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Luc Roeg
Director Mark Joffe
Screenwriters Karen Janszen, Louis Nowra, Graham Linehan
Based on a screenplay by Greg Dinner
Line producer Nicky Kentish Barnes
Executive producer Lyn Goleby
Director of photography Ellery Ryan
Editor Martin Smith
Production designer Mark Geraghty
Costume designer Howard Burden
Music John Altman
U.S. casting Amanda Mackey Johnson, Cathy Sandrich
Sound recorder Brendan Deasy
Color/stereo
Cast:
Marcy Janeane Garofalo
Sean David O'Hara
Nick Denis Leary
Sen. John McGlory Jay O. Sanders
Declan Paul Hickey
Moira Saffron Burrows
Millie Rosaleen Linehan
Annie Olivia Caffrey
Michael Claude Clancy
Sgt. Riley James Ryland
Running time -- 96 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 9/29/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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