Tag: kevin spacey
Late Night Roundup: John Lewis Looks Back On Selma

Late Night Roundup: John Lewis Looks Back On Selma

Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) appeared on The Daily Show, to retell his story of leading the historic Selma march 50 years ago — to which Jon Stewart reminded the audience that these struggles are not only history, but memory for many people who are still alive.

Larry Wilmore and The Nightly Show contributor Mike Yard looked at the ethical problems surrounding how modern electronic gadgets are actually made. And it turns out there is a solution: Going full Amish.

Kevin Spacey appeared with David Letterman, and discussed his special workshop project to build up theater in the Middle East.

Jimmy Kimmel hosted Bette Midler, who reminisced about how she got into show business from all the way in Hawaii — and all the normal jobs she got fired from along the way.

An Empire Without Heirs: Season 3 Of ‘House Of Cards’ Brings The Show Home

An Empire Without Heirs: Season 3 Of ‘House Of Cards’ Brings The Show Home

(Warning: This review contains Season 3 spoilers.)

“They rule an empire without heirs. Legacy is their only child.”

Frank and Claire Underwood, those Beltway Machiavels, have schemed and connived for so long, they’ve left a coat of fresh blood on every rung from the South Carolina state Senate to the Oval Office.

Now, at the start of House of Cards‘ third season—in the crosshairs of scrutiny unlike anything they’ve ever seen, and lacking another summit to climb—the Underwoods seem slightly lost, stumbling around the corridors of power without their coordinates. The same could be said of the show, which was all about the ruthless ascension of its antiheroes. When you get to the top, what then? There’s nowhere to go but down.

“I’m starting to question all of this. What are we doing this for?” Claire asks.

“For this house,” Frank replies. “For the presidency.”

But whose house? And whose presidency? That’s the rub at the heart of Season 3.

As if Frank’s asides weren’t enough, this year the show knocked a few more bricks out of the fourth wall by introducing a metafictional element in a new character: a novelist named Tom, who is commissioned to hype Frank’s domestic agenda, but ends up writing a tell-all about Claire and Frank’s marriage. “That’s the key to the whole thing,” he says. Subtle. Forget politics; it’s about couples counseling.

But House of Cards was never just the portrait of a marriage; it was about the whole rotten town. Every Washingtonian — from the pols to the staffers to the journos — was as vicious as the Underwoods, if less competently so. After two years of teeming depravity from all sides, the show finally has something new to report, some delicate possibility of grace lurking under the everyday parade of massacre: family.

House of Cards wasn’t very interested in who its characters were when they left the office, or what the “men in their smoky back rooms,” as one character puts it, did when they went home. The seats of power function as work/life diodes, channeling all of the characters’ time, energy, and passion into achievement and ambition, leaving nothing but a chasm of dread when they slow down or step away from the rat race long enough to look at themselves honestly. It took two seasons, but the family, with its quiet comforts and promise of deliverance, finally comes to the fore.

Early in the season, a Supreme Court Justice, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, wonders whether to continue working or retire as soon as possible to live out his remaining years with his wife — signaling the tension that is the primary focus of the new season. “I can’t remember the last time I had a home-cooked meal,” says Remy, a former lobbyist and now Frank’s chief of staff, quietly awakening to the cold void his life has become. Frank’s protégé Jackie Sharp marries a surgeon, instantly absorbing his picture-perfect two children, but it’s a political calculation; the true comforts of family elude her. Even Doug Stamper, Frank’s vicious fixer, gets to spend a few halcyon days with his brother from Ohio and his wife and two children, emblems of the simple pleasures of domesticity, home, and anonymity that he ultimately rejects when he buries poor Rachel Posner in the ground.

It’s a choice that every character must make in the third season, and it’s this dichotomy between the bottomless hell that comes with pursuing power and the redemption that comes with rejecting it that makes Season 3 the most compelling and devastating edition thus far.

Oh, but it’s not all dour, existential angst. The show’s ludicrous plot threads and flashes of high camp continue to abound, delightfully. It turns out House of Cards is escapist for an entirely unexpected reason. For all of the exaggerated (are they?) horrors of realpolitik on display, the show presents an alternate world that is actually very comforting: It reduces inscrutable dilemmas of international affairs to the daily trivia of domestic affairs.

What a soothing notion — that the fate of the Jordan Valley is tangled up in the squabbles of a high-functioning power couple. Wouldn’t it be nice if Russian-U.S. relations hinged on one gay-rights activist’s relationship with his husband?

Maybe this is the season in which House of Cards came clean. It’s not really about politics at all. It’s about the dynamics between husbands and wives writ large — forgiveness, resentment, compassion, and love that sours with time — playing themselves out in the global stage, dictating the fate of nations.

As if politicians were humans with beating hearts. Wouldn’t it be nice to think so?

Image: David Giesbrecht for Netflix

TV Review: Will ‘House of Cards’ Come Tumbling Down?

TV Review: Will ‘House of Cards’ Come Tumbling Down?

By Chuck Barney, Contra Costa Times (TNS)

Be careful what you wish for. That old axiom is at play early on in Season 3 of House of Cards.

Fans who binge-watched the first two rounds of Netflix’s political thriller know by now that dastardly Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), with the aid of wife Claire (Robin Wright), connived and back-stabbed his way from Congress to the vice presidency to the Oval Office.

Game over? Not quite. Especially now that the dream job has become a nightmare.

As the still-gripping drama returns, Frank’s approval ratings are in the toilet. Unemployment has soared to scary heights, and a Republican-controlled Congress is thwarting him at every turn. Even leaders in his own party regard him as toxic. So much for enjoying the spoils of victory.

House of Cards has always been at its most fun when ruthless Frank and his gorgeous partner-in-slime have to extricate themselves from trouble while outwitting and outplaying their foes. But the problem, especially in a highly uneven Season 2, was that the obstacles weren’t daunting enough, and the game got too easy. If Washington, D.C., is the raging snake pit House of Cards cynically portrays it as, Frank was a boa constrictor among a bunch of puny garters.

That’s why the overwhelming pressure being felt by the president and first lady — at least in the six episodes Netflix made available for review — brings a much-needed new dynamic to the show. Frank still doesn’t have one formidable adversary going toe-to-toe with him, unless you count the thuggish Russian president played by Lars Mikkelsen. Instead, he’s being besieged on nearly every front by various rivals who smell blood, and that’s a change for the better.

It’s compelling, after all, to see Frank display levels of desperation and vulnerability we haven’t witnessed before. The arrogant man who routinely turns to the camera to brag about how he is one or two steps ahead of everybody else is now way off balance, alternately lashing out at Cabinet members and slipping into bouts of dark despair.

Of course, he still has Claire to lean on, and an intriguing scene in Episode 2 reinforces just how vital a role she plays in helping the prez retain his mojo. On the other hand, this season Claire has her own power-grabbing ambitions in mind, and it’s interesting to see how her self-interests occasionally thrust her into conflict with her husband.

There are other story lines to explore, including a resolution to Season 2’s juicy cliffhanger, but we won’t spoil any of that here. Nor will we reveal the risky — if rather obvious — scheme that Frank orchestrates in a bid to keep from being a “placeholder president.” What we can say is that House of Cards remains a slick and suspenseful — if not exactly layered and nuanced — saga that sucks you in from the start.

Then again, how much does it have left in the tank? Last season, House of Cards occasionally became an eye-rolling experience as it recklessly veered into Scandal-like silliness. It wasn’t a good look for a show that likes to see itself as an award-worthy “prestige” drama.

And now that the stakes are being raised even higher, you have to wonder if things are about to get too crazy again — and whether House of Cards should seriously consider not seeking a fourth term.

© 2015 Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.), Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Image: Netflix

Endorse This: House Of Kevin Spacey

Endorse This: House Of Kevin Spacey

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With the new season of House of Cards about to premiere on Netflix, Kevin Spacey gave NBC’s Cynthia McFadden a special walkthrough of the show’s sets, where the fictional President Frank Underwood will ply his devious schemes inside replicas of Washington spots like the White House Press Room.

Click above to watch Spacey give his own take on political problems today — and what Frank Underwood would do about them — then share this video!

Video viaMeet The Press/NBC News.

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