Everybody's Linking for the Weekend

It's that time of the week again-let's round up the links!

In Entertainment...

Is Octavia headed to NBC?

Hollywood Reporter: The Gotham Awards officially kicked off the new awards season, with 12 Years a Slave and Before Midnight scoring big early victories (the former is now in the driver's seat of the Best Picture race, the latter is holding on for dear life in the screenplay race).  The thing I love about the Gotham Awards is when they highlight films that I otherwise wouldn't see (one of the more noble ideas of an awards show), so I've added Upstream Color to my Netflix queue after its surprise Best Picture nomination.

Deadline: NBC is reportedly looking at retooling the classic television series (one of my personal favorites) Murder, She Wrote, this time to star Oscar winner Octavia Spencer.  I'm torn on this one-on the one hand, this is blissful-a series starring a middle-aged actress of great talent is excellent news always, and I adored the original series.  On the other hand, is anyone else sick of remakes and reboots?  I mean, we all are at this point and they're rarely successful.  If it does happen, Angela Lansbury better be able to guest as a killer (and get a damn Emmy)!

Entertainment Weekly: EW had a great piece this week about what a smart financial move The Monuments Men made by pushing to early spring with their release.  I'm SO onboard with this.  Not every film that's an "Oscar" movie has to wait until the last week of December to be released.  I feel like I'm always on a movie-going drought between February and April, so adding some quality, interesting adult films into that mix is fine by me.

In Contention: In other Monuments Men-related news, Guy Lodge and Crew discussed here how the film's exit impacts the Oscar race.  I didn't have it in a lot of my personal predictions, but was assuming it would factor into Score or Costume, and with Clooney/Damon/Murray/Blanchett/ in tow, it would have required a full-force campaign from the studio, so I do agree largely with this article.

In Politics...

Sen. Mitch McConnell

Washington Post: The Post did an extensive look into the damage that the Republican brand endured during the government shutdown, and it is indeed extensive.  The better question in all of this is, of course, how long of a memory the electorate has, but the Democrats are getting a short-term bounce out of the Republicans self-induced injury, particularly in...

Politico: ...recruitment.  Probably the biggest story, concerning electoral politics at least, has been the stunning recruitment success over the past few weeks for Democrats.  Steve Israel is doing a bang-up job of recruiting, getting candidates in potentially competitive races in Michigan, Florida, Nebraska, California, and Arkansas.  The question of course becomes how will they perform, particularly against incumbents who have solid fundraising numbers, but you can't win a battle without an army, and Israel has recruited a particularly strong one so far (though we have to find someone for OH-10...just saying).

Salon: Salon did a fascinating (and terrifying, considering how many people take him as the gospel) piece on Sean Hannity's recent segment about how the ACA is ruining Americans' lives.  The ignorance of these people is staggering-not just in their refusal to acknowledge they are wrong, but in the way they justify taking rash and deeply irresponsible actions with their livelihoods and money.

Roll Call: Stu Rothenberg hits the nail on the head with this piece.  I'm not always a big fan of Rothenberg (yes, he's correct most of the time, but he's also wildly stuck on himself and I like Charlie Cook considerably better), but this was right on in regard to potentially the most important election of 2014.  Mitch McConnell going down in a primary (I cannot fathom it happening) would of course be staggering for the Republican power brokers (of which he's largely the leader), though I still get a John McCain/J.D. Hayworth vibe from this race-if McConnell's going down, it's in the general election.

Just One More...

The Atlantic Cities: I've been missing New York something fierce the last few weeks, so this piece from The Atlantic Cities about noise complaints in the 1930's compared to today in the Big Apple had me most interested (and occasionally giggling).