“Movie & An Argument” Podcast: ‘Revolution’ Politics, New Sitcoms & ‘Boardwalk Empire’

Courtesy of NBC, HBO, and FX

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On this week’s episode of A Movie & An Argument, With Alyssa and Swin, we discuss (scroll down for the audio player):

  • Revolution, a dystopian drama that premieres Monday, September 17 at 10 p.m. EDT on NBC. We chat about the series’ (quite possibly inadvertent) tea party-style politics, i.e. a powerful black man oppressing the masses, taking away their guns, taxing them, and threatening to “reeducate” their children.
  • Some of these new network sitcoms premiering this fall.
  • Sons of Anarchy, the gritty biker drama, which entered its fifth season last Tuesday on FX.
  • Boardwalk Empire, the gangster series set in the Prohibition era, which opens its third season on Sunday, September 16 at 9 p.m. on HBO.
  • Oscar-bait movies we’re looking forward to this fall and winter, like Cloud Atlas and Les Misérables.
  • And, naturally, Roger Ebert (and his autobiography from last year, which we named our very first “Movie and an Argument Book Of The Week.”)

Each week, I’ll be sitting down to chat with ThinkProgress critic Alyssa Rosenberg (who also does killer work at The Atlantic and Slate‘s “Double X“). We’ll talk, argue, and laugh about the latest movies, television shows, and pop-cultural nonsense—with some politics thrown in just for the hell of it.

Alyssa describes herself as being “equally devoted to the Star Wars expanded universe and Barbara Stanwyck, to Better Off Ted and Deadwood.” I (everyone calls me Swin) am a devoted lover of low-brow dark humor, Yuengling, and movies with high body counts. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and tune in during the weeks to come.

We’ll be featuring guests on the program, and also taking listeners’ questions, so feel free to Tweet them at me here, and we’ll see if we can get to them during a show.

Thank you for listening!

Click here for more movie and TV features from Mother Jones. To read more of Asawin’s reviews, click here.

To find more episodes of this podcast in the iTunes store, click here.

To check out Alyssa’s Bloggingheads show, click here.

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OUR DEADLINE MATH PROBLEM

It’s risky, but also unavoidable: A full one-third of the dollars that we need to pay for the journalism you rely on has to get raised in December. A good December means our newsroom is fully staffed, well-resourced, and on the beat. A bad one portends budget trouble and hard choices.

The December 31 deadline is drawing nearer, and if we’re going to have any chance of making our goal, we need those of you who’ve never pitched in before to join the ranks of MoJo donors.

We simply can’t afford to come up short. There is no cushion in our razor-thin budget—no backup, no alternative sources of revenue to balance our books. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the fierce journalism we do. That’s why we need you to show up for us right now.

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