August 18, 2012

Introducing “A Movie & an Argument,” With Alyssa Rosenberg and Asawin Suebsaeng

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Today, we’re introducing a new weekly feature—a podcast called A Movie & an Argument, with Alyssa and Swin.

Each week, I’ll be sitting down to chat with ThinkProgress critic Alyssa Rosenberg (who also does awesome work at The Atlantic and “Double X” at Slate). We’ll talk, argue, and laugh about the latest movies, television series, 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 tune in for this episode and the ones 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.

Below, you’ll find the audio for our inaugural episode, in which we discuss:

  • The second season of Boss, starring Kelsey Grammer as a slick, corrupt Chicago mayor (the new season premiered Friday August 17 on Starz).
  • 2 Days in New York, a new indie comedy starring Julie Delpy and Chris Rock.
  • The Expendables 2, the testosterone-sodden ensemble action flick (had its wide release Friday August 17).
  • Copper, a BBC America dramatic series created by Tom Fontana and Will Rokos that takes place in 1860s New York after the American Civil War.
  • The ongoing first season of Aaron Sorkin’s HBO series The Newsroom.

 

Thanks for tuning in!

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

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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