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Yes, Potential Senate Candidate Ashley Judd Has Gotten Naked on Screen. So Have These Political Figures.

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Late Sunday evening, the Daily Caller‘s entertainment editor Taylor Bigler posted a short item on actress, activist, potential US Senate candidate, and rape survivor Ashley Judd. The post notes that Judd, who seems to be laying the groundwork for a 2014 challenge to Republican Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, has appeared in a bunch of movies naked, half-naked, or partially naked. The Caller piece cites her performances in films like Norma Jean and Marilyn and Eye of the Beholder, and is based on data from MrSkin.com, an online database of nude and sex scenes celebs have done on-screen. MrSkin.com—which I will decline to link to in this post—gives Judd four stars and ranks her as “Hall of Fame Nudity!”

(Click here to read my podcast partner Alyssa Rosenberg’s rage-filled rebuttal to Bigler’s post.)

Judd has discussed her nude scenes candidly before. She turned down an audition for the female lead in a 1992 Christian Slater film because the audition demanded a topless screen test. “My mother worked too hard for me to take off my clothes in my first movie,” she told People magazine. And in this interview with Delaware County Magazine, Judd opened up about stripping down for the sex scene in Double Jeopardy, one of the films referenced in the Daily Caller story.

“But will Judd be the first potential senator who has — literally — nothing left to show us?” Bigler wrote, with tongue firmly ensconced in cheek.

Actually, no.

There was a time not too long ago that Scott Brown was a Republican senator from Massachusetts. Here’s a photo of him:

Brown was awarded Cosmo‘s distinction of “America’s Sexiest Man,” and appeared in this June 1982 spread. Via Cosmopolitan.com

Here are some other successful American politicians who were elected and appointed despite having borne their flesh for all the world and internet to see:

Arnold Schwarzenegger:

This doesn’t even begin to touch the work he did during his earlier bodybuilder days. Despite the above clip—and some serious groping allegations—Arnold was elected as the governor who oversaw the world’s ninth largest economy.

Clint Eastwood:

Via TCM.com

The icon was a one-term mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California in the late ’80s, and decades later introduced Mitt Romney at the 2012 Republican National Convention (here’s how that turned out).

Jesse Ventura:

Close enough. Via WWE

His enthusiastically shirtless and sweaty pro-wrestling did not stop him from getting elected governor of Minnesota.

Kal Penn:

Lionsgate

Penn has acted in nudity-riddled set pieces and cheap, extremely awkward sex scenes (like in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, pictured above). And though he has never been elected to public office, he has served multiple stints as associate director for the Office of Public Engagement in the Obama administration.

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Yes, Potential Senate Candidate Ashley Judd Has Gotten Naked on Screen. So Have These Political Figures.

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Jamaica and plastic ocean trash

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Jamaica and plastic ocean trash

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"Movie & An Argument" Podcast: Dennis Rodman, North Korea, and The Oscars

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On this week’s episode of A Movie & An Argument, With Alyssa Rosenberg & Asawin Suebsaeng, we discuss (scroll down for audio):

Retired NBA star Dennis Rodman’s four-day trip to North Korea this week.
Last Sunday’s Oscars.
The new raunchy comedy 21 and Overand the human rights controversy surrounding it.

Listen:

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, click here.

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

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"Movie & An Argument" Podcast: Dennis Rodman, North Korea, and The Oscars

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#10: Seeds of Change S11034 Certified Organic Thai Basil

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#10: Seeds of Change S11034 Certified Organic Thai Basil

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Mother of God, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson Made a Movie About Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Laws…

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Snitch
Summit Entertainment
95 minutes

This may come as a huge shock to you: The movie industry frequently markets their product in dishonest ways in their efforts to make money. For instance, if you watched the trailer or any of the TV spots for the newly released Snitch, you’d think it was just another action movie with cars and guns starring The Rock:

In reality, there’s roughly ten cumulative minutes of killing in the movie. Snitch, directed and co-written by ex-stuntman Ric Roman Waugh, is a family drama about a father (played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) who reunites with his estranged son after the kid is thrown in prison due to Draconian mandatory minimum sentencing laws. The dad then does everything he can—including becoming a top informant for a federal prosecutor and the DEA—to get his first-time-offender son’s sentence reduced from ten years to zero. (The AARP has declared that this Dwayne Johnson movie is “really about good parenting.”) Things get even bleaker when his good-natured and once college-bound son starts getting routinely harassed and, as the film implies, raped by the tougher and larger inmates.

Snitch features a lot of somber music and family members, understandably, in tears. It’s hyper critical of the War on Drugs and the real-life mandatory minimum penalties that foster a counterproductive culture of “snitching.” When the promotional materials read that the film is “inspired by true events,” what that means is the script was based on a 1999 episode of PBS’ Frontline titled, “Snitch: How Informants Have Become a Key Part of Prosecutorial Strategy in the Drug War.” The episode examines two cases in which minor offenders got severe sentences based on the testimony of “snitches” who received sentence reductions in return for cooperating with authorities. Unlike the movie, the episode of PBS’ acclaimed investigative news program does not feature a climactic car chase involving a 9mm submachine gun and a big rig.

So just to recap: Dwayne Johnson—a man most famous for pantomime wrestling, acting next to massive explosions, and knowing about the outcome of the Bin Laden raid pretty much before the rest of the world did—just made a movie slamming mandatory minimums that serves as a $35-million companion piece to a PBS documentary.

This is something that happened.

But in all seriousness, Johnson is an adept actor who handles the heavier emotions and grittier sequences here with ease and gravity. And Snitch is The Rock’s best critique of the War on Drugs since the satirical press-conference scene at the beginning of the 2010 Will Ferrell comedy The Other Guys—where New York cops played by The Rock and Samuel L. Jackson heartily defend inflicting $12 million worth of property damage in order to bust criminals carrying only a quarter-pound of weed.

Now check out this clip from the original Frontline documentary “Snitch”:

Watch “It Tore the Whole Family Up” on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

Snitch gets a wide release on Friday, February 22. The film is rated PG-13 for drug content and sequences of violence. Click here for local showtimes and tickets.

Click here for more movie and TV coverage from Mother Jones.

To read more of Asawin’s reviews, click here.

To listen to the weekly movie and pop-culture podcast that Asawin co-hosts with ThinkProgress critic Alyssa Rosenberg, click here.

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Mother of God, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson Made a Movie About Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Laws…

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#LiberalTips2AvoidRape: The Most Horrible Hashtag Of The Week Thus Far, Explained

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There’s this new hashtag #LiberalTips2AvoidRape that’s now on its second day of trending on Twitter: A really, really great expression of our shared humanity, and of the possibilities of feel-good, thoughtful conservative satire… this is not:

For the uninitiated, this isn’t an example of right-wingers deciding out-of-the-blue to be insensitive to rape victims. They have their reason, and his name is Joe Salazar, a first-term Democratic state representative in Colorado. On Friday, Salazar spoke on the state House floor in support of House Bill 13-1226, which would eliminate “the authority of a concealed handgun permit holder to possess a concealed handgun on the campus of an institution of high education.” In other words, Salazar’s bill would ban concealed firearms on college campuses in Colorado. Opponents of the proposed legislation maintain that banning concealed carry on campuses would make it harder for students to protect themselves against mass shooters and rapists on school grounds.

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#LiberalTips2AvoidRape: The Most Horrible Hashtag Of The Week Thus Far, Explained

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5 Female Vocalists to Watch in 2013

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Male bands (Mumford and Sons, the Black Keys, Fun.), poppy collaborations (like Gotye and Kimbra’s tired duet), and, as Stereogum put it, predictable “mom-safe and Starbucks ready” favorites (Adele and Beyoncé) predominated the list of Grammy winners this year. Meanwhile, I’ve been struck by the array of refreshingly bold new female vocalists blossoming behind the mainstream. Quirky, fresh, raspy, vintage, or full of lungs, all five of them are under-the-radar but destined for bigger spotlights. Check out the videos below so you can say you heard them before they were famous.

Rachael Price (of Lake Street Dive):

Australian by birth, Nashvillian by pedigree, Price earned a degree in Jazz Studies from New England Conservatory and performed with T.S. Monk Sextet at jazz festivals around the world. After hearing a recording of Price in 2003, actress/singer Kathryn Grayson deemed her “the best young voice I’ve heard, period. No one around her can even touch her voice and style.” While Price mostly stuck to standards in her early career, she’s now departed from strictly jazz as a member of the indie group Lake Street Dive.

Price’s voice soars with clarity and classically trained precision. She can make the most of a Motown cover but also glides easily into blues, country, and pop. The video above, featuring Price belting out a relaxed cover of The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” aptly showcases her glamor and command. But also make sure to listen to the band’s original song “Bad Self Portraits” (below), which has Price sounding like a young Bonnie Raitt. Bonus: Her band mate Bridget Kearney rocks it on the upright bass and has a lovely voice, too. Lake Street Dive just finished touring with Yonder Mountain String Band, will soon be touring with Josh Ritter, and has a date this week opening for Mavis Staples in Iowa.

Aluna Francis (of AlunaGeorge):

AlunaGeorge, featuring chanteuse Aluna Francis, is quickly becoming one of the breakout bands of 2013. Consisting of Francis and producer George Reid, the electronica group combines intimate vocals with synthesized pop, house, R&B, and dub-step. Though already pretty big in the UK—the duo nabbed second in BBC’s Sound of 2013 contest—Francis’ voice will likely get way more air time in the US in the coming year.

Francis, who is half Indian and half Jamaican, worked as a reflexologist and previously sang for the band My Toys Like Me. She first met Reid when he remixed one of My Toys’ songs, and they paired up and released their first commercial single (“Your Drums, Your Love,” above) late last year. Though minimalist and futuristic, AlunaGeorge’s songs are made human by Francis’ velvety touch. She imbues the pulsing drive of a late-night dance tune with soulful emotion, and her high-pitched timbre balances well with Reid’s beats, to a mysterious but alluring effect. “You can’t say I’m going nowhere, when you don’t know where I am from,” she croons. On the contrary, I’d say she’s barreling straight toward stardom. AlunaGeorge’s debut album, Body Music, is due out in June.

Luz Elena Mendoza (of Y La Bamba):

Portland-based band Y La Bamba draws from Mexican folk songs and mariachi singers as influence for its eerie tunes. Emerging in 2003, the band has enjoyed limited success in indie circuits, but never much widespread attention, apart from becoming one of NPR Music’s darlings. That could change this year, as they just wrapped up an East Coast tour alongside the Grammy-nominated Lumineers.

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5 Female Vocalists to Watch in 2013

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Expert: Movie Based on a Bill O’Reilly Book Is More Accurate Than Spielberg’s "Lincoln"

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In late August, action-film maestro Tony Scott took his own life, jumping from the Vincent Thomas Bridge into the Los Angeles Harbor. One of the director’s final projects was a made-for-TV movie that he co-executive produced with his brother Ridley: An adaptation of the nonfiction thriller Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever, a best-selling book written by writer Martin Dugard and TV host Bill O’Reilly. The film (premiering on National Geographic Channel on Sunday, Feb. 17 at 8 p.m. ET/PT) stars Billy Campbell as President Abraham Lincoln and son of Don Johnson Jesse Johnson as stage-actor/assassin John Wilkes Booth. The movie is narrated by Tom Hanks‘ soothing timbre.

The made-for-cable Killing Lincoln continues Nat Geo’s recent habit of debuting an original film right around the time a more high-profile movie with similar content is making the rounds in movie theaters and the awards circuit. (In November, the channel released its Bin Laden assassination movie starring William Fichtner—a project that might have reminded some viewers of this.)

Killing Lincoln never rises above marginally passable entertainment. It is a generally clunky and flavorless exercise weakly mimicking prestige filmmaking. It is also the latest in a months-long deluge of Lincoln movies that includes Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Steven Spielberg’s massive Oscar-bait Lincoln, Saving Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, and Army of Frankensteins. Yet Killing Lincoln has one distinction among this bunch: It just might be the most historically accurate.

This may seem odd, given that the movie is based on a mediocre book that Bill O’Reilly wrote in his spare time in between creatively reinterpreting reality at Fox News. Furthermore, it’s a book that history buffs have flagged for being pocked with factual errors.

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Expert: Movie Based on a Bill O’Reilly Book Is More Accurate Than Spielberg’s "Lincoln"

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The Art and Enigma of Vivian Maier Come to the Screen

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Vivian Maier’s massive collection of street photography remained hidden from the public eye until a Chicago realtor named John Maloof stumbled across boxes of her negatives at an auction house in 2007. After amassing more negatives and finally googling her, he learned that she had made her living as a nanny and had died a few days earlier at age 83. She left an oeuvre of intimate glimpses of people caught in everyday moments, as seen in this 2011 Mother Jones collection of her work.

Now, Maloof has joined with Charles Siskel and Submarine Entertainment to produce Finding Vivian Maier, a documentary due out later this year. The film draws on Super-8 footage shot by Maier as well as interviews with friends, family, and neighbors that expose more details of Maier’s life and work. Discovering the real Maier is a challenge; as one of her friends put it, “she was a closed person” and also because most people she knew “had no idea she took photographs.” About the film, one friend insists Maier “would’ve hated every minute of it. She would never have let this happen.” Yet, says Siskel, “Vivian’s story is as powerful as her art” and he hopes the documentary “will bring her the recognition she deserves.”

Read more about Maier in Alex Kotlowitz’s essay “The Best Street Photographer You’ve Never Heard Of.”

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The Art and Enigma of Vivian Maier Come to the Screen

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For Valentine’s Day Weekend 2013: Witches, Zombies, Nicholas Sparks, and "Die Hard"

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It’s Valentine’s/Presidents Day Weekend 2013, and your lover or spouse wants you to spend money on a night on the town. For some, that might involve a couple of hours together in a crowded air-conditioned chain movie theater, gorging yourself on pails of butter-slathered junk food.

If that’s your reality, here are the options, three of which were released on Valentine’s Day.

The first is Beautiful Creatures (Warner Brothers, 124 min.), a new romantic fantasy about a young human boy falling head over heels for a young female witch in rural South Carolina. (In the Beautiful Creatures universe, good witches prefer the more politically correct term “caster.”) The film is a irreverent and genuinely interesting entry into the ever-bloated “Teen-Human-Falls-In-Forbidden-Love-With-Teen-Supernatural-Being” subgenre, so comparisons to the über-profitable Twilight franchise are inevitable, and the studio’s ad campaign predictably tries to make Beautiful Creatures look like as much like Twilight as possible.

Such comparisons are bunk. Unlike any of the five movies in the Twilight saga, Beautiful Creatures is funny, sexy, and not a heaving pile of savage unbearability. And unlike any of the various Twilights, the cast here is uniformly excellent (Viola Davis, Emmy Rossum, Emma Thompson, Jeremy Irons, Zoey Deutch, and the two romantic leads Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert).

It’s more fitting to compare Beautiful Creatures to two other films also now in theaters. The newly released (and quite lovely) Warm Bodies—a romantic zombie comedy that includes the best use of Bruce Springsteen music in recent cinema—is essentially the same movie as Beautiful Creatures, if you swap the latter’s witches for zombies. Both films are human/non-human teen romances, are based on a novel, are helmed by a talented writer/director, have an Australian actress in the lead female role, and were released within a few weeks of each other. You could also appropriately compare Beautiful Creatures to the new 3D action flick Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, seeing as how both films prominently feature a Bloodlusting Witch Hitler -type character (Emma Thompson plays the genocidal witch character in the former, Famke Janssen in the latter).

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For Valentine’s Day Weekend 2013: Witches, Zombies, Nicholas Sparks, and "Die Hard"

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