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A few weeks before the announcement in the wee hours of July 1 that Paramount Global and CBS were settling a widely derided lawsuit brought by Donald Trump against “60 Minutes” for $16 million, George Clooney took his final bow on Broadway as Edward R. Murrow, the famed CBS journalist he portrayed in “Good Night, and Good Luck.” The sold-out play chronicles the conflict between Murrow and the red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy and underscores the esteemed position that CBS News has long held in broadcast journalism. From Walter Cronkite’s reporting on the Vietnam War to publishing the first photos of the abuses by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib, CBS News has a proud history of public service when it comes to checking government wrongdoing.

The crown jewel in the CBS News lineup is “60 Minutes,” the forum for Mike Wallace’s interview with tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand and interviews with...

One Flew Over the Coup’s Nest: Saleh Muddles Through Propaganda Politics

“Propaganda, to be effective, must be believed. To be believed, it must be credible. To be credible, it must be true,” so said Hubert H. Humphrey. In the case of Tarik Saleh’s latest film, Eagles of the Republic, which is concerned with a film production meant to serve as an indoctrinated biopic of Egypt’s sitting president, a scenario is presented which is believable and credible but not altogether effective. Luckily, it isn’t true. Saleh returns to Egypt for yet another thriller starring his muse Fares Fares, this time approaching political malfeasance through a collision with the entertainment industry, which promises to be a juicy jumping off point.…...

Don Mischer, a director and producer whose six-decade career shaped some of the most-watched live broadcasts in American television history, died in his sleep on April 11 in Los Angeles. He was 85.

Mischer had just completed what he said would be his final production, the 2025 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony in Santa Monica. Hosted by James Corden with a performance by Katy Perry, the event featured a guest list of celebrities and tech figures and was streamed online.

From Super Bowl halftime shows and Olympic ceremonies to the Academy Awards and Kennedy Center Honors, Mischer built a reputation as one of the most trusted figures in live television. He won 15 Emmy Awards, 10 Directors Guild of America Awards, a Peabody, two NAACP Image Awards, and received lifetime achievement honors from both the DGA and PGA.

Donald Leo Mischer was born March 5, 1940, in San Antonio. His father worked in insurance, and his mother died of...

Vice President Kamala Harris today will have the task of announcing the certification of the winner of the presidential election, Donald Trump.

Coming on the fourth anniversary of the Trump-fueled riot and storming of the U.S. Capitol, Harris in a new video presented an implicit contrast to the way that she is handling her constitutional duty.

“The peaceful transfer of power is one of the most fundamental principles of American democracy,” Harris said. “As much as any other principle, it is what distinguishes our system of government from monarchy or tyranny.

“Today at the United States Capitol, I will perform my constitutional duty as vice president of the United States to certify the results of the 2024 election. This duty is a sacred obligation, one I will uphold, guided by love of country, loyalty to our Constitution, and my unwavering faith in the American people.”

The electoral vote result was...

Comedy has had a substantial impact on this year’s presidential election discourse, as evidenced by Kamala Harris’ recent Saturday Night Live cameo, Tony Hinchcliffe’s racist Trump rally jokes and, most recently, an endorsement from one of the supporting cast members of Newsradio (Andy Dick’s silence is deafening).

But this isn’t the first time that the worlds of comedy and politics have overlapped during a presidential election. In fact, it’s been argued that a TV comedy was responsible for helping elect one of the shittiest presidents of all-time: Richard Milhous Nixon.

As any Boomer will tell you, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In was a freewheeling sketch series that paired the absurdity of the vaudeville era with the contemporary politics of the late 1960s counterculture movement. It was very much the hippie aesthetic packaged and sold for mass consumption. It also helped launch the careers of Lily Tomlin and Goldie Hawn.

Larry Wilmore says there’s a distinction between the America he loves and the ‘Merica that’s at the root of a lot of problems in the country.

While on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” talking about his current comedy tour “Comedy, Magic, and ‘Merica,” Wilmore explained to host Mika Brzezinski the difference between the two.

“I try to make a distinction between America and ‘Merica,” he said. “I love America, I’m a proud patriot, I think most Americans are good people. Our problems are with ‘Merica. In ‘Merica, that’s where you get the divisiveness, that’s where you get Twitter, that’s where you get the squeaky wheel that says all these things. ‘Merica has all the problems that America is like, ‘Oh come on, we can do better than this.'”

Wilmore and Brzezinski later pivoted to talk about why people still feel like they should support...

60 Minutes gave viewers a rare behind-the-scenes look during Monday’s election special, offering illuminating new details about former President Donald Trump’s decision to back out of his scheduled interview, leaving Vice President Kamala Harris to fly solo.

“It’s been a tradition for more than half a century that the major party candidates for president sit down with 60 Minutes in October,” Scott Pelley told viewers at the top of the broadcast. “In 1968, it was Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. This year, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump accepted our invitation. Unfortunately, last week, Trump canceled.

“America, I love you,” declared President Joe Biden tonight in his keynote speech at the first night of the Democratic National Convention as delegates from across the land cheered “We love Joe!” over and over.

Even with his constant evocation of Irish poetry over the decades, Biden has never been anyone’s idea of a great orator. However, on Monday, the 46th President of the United States gave one of the best speeches of his long stint in public life.

Combative, on-point, evocative and relatively succinct for Biden, the valedictory had a job for the campaign. A job that Biden obviously enjoyed. Ripping his 2020 antagonist Donald Trump as a “loser” and “a liar,” Biden went on to lament how “sad” his predecessor is “putting himself first and America last.”

“I’ve got five months left in my presidency and I’ve got a lot to do,” Biden told the crowd,...

Protesters at the Democratic National Convention should consider themselves forewarned: Gov. J.B. Pritzker says that if protests become violent, police will make arrests.

“If there are troublemakers, they’re going to get arrested and they’re going to get convicted,” Pritzker told CNN State of the Union host Jake Tapper on Sunday.

Tapper asked Pritzker about whether this year’s convention will resemble the 1968 convention in Chicago that was “overshadowed by violent clashes between police and protesters then protesting the Vietnam War.” Now, the protesters will be opposing the Biden-Harris...

During his iconic career at CBS News, Dan Rather was on the ground in Dallas moments after President Kennedy is assassinated; covered the Civil Rights moment and the Vietnam War; and was the only anchor in China’s Tiananmen Square before the crackdown on protesters. He also famously was roughed up during the 1968 Democratic National Convention — which inspired Variety to ask Rather, still going strong at 92 (you can read his current “Steady” columns at steady.substack.com), to reflect on that tumultuous moment in U.S. politics and how it compares to what has happened in 2024.

One of the hallmarks of a good broadcast journalist is the ability to roll with the proverbial punches during live events. You have to be a good ad-libber and be able to pivot, ready for the unexpected. Suffice it to say that on March 31, 1968, I was not ready when President Lyndon Johnson delivered a shocker.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz made his debut on the national stage as a vice presidential candidate, in a speech in which he emphasized his small town background and values and contrasted them to a “weird” and “creepy” Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

“I just have to say it, you know if and you feel it, these guys are creepy and just weird as hell,” Walz said before an energetic Philadelphia rally, repeating words that went viral over the past two weeks and helped vault him to the top of the vice presidential sweepstakes.

His speech in Philadelphia, coming hours after Vice President Kamala Harris announced him as her running mate on the Democratic ticket, was a prime opportunity for him to introduce himself, with the major cable news networks all carrying the address uninterrupted, along with those of Harris and Governor Josh Shapiro, who was passed over as a running mate option.

A lot of Hollywood power players may have be voting for Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro to be Kamala Harris’ running mate, but now the current Vice President has chosen Tim Walz to be her VP, one of the Democrats’ biggest donor bases has a lot of good things to say about the Minnesota Governor.

News of Walz’s selection was first reported by CNN this Am, and Harris just made it official:

I am proud to announce that I've asked @Tim_Walz to be my running mate.

As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he's delivered for working families like his.

It's great to have him on the team.

Now let’s get to work. Join us:https://t.co/W4AE2WlMTj

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 6, 2024

In an election that has been an ever accelerating roller coaster the past two months, The Daily Show today said a...

Updated with Harris comment: Tim Walz, the twice-elected governor of Minnesota, has been chosen by Vice President Kamala Harris as her running mate in the 2024 presidential election.

“Tim is a battle-tested leader who has an incredible track record of getting things done for Minnesota families,” Harris said in a statement to supporters Tuesday. “I know that he will bring some principled leadership to our campaign, and to the office of the vice president.”

I am proud to announce that I've asked @Tim_Walz to be my running mate.

As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he's delivered for working families like his.

It's great to have him on the team.

Now let’s get to work. Join us:https://t.co/W4AE2WlMTj

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 6, 2024

“It’s the honor of a lifetime to join Kamala Harris in this campaign,” Walz wrote on X. “I’m all in.

Shirley Chisholm's groundbreaking journey from Congress to Presidential run portrayed in a transformative performance by Regina King. Hubert Humphrey's withdrawal and delegate support pivotal in Chisholm's campaign; Muskie and McGovern also made significant impacts. George McGovern ultimately secures the Democratic nomination despite some setbacks, leading to a historic 1972 Presidential election.

Shirley Chisholm faced fierce political opponents such as Humphrey, McGovern, and Muskie in Shirley. The new Netflix historical biopic follows the true story of Chisholm's historic rise from becoming the first black American woman in the U.S. Congress to the first black American woman to ever run for President of the United States.

Regina King gives a transformative performance as the titular character, showcasing her fierce resolve and unyielding commitment to make history. The ending of Shirley chronicles the result of the 1972 Democratic Convention and Chisholm eventually dropping out of the race after being betrayed by rival candidate Walter Fauntroy.

The Running Man remake shares a similar plot to Squid Game and could benefit from its success, exploring themes of oppression and suppression in a dystopian society. The remake has the potential to provide important commentary on societal behavior around sexuality, race, and ableism, presenting the message with more diversity than the original. The Stephen King novel focuses on survival of the poor, the influence of media, and the degradation of civil liberties, and a remake could delve deeper into these themes with a modern update.

An update for Stephen King's Running Man remake has arrived decades after the '80s classic that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and promises to beat Squid Game at its own game. Stephen King remakes have proved to be hit or miss as different directors, writers, and actors interpret the horror author's pastiche, but The Running Man shares a similar plot to the very popular series...

Click here to read the full article.

Bill Plante, who spent more than a half-century with CBS News as one of the longest-serving White House broadcast journalists in history, died Wednesday of respiratory failure at his home in Washington, his family announced. He was 84.

Plante reported on the Vietnam War, covered the civil rights movement and all 13 U.S. presidential elections from 1968 to 2016 and anchored the CBS Sunday Night News from 1988-95 before retiring in 2016 after 52 years with the division.

The multiple Emmy winner was a White House correspondent for 35 years during the administrations of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He also covered the State Department while George H.W. Bush was president.

“I have no wasted sympathy on any occupant of the White House,” Plante once said. “They are out to present themselves in the best possible light, and it’s our job to find out,...

British-Canadian documentarian and direct cinema pioneer Terence Macartney-Filgate has died in Toronto.

The filmmaker died on July 11 from complications resulting from Parkinson’s disease. He was 97.

A long-time collaborator with the National Film Board of Canada, he wrote, directed, produced and edited more than 100 documentaries across an illustrious career that began in 1956, with a series of post-war educational films.

A key figure in the cinema vérité movement of the 1960s, Terry Filgate – as he was known to most – worked with contemporaries including Robert Drew, D.A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock and Al Maysles under the umbrella of American collective Robert Drew Associates, which produced seminal documentaries of the era, including “X-Pilot” (1961) and “Primary” (1960).

Filgate served as principal photographer on the latter film, which chronicled then-senator John F. Kennedy’s primary campaign against Hubert Humphrey.

American work aside, he will be remembered for his remarkable filmography with the Nfb, with which he made 31 documentaries across a 40-year period.

Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, a liberal icon who lost the most lopsided presidential election after bluntly telling voters to expect a tax increase if he won, died Monday. He was 93.

The death of the former senator, ambassador and Minnesota attorney general was announced in a statement from his family. No cause was cited.

Mondale followed the trail blazed by his political mentor, Hubert H. Humphrey, from Minnesota politics to the U.S. Senate and the vice presidency, serving under Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981.

His own try for the White House, in 1984, came at the ...

Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, a liberal icon who lost the most lopsided presidential election after bluntly telling voters to expect a tax increase if he won, died Monday. He was 93.

The death of the former senator, ambassador and Minnesota attorney general was announced in a statement from his family. No cause was cited.

Mondale followed the trail blazed by his political mentor, Hubert H. Humphrey, from Minnesota politics to the U.S. Senate and the vice presidency, serving under Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981.

His own try for the White House, in 1984, came at the ...

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser and advised many Democratic presidential campaigns, died Friday at age 89. His daughter, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, announced the news on Friday night. The elder Brzezinski, a Polish-American diplomat who had advised campaigns from Hubert Humphrey and Barack Obama, had appeared on his daughter’s program to discuss security issues as recently as last November. Mika took to Twitter to honor her father in a series of tweets. My father passed away peacefully tonight. He was known to his friends as Zbig, to his… https://t.

Well over a month in Donald Trump‘s presidency, Democratic Sen. Al Franken is still not backing down on his harsh criticism of the now-commander-in-chief.

Franken, Minnesota’s junior senator, has been a staunch opponent of Trump‘s platform and policies, and strongly questioned the president’s cabinet nominees during confirmation hearings – namely, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has just now come under fire for lying under oath in one such hearing about meeting with the Russian envoy twice last year.

Sessions has since recused himself from any investigations into the president’s campaign, while still maintaining that he’s done nothing wrong.

Warren Beatty may have played a senator in 1998’s Bulworth, but don’t expect life to imitate art when it comes to politics.

The 79-year-old actor and political activist — who has supported Democratic presidential candidates including Robert Kennedy, George McGovern and Jimmy Carter — has never run for office, and he’s just fine with that.

“What people who volunteer for public service now are subjected to in the media, I’ve grown to think that to run for office is more like running for crucifixion,” he tells People in this week’s issue. “And in some sense, I think the...

Chicago – When encountering film producer, director, writer and “movie star” Warren Beatty, I entered into an interview that would be truly one of a kind. The spontaneous Mr. Beatty works a talk in a give-and-take Socratic method, searching for the truth underneath the rhetoric, as he did with his new film “Rules Don’t Apply.”

The film is a quasi-biographical profile of the legendary American billionaire Howard Hughes, but don’t mention that to writer/director Beatty (who also portrays Hughes). What he wanted to explore was the truth around Hughes, in the personification of a fictional couple (Alden Ehrenreich and Lily Collins) working for the billionaire. Set in 1958 Hollywood – the same year a young Warren Beatty arrived there – the film highlights the clash between the sexual looseness that existed in the movie business, and the potential seekers that “got off the bus” in tinsel town, still mired in their 1950s puritanism.

Robert Schenkkan is a very sought screenwriter after the HBO’s All The Way and the upcoming anticipated Hacksaw Ridge will be in theaters next month.

Most recently, his movie adaptation All The Way was nominated for eight Primetime Emmys for HBO. The all-star cast drew praised for Bryan Cranston’s portrayal of former President Lyndon B. Johnson during his turbulent presidency during the civil rights movement after the JFK assassination.

As for Hacksaw Ridge, it marks the return of Mel Gibson in the director’s chair since Apocalypto in 2006. This story follows World War II Army medic Desmond T. Doss who managed to save many American soldiers in the Battle of Okinawa despite his refusal to kill people and carry a weapon. He became the first Conscientious Objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor in American history.

Schenkkan has a good writing resume for writing episodes for 2010’s The Pacific,...

Dci John Luther (Idris Elba) speaks in terse, staccato sentences, as if to match the impression his heavy gait and muscular frame leave on his interlocutors: “Aight mate?” the owner of a gangland watering hole asks him in the fourth installment of “Luther.” “Lookin’ a bit militant there.”

Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch), by contrast, speaks in stem-winding, breathless paragraphs, holding his reedy figure still as if to conserve energy for his acumen: “You’re clearly acclimatized to never getting to the end of a sentence,” he tells Dr. John Watson (Martin Freeman) in “Sherlock: The Abominable Bride.” “We’ll get along splendidly.”

This battle of British detectives, in which we might include “The Night Manager”‘s Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston), recruited by British intelligence to infiltrate the inner circle of an international arms dealer (Hugh Laurie), points to a few of the complicating factors in the race for Outstanding...

The first rule of politics — especially presidential candidates — is always kiss babies. The tradition goes back to Andrew Jackson in 1833 and the George W. Bush Presidential Library’s even has a “Path to the Presidency” exhibit featuring the political history of baby kissing from Jackson to Hubert Humphrey. But on Tuesday, Donald Trump broke that tradition by kicking a crying baby and its mother out of his rallies, and he’s getting suitable ripped on social media for his faux pas. Also Read: Why Melania Trump Hasn't Been More Heavily Criticized for Nude Photos, Plagiarism Scandal The Gop presidential nominee...

Jay Roach for President.

HBO’s gripping docudrama “All the Way” chronicled the ruthlessness of American politics, as captured within a tumultuous eight months during the term of President Lyndon B. Johnson. But behind the scenes, under Roach’s administration, the production couldn’t have been more idyllic.

In the movie, Johnson fights hard to bring more equality to America. On set, Roach, who directed the film, was effortless in creating a more perfect union.

“Jay is like this with everybody,” Bradley Whitford, who played Hubert Humphrey, told IndieWire. “He doesn’t treat the craft services guy any differently than he treats me. One of my pet peeves about Hollywood is that it’s full of lefty, ‘fancy yourself a humanist’ liberals like me and then you get on a movie set and it’s like a 15th century serfdom. People are treating other people like shit because they’re...

As far as politicians go, Lyndon Baines Johnson was the boss hog. Just as he had in his days in the Senate, President Johnson would take to strong-arming his agenda past any suit unlucky enough to cross him, using everything from trapping folks in an elevator to whipping out his own President Johnson (aka “Jumbo”) and waving it at adversaries to imaginably stupefying effect.

Thankfully, there’s no appearances by the Executive Branch in All the Way, Jay Roach’s adaptation of the play by Robert Schenkkan, airing Saturday on HBO. The story follows Johnson, here played by Bryan Cranston, over his year-long “first term” as president, from Parkland in ‘63 to the polls in ‘64, mostly eyeing his role in passing the latter year’s Civil Rights Act. No shortage of gushing will be given to Cranston for “resurrecting” or “disappearing into” Lbj (he won a Tony for it on Broadway,...

Accidental president. Vietnam. Civil Rights Act. Bully. This is Lyndon B. Johnson’s legacy, or at least how he’s often remembered. New HBO film All the Way seeks to illuminate many sides of the man who stepped into the highest office in the land after John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Bryan Cranston plays Lbj in the film, premiering on HBO tonight, following his Tony-winning turn as the president in All the Way on Broadway. After he’d already done extensive research and study of the play’s text (itself thoroughly researched by playwright Robert Schenkkan), Cranston went on a second visit to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, TX, and that’s where the person of Lbj really clicked for the actor. “The character is always outside of you until you hopefully allow it to seep in. Then it becomes a part of you,” Cranston told HitFix.

“The Democratic Party just lost the South for the rest of my lifetime, and maybe yours,” President Lyndon B. Johnson tells Vice President Hubert Humphrey ebullient about civil rights gains. “What the f–k are you so happy about?” Such was the style of Lbj, the profane, bullying, politically calculating 36th president of the United States. In an earlier time of congressional gridlock, Johnson — by turns charming and tyrannical, jovial and autocratic — practiced an in-your-face style of politics that frustrated and terrified adversaries and allies alike in the year after the Kennedy assassination. HBO’s “All the Way” revisits the civil.

Exclusive: Bradley Whitford, an Emmy winner for The West Wing and then most recently for Amazon’s Transparent last year, has signed with ICM Partners for representation. On the film side, he most recently appeared in Sony Pictures Classics’ Hank Williams biopic I Saw The Light opposite Tom Hiddleston, which bowed in March. Whitford is next up playing Hubert Humphrey in HBO’s Lbj movie All The Way, which debuts May 21. Also in the can: Netflix's Sundance pic Other…...

Exclusive: Bradley Whitford, an Emmy winner for The West Wing and then most recently for Amazon’s Transparent last year, has signed with ICM Partners for representation. On the film side, he most recently appeared in Sony Pictures Classics’ Hank Williams biopic I Saw The Light opposite Tom Hiddleston, which bowed in March. Whitford is next up playing Hubert Humphrey in HBO’s Lbj movie All The Way, which debuts May 21. Also in the can: Netflix's Sundance pic Other…...

Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, videos, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.

The Criterion Collection has unveiled its July 2016 line-up (click covers for more details):

Speaking of Criterion, Joachim Trier visits the closet:

The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody on when the Maysles filmed the Beatles:

The birthplace of the modern American documentary is Wisconsin, where Robert Drew brought a crew in early 1960 to film the campaigns of John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey in that state’s Democratic Presidential primary. Albert Maysles was the cinematographer of its most iconic sequence, a long hand-held tracking shot following Kennedy from backstage to a lectern. There, Maysles caught Kennedy in the magic moment—the transformation from private to public, from casual manner to stage manner.

Take a look at the roots of American campaign image consciousness, and the then-new techniques of cinéma vérité to bring a new 'reality' for film documentaries. Four groundbreaking films cover the Kennedy-Humphrey presidential primary, and put us in the Oval Office for a showdown against Alabama governor George Wallace. The Kennedy Films of Robert Drew & Associates Blu-ray Primary, Adventures on the New Frontier, Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, Faces of November The Criterion Collection 808 1960 -1964 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 53, 52, 53, 12 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 26, 2016 / 39.95 Starring John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Robert Drew, Hubert H. Humphrey, McGeorge Bundy, John Kenneth Galbraith, Richard Goodwin, Albert Gore Sr., Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Pierre Salinger, Haile Selassie, John Steinbeck, George Wallace, Vivian Malone, Burke Marshall, Nicholas Katzenbach, John Dore, Jack Greenberg; Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy Jr., Caroline Kennedy, Peter Lawford. Cinematography Richard Leacock, Albert Maysles, D.A. Pennebaker,...

“The President’S Reality Show”

By Raymond Benson

Robert Drew was a pioneer who changed the way we think about the documentary film. As first a writer/editor at Life Magazine in the 1950s, and then the head of a unit that produced short documentaries for Time Inc., Drew knew how to tell a story visually. When he formed his own company, Robert Drew & Associates, he was the guiding force for other talented (and later, more well-known) filmmakers such as D. A. Pennebaker (Don’t Look Back, Monterey Pop), Albert and David Maysles (Gimme Shelter), and Richard Leacock, among others. Together they invented a novel way to present a documentary film, something historians coined “direct cinema.”

Documentaries had previously been scripted, usually shot to order, and more often than not, were textbook dull. Drew and his colleagues developed the you-are-there style of following subjects around as they did their business,...

"Politics is war by other means." Damn it's great to watch Bryan Cranston act! HBO has debuted this new teaser trailer for the cinematic feature version of All the Way, the play turned movie starring Bryan Cranston as Lyndon B. Johnson, who becomes the president after JFK is assassinated. The cast features Anthony Mackie as Martin Luther King, Jr., Melissa Leo as Lady Bird Johnson, Bradley Whitford as Hubert Humphrey, Stephen Root as J. Edgar Hoover and Frank Langella as Sen. Richard Russell; also starring Joe Morton, Aisha Hinds, Ethan Phillips, Mo McRae, and Toby Huss. This truly looks powerful and engaging, with Cranston giving one hell of a performance. Debuting on HBO starting this May. Here's the newest "teaser" trailer for Jay Roach's All the Way, from HBO's YouTube (via SlashFilm): Lyndon B. Johnson (Bryan Cranston) becomes the President of the United States in the chaotic aftermath...

The much-anticipated trailer for HBO's "All the Way" was released on Monday (watch it above). The telefilm focuses on President Lyndon Johnson (played by Bryan Cranston) and his effort to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It co-stars Melissa Leo as Lady Bird Johnson, Anthony Mackie as Martin Luther King Jr., Bradley Whitford as Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Frank Langella as Senator Richard Russell Jr., among others. And it's directed by Jay Roach, a four-time Emmy winner for his telefilms "Recount" (2008) and "Game Change" (2012). "All the Way" premieres on the premium cable network on May 21. -Break- Subscribe to Gold Derby Breaking News Alerts & Experts’ Latest Emmy Predictions The film is based on the stage production that won the 2014 Tony Award for Best Play. Cranston also played the lead role on stage and earned his very first Tony for Best Actor in a Play. But Cranston is already an Emmy darling.

Bryan Cranston breaks far away from his role as meth magnate Walter White to transform into former Commander-in-Chief Lyndon B. Johnson. Cranston reprises his Tony Award–winning performance as the 36th President of the United States in the new HBO film “All the Way.” “All the Way” follows Johnson’s first year in the White House after President Kennedy’s assassination. Johnson is immediately tasked with passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 upon entering office. “It ain’t gonna be easy, Dr. King,” Cranston says as Johnson during a phone call to Martin Luther King Jr. (Anthony Mackie) regarding the contentious bill. Jay Roach directs a script from Robert Schenkkan, who adapts his own play. “All the Way” received the Best Play honor from the Tony Awards in 2014. The film features an all-star ensemble including Oscar winner Melissa Leo (“The Fighter”) as First Lady Lady Bird Johnson, Bradley Whitford (“Transparent”) as Vice President Hubert Humphrey,...

Bryan Cranston has been gracing our screens for more than three decades, but it was the pilot episode of Breaking Bad, back in 2008, that made us realize what a formidable performer he truly is. It hardly seemed possible that the man who played Hal in 151 episodes of Malcolm In The Middle could also embody the ultimate anti-hero, playing the meth-cooking chemistry teacher, Walter White. But, embody him he did, and now, every Cranston performance is highly anticipated. All The Way is no exception to that rule – bringing, as it does, the actor’s Tony-winning stage performance as President Lyndon B. Johnson to HBO.

“Bryan Cranston (Trumbo, Breaking Bad) reprises his Tony-winning role in All The Way, a riveting behind-the-scenes look at President Lyndon B. Johnson’s tumultuous first year in office after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Staking his presidency on what would be an historic, unprecedented Civil Rights Act,...

The actors formerly known as Josh Lyman and Walter White are teaming up to take the White House.

Bradley Whitford has signed on to play Hubert Humphrey in HBO’s upcoming Lyndon B. Johnson movie All the Way, our sister site Deadline reports.

The Steven Spielberg-produced film is based on the Tony-winning play of the same name and stars Breaking Bad‘s Bryan Cranston, revisiting the role he had in the Broadway production, as President Johnson.

Photos Memories From the Set: Bradley Whitford Talks Stints on West Wing, ER, Frasier and More

All the Way takes place in 1964 — during...

Bradley Whitford has landed a lead role opposite Bryan Cranston in All The Way, the adaptation of the Tony-winning Robert Schenkkan play that Jay Roach will direct for HBO. Whitford will play Hubert Humphrey alongside Cranston, Melissa Leo and Anthony Mackie. Shooting begins next month. Executive produced by Steven Spielberg, the film covers Lbj (Cranston) from the moment the assassination of John F. Kennedy made Johnson the 36th president of the United States, and…...

Kino Lorber is proud to announce the acquisition of all North American rights to Les Blank & Gina Leibrecht‘s How To Smell A Rose: A Visit With Ricky Leacock In Normandy, a moving tribute by one cinema verité master to another.

Opening at New York’s Film Forum on Wednesday, August 12, 2015, How To Smell Of Rose: A Visit With Ricky Leacock In Normandy was co-directed by Les Blank and his longtime creative partner, Gina Leibrecht. How To Smell A Rose: A Visit With Ricky Leacock is the penultimate film directed by Les Blank, before he passed away on April 7, 2013.

During its theatrical run at Film Forum, How To Smell A Rose will be screened with the Leacock-Joyce Chopra classic, Happy Mother’S Day, on the 1963 birth of the Fischer quintuplets in Aberdeen, South Dakota. In further national theatrical engagements “Rose” will be presented with Les Blank’s now classic...

Read More: SXSW: Les Blank's Leon Russell Doc Gets a Proper Premiere and a Trippy New Poster Les Blank and longtime collaborator Gina Leibrecht's documentary "How to Smell a Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock in Normandy" has been acquired by Kino Lorber.  The film paints a portrait of the British documentarian and his partner Valerie Lalonde while in France. It features clips of Leacock's films. One such film, "Primary," follows the 1960 Wisconsin Primary election between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. "Canary Bananas," also featured in the documentary, was made by Leacock at 14 years old on his father's Canary Island plantation.  "How to Smell a Rose" will be screened at art house theaters and film festivals during the fall, followed by a VOD and home media release.  Read More: Leon Russell Gets Reflective at 'A Poem is a Naked Person' NYC Opening...

Everyone always talks about the first season of HBO’s True Detective as part of the McConaissance, marking star Matthew McConaughey’s ascension to the top of the A-list, so it’s easy to forget that the series also featured a stunning performance from co-lead Woody Harrelson. Luckily, enough people have their heads screwed on straight that Harrelson is still landing lead roles, and today brings news that the actor has boarded a project seemingly primed for awards attention: biopic Lbj.

Rob Reiner, the veteran helmer whose best films include Stand By Me, A Few Good Men and When Harry Met Sally…, is sitting behind the camera for the biopic, which has been gathering steam for years. Though it was previously thought that Reiner would be adapting biography Means of Ascent by Robert Caro into a script, the latest news has it that the helmer is working from Joey Hartstone’s screenplay Lbj,...

Back at the start of March, the world of film lost one of its most revered documentarians, Albert Maysles. He and his brother David made three of Sight & Sound’s Top 50 Documentaries of all time, and to pay tribute to the late director, Turner Classic Movies is tonight changing their schedule to air three of those films, along with one of his early shorts.

TCM’s Albert Maysles Memorial Tribute will air Grey Gardens, Salesman, Gimme Shelter, and Meet Marlon Brando, starting at 8 Pm Et tonight. We first reported on the series back in our film Week in Review. Here’s the schedule:

TCM Remembers Albert Maysles– Monday, March 23

8 Pm Grey Gardens (1976)

10:00 Pm Salesman (1968)

11:45 Pm Gimme Shelter (1970)

1:30 Am Meet Marlon Brando (1968)

Grey Gardens recently received a restoration via the Criterion Collection, while the controversial Gimme Shelter is an absolute must-see and pinnacle of music history, ranking along...

While James Brown fans already got the opportunity to see Chadwick Boseman as the Godfather of Soul in this summer's Get on Up, Alex Gibney (Finding Fela, Taxi to the Dark Side) tackled the real thing in HBO's Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown, a new documentary on the singer that premiered Monday night.

More hagiography than warts-and-all bio — the film omits Brown's arrests on weapons charges and only mentions one instance of many domestic abuse allegations in passing — the Mick Jagger-produced film still enlists many of Brown's former musicians,...

Editor's note: Robert Drew passed away today at age ninety. We revisit a 2003 interview with the filmmaker. Wisconsin, 1960. An unlikely setting perhaps for one of the most crucial showdowns in the wide-open race for the presidency. The Democrats had to decide whom to nominate to run against Richard Nixon. John F. Kennedy realized that if he beat Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin primary (and if he could prove that a Catholic senator from New England could triumph over a Protestant senator from a neighboring state), he could also prove his national appeal. It's quite a story and Primary tells it like no documentary ever had before.>> - Jonathan Marlow...

Editor's note: Robert Drew passed away today at age ninety. We revisit a 2003 interview with the filmmaker. Wisconsin, 1960. An unlikely setting perhaps for one of the most crucial showdowns in the wide-open race for the presidency. The Democrats had to decide whom to nominate to run against Richard Nixon. John F. Kennedy realized that if he beat Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin primary (and if he could prove that a Catholic senator from New England could triumph over a Protestant senator from a neighboring state), he could also prove his national appeal. It's quite a story and Primary tells it like no documentary ever had before.>> - Jonathan Marlow...

Documentary filmmaker Robert Drew, widely regarded as "the father of American cinéma vérité," has died at the age of 90. As Vadim Rizov writes at Filmmaker, "It’s not oversimplifying to note that Drew’s Primary (covering the JFK-Hubert Humphrey faceoff in the 1960 Wisconsin primary) and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (examining the administration’s standoff against segregationist George Wallace) are two of the key documents of the Kennedy presidency, whose levels of candor, access and good judgment about where to point the camera when remain startlingly fresh." » - David Hudson...

Documentary filmmaker Robert Drew, widely regarded as "the father of American cinéma vérité," has died at the age of 90. As Vadim Rizov writes at Filmmaker, "It’s not oversimplifying to note that Drew’s Primary (covering the JFK-Hubert Humphrey faceoff in the 1960 Wisconsin primary) and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (examining the administration’s standoff against segregationist George Wallace) are two of the key documents of the Kennedy presidency, whose levels of candor, access and good judgment about where to point the camera when remain startlingly fresh." » - David Hudson...