Game Change

With "The Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown's news Tuesday morning that he would be releasing a new Robert Langdon adventure in May, we thought it wise to check in with the movie prospects for Brown's last Langdon tale, "The Lost Symbol," which resided on the New York Times hard-cover fiction bestseller list for 29 weeks and has 30 million copies in print worldwide. Sony's Columbia Pictures, which released the previous two films, "The DaVinci Code" and "Angels and Demons," owns the option to all of Brown's future projects involving Langdon, including "The Lost Symbol" and the upcoming "Inferno.

"Doctor Who" is celebrating 50 years on the air this year, new episodes begin airing Saturday and to top it all off, the good Doctor has just received a Peabody Award for 50 years of "evolving with technology and the times like nothing else in the known television universe. " The awards, announced Wednesday by the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, are selected by a board of judges to highlight the best in electronic media. The honorees were announced at a ceremony on the University of Georgia campus, but the awards won't be handed out until a luncheon event in New York City on May 20. The Institutional Peabody to "Doctor Who" was just one of 39 honorees named this year.

There is a truly heartbreaking moment in "Game Change," the HBO film about Sarah Palin's run for vice president. It comes after Palin (Julianne Moore) has made her galvanizing speech at the Republican National Convention accepting the nomination as John McCain's (Ed Harris) running mate and is drawing jaw-dropping crowds to her meet and greets. Footage is shown of the people waiting hours to meet her, including one rather large and nondescript woman who looks straight at the camera and says: "I have five kids.

Dushone Brown made two game-changing three-point field goals in the fourth quarter and finished with 20 points to help sixth-seeded Gardena knock off top-seeded Granada Hills Kennedy, 55-47, in the City Section Division II boys' basketball final Friday night at Roybal. Brown's three-pointer with 6 minutes 4 seconds left gave Gardena (17-13) a 41-32 lead. When Kennedy (27-7) closed to within 44-40 with two minutes left, Brown delivered another three-pointer to end the Golden Cougars' momentum.

HBO's  "Game Change" took the lead on the TV front Thursday morning as the nominees for the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards were announced. The political drama was followed closely by Showtime's "Homeland. " "Game Change," which was based on the 2008 presidential campaign (particularly former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's road to becoming a vice presidential nominee), racked up five nominations, including nods for actors Ed Harris and Julianne Moore. "Homeland," which will wrap its second season Sunday, scored four nominations--maintaining its lock in the major drama categories, with Mandy Patinkin landing a supporting actor in a drama nod after not making a showing last year.

“Game Change” won the Emmy on Sunday for miniseries or movie. The HBO political drama , which premiered to an impressive 2.1-million viewers in March, was based on the 2008 presidential campaign - particularly former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's road to becoming a vice presidential nominee.  It faced aggressive opposition from Palin, who is portrayed in the film by Julianne Moore, and her supporters for what they called a “false narrative.”...

HBO's "Game Change" won a Golden Globe for best miniseries or motion picture made for television Sunday night. Adapted from Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's bestselling nonfiction account of the 2008 election, "Game Change" also picked up four Emmys in September. Directed by Jay Roach, it stars Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin, Ed Harris as Sen. John McCain and Woody Harrelson as political strategist Steve Schmidt. "Game Change" beat out "The Girl" (HBO), "Hatfields & McCoys" (History)

The HBO movie “Game Change” may not be the whole story, but it is a true story about Sarah Palin and the power of ineptitude in American politics. Palin and her partisans have trashed the movie for one very good reason: no matter how sympathetic to Palin's personal predicament the film may be, the central plot point is that John McCain and his campaign team picked a shockingly unprepared person to be his running mate. Steve Schmidt, McCain's senior political advisor, and other top campaign operatives were primary sources for the book on which “Game Change” was based.

When the phone rang about a year ago, with a query about whether she would consider playing Sarah Palin in a TV movie, Julianne Moore jumped at the chance. "Then I hung up the phone and thought, 'Oh my God, what have I done?'" Moore recalled recently with a laugh. "To play a historical figure is one thing. To play a living historical figure deepens the challenge. But to play a culturally significant, very prominent, living figure, that kind of put it over the top. " Over the top could also describe early reaction to Moore's performance and to "Game Change," HBO's docudrama on Palin's mesmerizing 2008 run for the vice presidency.

Lena Dunham capped her coming-out year Sunday with two Golden Globes for her critically acclaimed HBO comedy, "Girls. " "This award is for every woman who felt like there wasn't a space for her," said the 26-year-old writer-actor, who was practically unknown until last year, with the premiere of her off-kilter comedy about the travails of young women in New York. Dunham won lead actress, and "Girls" took the TV comedy or musical series category. The show was nominated for five Emmys in September but got just one, for casting.

With "The Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown's news Tuesday morning that he would be releasing a new Robert Langdon adventure in May, we thought it wise to check in with the movie prospects for Brown's last Langdon tale, "The Lost Symbol," which resided on the New York Times hard-cover fiction bestseller list for 29 weeks and has 30 million copies in print worldwide. Sony's Columbia Pictures, which released the previous two films, "The DaVinci Code" and "Angels and Demons," owns the option to all of Brown's future projects involving Langdon, including "The Lost Symbol" and the upcoming "Inferno.

Lena Dunham capped her coming-out year Sunday with two Golden Globes for her critically acclaimed HBO comedy, "Girls. " "This award is for every woman who felt like there wasn't a space for her," said the 26-year-old writer-actor, who was practically unknown until last year, with the premiere of her off-kilter comedy about the travails of young women in New York. Dunham won lead actress, and "Girls" took the TV comedy or musical series category. The show was nominated for five Emmys in September but got just one, for casting.

HBO's "Game Change" won a Golden Globe for best miniseries or motion picture made for television Sunday night. Adapted from Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's bestselling nonfiction account of the 2008 election, "Game Change" also picked up four Emmys in September. Directed by Jay Roach, it stars Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin, Ed Harris as Sen. John McCain and Woody Harrelson as political strategist Steve Schmidt. "Game Change" beat out "The Girl" (HBO), "Hatfields & McCoys" (History)

Compliance Magnolia, $26.98; Blu-ray, $29.98 Available on VOD beginning Jan. 8 Craig Zobel's film dramatizes that bizarre news story from a few years back about a restaurant manager who forced an employee to strip on the orders of a man impersonating a policeman. Dreama Walker plays the luckless cashier, who by the end of the night is coerced into doing naked jumping jacks in a stockroom (and worse) because her boss (played by the remarkable Ann Dowd) tells her that a cop has accused her of stealing.

You can have your "A Visit from St. Nicholas" and "A Christmas Carol. " My favorite holiday reading is always the list of new state laws. Nearly 750 new ones for 2013 were passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor last year. With the Legislature in session about seven months, that's something like 100 a month. But it can hardly be said that every one was accompanied by stirring, democracy-defining debates. My favorite so far is the slam-dunk law ending the discounts for past and current state legislators and California members of Congress who order vanity plates for their cars.

HBO's  "Game Change" took the lead on the TV front Thursday morning as the nominees for the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards were announced. The political drama was followed closely by Showtime's "Homeland. " "Game Change," which was based on the 2008 presidential campaign (particularly former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's road to becoming a vice presidential nominee), racked up five nominations, including nods for actors Ed Harris and Julianne Moore. "Homeland," which will wrap its second season Sunday, scored four nominations--maintaining its lock in the major drama categories, with Mandy Patinkin landing a supporting actor in a drama nod after not making a showing last year.

Before Julianne Moore took home that Emmy last month, someone appears to have taken home some prizes of their own from her New York brownstone: $127,000 worth of jewelry reportedly went missing over the summer. A complaint was filed Monday stating that 10 pieces of jewelry, among them bracelets, watches and a necklace, belonging to the "Game Change" actress were taken between June 6 and Aug. 28, when the brownstone was being remodeled. The priciest of the items: a Cartier tennis bracelet valued at $33,000, said the New York Post . PHOTOS: Julianne Moore's career in pictures During the time in question, while 15 to 25 workers had access to the house she shares with director husband Bart Freundlich, Moore was primarily in Toronto filming a "Carrie" remake, according to the New York Times .  The six-bedroom, 1905-vintage brownstone has been listed for sale twice in the last several years, the Times said, most recently for $12.5 million.

Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17) 'Game Change' Where: HBO When: 9 p.m. Saturday

Max Greenfield, who plays "New Girl's" resident Jewish assassin/neurotic ladies man Schmidt, isn't quite convinced his character would categorize a Golden Globe nomination as the ultimate Hanukkah gift. "It would be up there," a hoarse-voiced Greenfield said early Thursday morning. "The real gift would be in the type of tuxedo that is involved or what ladies are in attendance. Also, a high-five from Ed Harris would be the bow on the present. " The 32-year-old actor said he got word of his nomination via a phone call at 5:30 a.m. -- though he had been up much earlier due to an arm-punching daughter who was already up. PHOTOS: Golden Globe nominees But he wouldn't have it any other way.  "It's great.

Cable dramas and network comedies were in the spotlight Wednesday morning as the nominees for the 19 th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards were announced. In the drama category, cable favorites like “Homeland,” “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad” and “Boardwalk Empire” picked up multiple nominations, while network series were all but overlooked. The same was true in the TV movie or miniseries category, where HBO's “Hemingway & Gellhorn” and “Game Change” and History's “Hatfields & McCoys” were honored.