BREAKING: ‘Lincoln’ Invited To Screen To U.S. Senate By Majority Leader Harry Reid
UPDATE 5:36 PM: I’m now told that, within the hour, the screening date just moved to December 19th.
BREAKING… EXCLUSIVE: I’ve just learned that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has invited Steven Spielberg to screen Lincoln on December 19th 12th. But what’s different about this invitation is that Reid is offering to provide the U.S. Senate to Spielberg as the theatre. Reid’s invite only recently went out — and I’m told Spielberg will accept for his movie to play in the historic setting. No one is yet sure if this has ever been done by a movie before. (Of course, movies play at the White house all the time, and Lincoln is no exception: it screened November 15th for President Obama, Spielberg, cast and crew members at the executive mansion.) The film’s release was delayed until after the 2012 Election — but DreamWorks still scheduled a special extended 2-minute TV ad during the commercial break right after the first Presidential Debate. (Watch it here.) I’m told Reid, a Democrat, is a huge fan of the biopic about the most famous Republican president. The movie is playing well all across the country, primarily for adult audiences, but in red states as well as blue states. Politicos and pundits on both sides of the aisle have praised the film, which is Oscar-touted. Now it remains to be seen if Reid’s invite will be politicized — and if the attendance during this lame duck session will be bipartisan. “The irony is that what’s happening with the fiscal cliff isn’t that different from what’s going on in the movie,” one of the film’s insiders reacts to me about the Senate invitation. “Everything is in a countdown mode.” The film was also financed by Participant Media and is distributed by Disney (domestic) and Fox (international).
Related: Is A New Presidential Race Gearing Up For Oscars?
Meanwhile, i’m told that back in 1990 Harvey and Bob Weinstein’s Miramax developed the very first disability strategic marketing campaign and screened My Left Foot (which also starred Daniel Day-Lewis, who won the Best Actor Oscar for that role and is buzzed again) in the Hart Senate Office Building Room 216 to coincide with pending passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Sens Kennedy, Harkin, Simon, Dole, Hatch, Durenberger, and Reps Gephardt, Hoyer, Owens, Gingrich issued the invite.
“it remains to be seen if Reid’s invite will be politicized”
Oh, for heaven’s sake!
I only would support this if they invite Joan Baez to start the evening with her cover of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
This is pretty cool and worth more than any award.
NOT COOL! It is a clear partisan effort by Democrats to claim Abraham Lincoln and his Presidency (one of the few respectable presidencies) for THEIR party when it is well-known that Lincoln was Republican.
Chill out. You yourself just said Lincoln was a well-known Republican. No one is magically re-writing history.
Jesus, relax. No one is trying to claim anything. Lincoln may have been a Republican, but his party no longer exists the way it was back then. Now it’s full of racists, nut jobs and people who hate women. Also, in an additional bit of irony, it was actually Republicans who were the early supporters of Planned Parenthood. It’s unbelievable how much the party has changed since then o how much it’s changed just in the last 15 years. Even Ronald Reagan would be considered a commie by today’s standards. Lincoln? Forget about it. He worked to free the slaves and we all know how much today’s Republicans love black people.
Wow! What an ignorant response.
FYI: Lincoln was a modern day racist by definition. So, you do not know your history. Just because he didn’t approve of slavery, didn’t mean he didn’t feel Blacks were inferior. He felt the same way as Jefferson. They are “different” than whites. Inferior. Know your history.
So get off your liberal soapbox about republicans all are republicans.
BTW: Slick willy’s mentor (Gov. of Arkansas) was a member of the KKK. Clinton called him a “true patriot” “a great American” West Virginia late senator KKK Robert Bryd in the late 90′s said “I dont have a problem with them ni–ers” He got a pass.
It’s also worth noting, Clinton didn’t put any african americans in the highest branch of government. Bush Sr. and Bush W did. Sec State. Nation Sec. Advisor, etc…
Grow up.
Republican’s broke the physical bonds of slavery, just for the Democrats to but them back in bondage with entitlements.
Comments like that are why the Republican Party does so well with minority voters.
Way to call the way it is, Mike! Right on, brother!
The Repugnant party of today has gone off the ideological cliff. If “intelligent,” relatively well-meaning and successful Republican presidents of the past — like Lincoln, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan — were alive today they would be BRANDED as “lefty sympathizers” for daring to reach the “bipartisan agreements” they were sometimes able to reach with much more COOPERATIVE Democrats in the Congress. I suspect all three of those presidents would be bolting for the Democratic party like Arlen Spector and others have done more recently.
What’s sad is that Repugnants/Far Right Teabaggers of today try to “relate” to what Lincoln and his founding of the party stood for (preserving the union and civil rights for African Americans) have actually so far veered and REVERSED on what may have once made the Republicans a viable, SANE party.
Now, it’s Boehner’s crying and screaming spells, O’Connell’s outright obstructionism, Rush Limbaugh calling a college-age woman (calling for contraceptive protections and women’s rights) a “slut,” a former Missouri Repug senator suggest women do not suffer from rape and “self-produce a biological spermicide,” and Glenn Beck calling President Obama a “racist” against whites.
It’s all lowest-common-denominator, knuckle-dragging vitriol from the Far Right extremists and that’s why the Republicans lost the White House and seats in the Senate again in 2012. They’re just ape-sh#t nuts is all I can think!
Maybe they just want to watch the movie.
they can lay their heads on their desks if they get sleepy.
thank you for making me laugh out loud.
Yeah, the modern-day “elected” (actually “bought-off”) members of the Senate (and House, for that matter!) need a serious visual reminder and tutorial of what an ethical and effective politician can accomplish in Washington! ;-D
Glad to know Reid is a Democrat. LOL
This is great news! Actually, this is not the first movie to be shown in Congress and perhaps there are others.
On February 7, 1990, for Miramax, we developed the very first disability strategic marketing campaign and screened MY LEFT FOOT in the Hart Senate Office Building Room 216 to coincide with pending passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Senators Kennedy, Harkin, Simon, Dole, Hatch and Durenberger, and Congressmen Gephardt, Hoyer, Owens and Gingrich and Miramax requested presence of guests on the formal invitation. That screening included open captions and live audio descriptions for blind/low vision guests and proved the power of film to entertain and shatter myths about people with disabilities (as THE SESSIONS beautifully does), and that the ADA is a dynamic marketing opportunity with this untapped market segment of $220 billion (larger than the coveted teen market).
Wish there was that kind of bipartisan support for yesterday’s vote on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
I think that Nikki meant that this is the first time that a movie will be screened ON the Senator floor.
Too bad the movie leaves out Lincoln’s attempt at jailing the sitting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, his closing down of Northern newspapers that dared to criticize him, his concentration camps that killed thousands, and so on. Why not just screen Twilight: Breaking Dawn instead? Just about as much fiction.
Concentration camps? False.
Are you from the south?
Beautifully said. I too think the history of Lincoln and the Civil War for that matter have been altered massively.
We should start an initiative to seek and find all the missing books taken from libraries that don’t portray history as the hidden hand would have it and begin an online library.
Yeah, yeah…maybe then the South will have won the war and slavery would resume.
I hope you understand that those accusations against Lincoln have been rehashed many times throughout the years and are all highly debatable. And even if they are all entirely true, I hardly think they undermine the Emancipation Proclamation and his tenacity in winning a war that his predecessors avoided. Or do you prefer to just rewrite history with an anti-American slant, by telling people that down is up and up is down?
(And you forgot to mention that he was possibly gay)
He’s correct. Read Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo’s “The Real Lincoln” for a good overview. Lincoln was no saint. In fact he was a brutal tyrant who destroyed the republic of the Founders.
-Mike
Columbus, OH
Harry Reid hasn’t been told that Lincoln is not an action adventure movie. Not sure Harry can stay awake for two hours non stop. Not to worry…Harry has staffers.
I researched Lincoln very thoroughly for my book (“Jacob’s Pal). I was surprised but Lincoln talked very salty and enjoyed telling off-color jokes to the men around him. He was no prude.
Speilberg will never get another dime of my money. He adds vulgarity where is isn’t historical or appropriate.
Specifics?
The fact that Mr. Lincoln was very vulgar, profane and obscene, if such is actually in the film, would be one of the few historically accurate parts of the film. Lincoln was known among his family, friends and acquaintances as a man of lewd and dirty jokes, among the butts of which were abolitionists.
I have a feeling Mr. Spielberg will be just fine without your “Dimes.”
Will this be the first time the F-bomb is dropped in the chamber since Dick Chaney?