Thursday, October 02, 2008

Apatow and Lunsford

The Hollywood Reporter reports that Judd Apatow will be producing a musical.
Bo Burnham is getting ready to sing for his supper.

The songwriting comedian, who turned 18 in August, is in negotiations with Universal to write and create the music for a comedy that Judd Apatow will produce. Burnham also could star in the project.

The film is being described as a sort of anti-"High School Musical," though it is not a parody.
Bill Murray offers a warning of sorts and time appears to have healed all wounds.
“We didn’t have a lot of special effects in it. There were just a couple. It was just the funny characters in that world, and I like that movie because of it. The first movie had like 60 plate shots. The second movie had like hundreds. Those guys got their hands on the script early, and it was GONE. It went away. It was hard to wrangle because it was tied all around the effects without the story or the characters coming first. So, they are hard movies to write, and Dan really caught it with that first one.”
Larry Sabato notes that Bruce Lunsford may just pull off the upset.
Kentucky: As we have said since last December, one or more seemingly 'safe' Senate seats may become competitive late in the game. How do we know? It almost always happens. And we have our first entry in this October category: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the GOP minority leader in the Senate. Two recent surveys have shown his contest with multimillionaire Bruce Lunsford to be very close, tied outright or within the margin of error. McConnell is also below 50%, a dangerous zone for an incumbent. Almost no one thought this contest would be close. Just two weeks ago, I was told by a high-ranking Kentucky Democratic officeholder that Lunsford hadn't taken hold and McConnell was sure to be reelected. So what has changed? The rotten national environment for Republicans and the financial meltdown on Wall Street have boomeranged especially hard on a legislative leader like McConnell. Kentucky is a conservative state, but it has a populist streak in times like this. The other GOP senator from the Bluegrass State, Jim Bunning, has won extremely tight victories in his two previous elections. Even McConnell has rarely been overwhelmingly popular in the state. Since his first close election in 1984 against a Democratic incumbent (courtesy of the Reagan reelection landslide), he has had only one truly easy race, in 2002 when he won by close to two-to-one against weak opposition. McConnell's usual level of voter support has hovered around 55 percent.

Can Lunsford pull off the upset of the 2008 Senate cycle? It is now within the realm of possibility, though we are not yet ready to declare McConnell on his way out. To the contrary, the incumbent is a wily politician who has raised the many millions he needs to compete fully against a wealthy opponent. McConnell knows how to win tough contests, and he can slug it out with the best of them on the ground for those critical few votes that can make the difference. Finally, his old party adversary John McCain--with whom he has clashed repeatedly over campaign finance reform--will win Kentucky handily, ironically providing a few yards of coattail to McConnell.
If current polling trends hold, we'll move this to TOSS UP. For now, though, McConnell's impressive electoral record merits a rating of LEANS REPUBLICAN.
Today marks one year until the IOC announces the host city of the 2016 Olympics.

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