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“Mad Men” recapped via Facebook updates

Wed, 01 May 2013 21:15:00 +0000

If you are behind on the current season of "Mad Men," you could read Heather Havrilesky's recaps to understand how the ad execs at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce are faring in 1968.

But if you're really short on time, you should check out these amusing Facebook recaps, via HappyPlace.com.

Here are a few from season 6:

Head over to HappyPlace.com for more.

Must-see morning clip: Jon Hamm announces marriage to Aasif Mandvi

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:30:00 +0000

"Mad Men" actor Jon Hamm talked season six on last night's "Daily Show," in which "Freaks and Geeks" star Linda Cardellini guest-stars as his new love interest. Cardellini's, aka Lindsay Weir's, presence on set was kept under wraps to prevent the Internet from exploding before the episode aired. "I remember her as a junior, senior in high school," said Jon Stewart. "Because of DVR I remember from, like, 6 months ago. And then you turn it on and you're like, 'Did she travel to space? How did she age ten years?' "

Hamm also plugged his upcoming movie with "Daily Show" correspondent Aasif Mandvi, "Million Dollar Arm," set in India, which serves as a convenient backdrop for their upcoming marriage.

Wait, did that Broadway Joe Namath special really happen?

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:45:00 +0000

Sunday’s episode of AMC’s “Mad Men” threw a mixture of accurate historical details into its skillfully written storylines, and viewers -- as usual -- made sport out of separating the fact from the fiction. One subplot centering on the real-life football legend Joe Namath spurred more than its share of Twitter-fueled speculation.

“Mad Men” recap: The prestige that comes with ketchup

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:08:00 +0000

In "To Have and to Hold," we enter Dante's third circle of Hell, Gluttony. This is where we should find lots of characters overindulging in food and drink and other addictions — like smoking cigarettes, making out at hip clubs, and swinging (or at least talking about it). Now, granted, I don't see anyone getting flayed and tortured by a three-headed monster, and I felt pretty sure there would at least be a "stinking slush" falling from the sky. But Don and Stan did smoke a joint and look at giant pictures of hamburgers and hot dogs for a few hours, didn't they? (OK, fine. If next week isn't all about Greed with a capital G, I'll leave the circles of hell behind. Here's hoping we make it all the way down to Violence, Fraud, and Treachery!)

After the premiere's death-and-paradise fixation, and last week's repeated guilt 'n' betrayal theme, I was starting to worry that every single episode of the sixth season of "Mad Men" would serve up Big, Obvious Themes and Giant, Flashing Symbols. As one of a giant herd of writers who enjoys unpacking these symbols, I don't want to bite the hand that feeds. But there is that point when the subtext upstages the actual text to such an extent that it's hard to focus on the emotional center of a given scene. For example, the second you see Joan's friend, Kate, putting makeup on Joan's mom, Gail, you know you're about to be swept away on a tide of double meanings. "Mary Kay always says it's really all about making yourself feel better," Kate tells her. "And that always starts with you doing something for you." That's the justification of the Glutton, anyway.

“Mad Men” recap: If you admire me, hire me

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:40:00 +0000

Oh dear. It seems we've left Limbo, the first circle of hell in "Dante's Inferno," and we've landed in the second circle, Lust, where souls ruled by sexual desire are tortured. Truly, there's more than enough lust, betrayal and guilt in this episode to keep those hell fires burning indefinitely.

A tone of shameless betrayal holds true throughout the whole episode. We'll start with the most expected betrayer, Don, who rides the elevator past the Rosens' floor, only to see Sylvia and Arnold arguing about money. Sylvia looks vaguely absurd in her hat and housecoat, but she still shamelessly locks eyes with Don while she's kissing her husband goodbye. Minutes later, Don boldly pretends to have forgotten his cigarettes so he can return to the Rosens' apartment for some early-morning action. (Remember how Don's "uncle" Mac later tells Don he's the rooster who runs the hen house and "brings on the day"?)

John Slattery on joking at the doctor’s office

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:12:00 +0000

Roger Sterling was all over last night's "Mad Men" premiere: in analysis, at his mother's funeral, hiding out on a bed covered in fur coats, sobbing in his office, uttering some of the episode's best lines. ("This is my funeral!" is a pretty amazing thing to say at someone else's funeral, even if it is your mother's and you kind of have a point.) In an episode unduly focused on change and death— how do we change? Can we do it some way other than dying? — Don dealt with these heady issues the way he usually deals with things — tortured and silent— and Roger dealt with these heady issues the way he usually deals with things — arch, dry, ultimately emotional. John Slattery, who plays Roger, spoke with me about the first episode, directing and joking at the doctor's office.

Roger seems like he might be kind of adaptable, better suited to a new world, but there’s this problem: He’s just getting older.

“Mad Men” recap: A veteran in paradise

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:30:00 +0000

WARNING: Don't read this recap if you haven't watched the 6th season premiere of "Mad Men."

"People will do anything to alleviate their anxiety." – Dr. Arnold Rosen

Whenever a wise and heroic character appears on "Mad Men," you know that Don will find some way to destroy him. That's how Don alleviates his anxiety, after all – by crushing all truth and beauty to dust under his shiny black wingtips. So when Dr. Rosen, Don Draper's charming new friend and neighbor, explains Don to himself right before skiing off through the snow to save someone's life, it's obvious that Don's not going to stand for it.

Enter Silvia Rosen, who's chosen a rather literal interpretation of her husband's instructions to "keep it in the building." Don's cheating again – no surprise there. But thanks to show creator Matthew Weiner's knack for sly storytelling and creepy omens, Don's infidelity lands like a baseball bat to the gut. If Weiner opened the episode with the doorman's heart attack, then showed us how Don and the surgeon's wife met and began flirting, not only would that feel too familiar to offer as much dramatic impact, but it would obscure the real object of Don's strong feelings: Dr. Rosen. Ever the paragon of imperialist greed, longing and envy, Don can't handle sharing oxygen with a true hero. This is Don's life-long undoing: He's all hero on the outside, and fraudulent, covetous worm on the inside.

Kartheiser: “I’ve never been recognized”

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 19:00:00 +0000

Vincent Kartheiser, who plays the smarmy Pete Campbell on "Mad Men," was in quite a mood a few Saturdays ago. As he told Vulture, "I wasn’t in a good mood this morning. I was so depressed. Because it’s fucking Saturday and I’ve worked every day this week," and there he was working again, talking to journalist after journalist about the new season of "Mad Men," which begins tonight. Katheiser's displeasure was apparent when I got on the phone with him: I was greeted by the least energetic, most monotone "Hello" I've ever heard.

But Kartheiser warmed up a bit from there as he spoke about the new season, Pete's happiness and his hairline — just don't get him started about the Emmys.

Do you feel like Pete could ever just be happy?

Well, I think he’s had the revelation of having a malcontent personality disorder, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he can change it. I don’t know if he can ever be content. I don’t think that’s really in his genetic makeup, and I think that’s what he realized last year. Just realizing it isn’t going to push him toward happiness. I don’t think that’s the natural progression of things. I think he has a lot of revelations, but very few actual changes.

Must do’s: What we like this week

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 14:00:00 +0000

BOOKS

Laura Miller was impressed by Kate Atkinson's "Life After Life," in which protagonist Ursula Todd "lives any number of lives in the course of the book," à la Bill Murray in "Groundhog Day":

As a result, “Life After Life” runs through several courses of Ursula’s story until each comes to its terminus, then the novel starts over with a different one. Perhaps this sounds monotonous, like some hellish video game in which you’ve got to repeat a level again and again to make it to the next. That’s not the case. “Life After Life” is a hypnotic dance of causality and chance, in which Ursula makes genuine progress. We see how a meek Ursula’s life plays out when one of her boorish older brother’s friends casually rapes her in the back stairway, and then we get the version in which she’s seized with a powerful urge to clock him the minute he gets fresh. Each iteration shows her to be more self-possessed, more in charge of her own life (as the cliché goes) — but that doesn’t necessarily lead to a “better” outcome. Meanwhile, Ursula moves toward that inevitable time-traveler imperative, the one that gave its name to a “Doctor Who” episode: “Let’s Kill Hitler.”

“Mad Men” returns on Sunday

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 04:43:00 +0000

The award-winning series "Mad Men" returns this Sunday.

Can Don Draper survive the ’60s?

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 23:04:00 +0000

In an interview best remembered for being the one in which he said he had no working toilet, Vincent Kartheiser, "Mad Men’s" unsatisfiable Pete Campbell, described “Mad Men” as “a portrait of white men doing their stuff, just as their power is coming under threat.” Through five seasons the threat to the white guys of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce has largely been existential. Don Draper’s agency may have a Jewish copywriter, an African-American secretary and a female partner (who prostituted her way to the top), he may have a wife and protégé with their own desires and ambitions, his historical moment may be exceedingly ungenerous to adults, but his worst enemy, the most potent underminer of his happiness, has been himself, his past, his hang-ups, his habits, his mortality. The world is changing, but then the world is always changing. Can he?

Mean Mad Men Tumblr shows that admen are all mean girls at heart

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:35:00 +0000

The Internet loves a good Tumblr mashup. Taylor Pearce has delivered us another one, pairing quotes from the Tina Fey movie "Mean Girls" with a show that has almost nothing similar, "Mad Men."

Pearce explains on the Burn Book of the Tumblr, Mean Mad Men:

After seeing Mean Girls, Girl World was forever changed: consoling someone when they were sick was replaced with “boo you whore,” fabulous was switched with “fetch,” and girls grabbed their boobs when there was a “30% chance it’s already raining.”

Then AMC decided to grace the earth with Mad Men and suddenly I found myself wondering WWJD- “What would Joan do?,” questioning if it’s ever too early to drink if you’re on Roger time, and daydreaming about whether I would have caught Don’s wandering eye.

In the end, if you’ve ever quoted Mean Girls, or cried during Mad Men*, you’re in the right place.

Credit for all images to Taylor Pearce's Tumblr, Mean Mad Men.

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Jon Hamm: “I wear underwear every day of my life”

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 20:56:00 +0000

On Wednesday's Nerdist podcast, "You Made it Weird with Pete Holmes," during which Holmes gets actors to share their "secret weirdness," "Mad Men" actor Jon Hamm addressed his not-so-secret weirdness: his "Internet Penis Sensation," as Holmes put it.

Of the attention that the press has given Hamm's unusually large genitalia, Hamm said:

"I have friends with five year old boys who don't pay as much attention to their penises as much as the Internet has all of a sudden decided to pay to mine. And it's juvenile and it's ridiculous, but it's the perfect storm of prurience and titillation and page-clicks and this that and the other."

But Hamm squashed rumors that he routinely goes commando, saying, "And it's not like I'm running around with my dick out. They're literally pointing at pictures of my penis in my pants--and underwear, by the way. I wear underwear every day of my life. I've never not worn underwear."

And lo, Jon Hamm's penis just got another headline.

Jon Hamm: Quit joking about my junk!

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:10:00 +0000

Jon Hamm is tired of stories about Jon Hamm's Hamm. In a preview of next month's Rolling Stone profile, the "Mad Men" actor addresses the undue attention that his penis has received from the media. "Most of it's tongue-in-cheek," he told contributing editor Josh Eells. "But it is a little rude. It just speaks to a broader freedom that people feel like they have - a prurience."

The "prurient" media has enjoyed speculating the size of Hamm's penis for several years, egged on by the knowledge that the actor often goes commando under seemingly clingy pants. But after a particularly revealing photo of Hamm and girlfriend Jennifer Westfeldt walking down Madison Avenue went viral last year, Hamm's distinctive bulge became a full-fledged Internet meme. In response to the photo, a "Mad Men" insider told the Huffington Post: “He doesn’t know this, but we used to have to airbrush it out of pics sometimes," adding, “Jon is a big boy but sometimes it can be distracting.”

“Top of the Lake”: Like the best crime series, it’s about much more than crime-solving

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 19:55:00 +0000

In ‘Top of the Lake," Jane Campion’s extraordinary new crime series, beginning tonight on the Sundance Channel, Holly Hunter plays GJ, a plainspoken spiritual guru, tending to a flock of lost middle-aged women — among them, a sex addict, a woman reeling from the loss of her beloved chimpanzee — with minimal spiritual mumbo jumbo, maximum hard truths. She wears her hair long and white, her shirts buttoned up to the collar, looking like an impatient Mexican gangster lost in the New Zealand bush (or as Emily Nussbaum points out in her review of the series, something like Jane Campion). I’m going to channel GJ’s particular harsh bluntness here, because “Top of the Lake,” gorgeous and ambiguous and gripping like a hallucination, deserves it: Watch it. Do it now.

“Mad Men” Season 6 poster gives a nod to the 1960s

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:33:00 +0000

Gearing up for season 6 of AMC's "Mad Men," the series took a note from adman Don Draper and commissioned a poster from famed illustrator Brian Sanders, a nod to the 1960s-era setting of the season.

The New York Times reports on the vision:

"Matthew Weiner, inspired by a childhood memory of lush, painterly illustrations on T.W.A. flight menus, decided to turn back the promotional clock. He pored over commercial illustration books from the 1960s and ’70s and sent images to the show’s marketing team, which couldn’t quite recreate the look he was after.

'Finally,' he said, 'they just looked up the person who had done all these drawings that I really loved, and they said: ‘Hey, we’ve got the guy who did them. And he’s still working. His name is Brian Sanders.’ ”

Model sues “Mad Men” for using her image in opening credits

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 22:00:00 +0000

If you have watched "Mad Men" lately, you might recognize 1960s fashion model Gita Hall, now 79 years old, from the show's opening credits (pictured above, left).

Hall, who does not watch the AMC show, became aware of the image when her granddaughter brought it to her attention. "I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it. It took me back a lot of years," Hall told the New York Post. The photo was taken for Revlon by legendary photographer Richard Avedon.

Hall is now suing the producers over use of the image, who have not paid or asked for permission to use it -- although the suit doesn’t request a specific sum. Kevin Leichter, Hall’s attorney, said, “If this were 1960, Don Draper would’ve paid handsomely to use a photo of Gita."

Matt Weiner: “The end seems very near”

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Good news: "Mad Men" will be back soon. The series' sixth season, its penultimate, will premiere in a little less than three months, with a two-hour episode on Sunday, April 7. With the premiere date in hand, series creator Matt Weiner got on the phone with us to talk about the new season — or rather, since Weiner detests spoilers, to talk around the new season. He spoke with us about his favorite images from last season, budgeting for the Beatles, those Hawaii spoilers, and writing the show with the end in sight.

It starts so soon. That’s exciting!

I’m glad you feel that way. We’re getting ready to go. I’m writing Episode 8, and we’ve got a two-hour premiere. We’re very psyched to be in Season 6, I’m not going to lie. It’s an incredible concept that we’re still in this and still at it, and that it’s anticipated at all is very exciting for us.

I know you’re extremely loath to talk specifics, but last year you talked about how one of the big themes of the season was “when is everything going to get back to normal.” Are there any themes for this season you would be willing to discuss?

Salon’s 2013 Golden Globe Awards liveblog

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

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Blue Glow Awards: The Salon TV Critics’ Poll

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Way before your favorite show was ever recapped -- or you signed an online petition after it was kneecapped -- Salon bet big on TV writing. Beginning with the first piece by Salon founder Joyce Millman and her pioneering Blue Glow column -- on through Carina Chocano, Heather Havrilesky, Matt Zoller-Seitz and Willa Paskin -- sharp thinking and dazzling writing on the most obsessive and obsessing of mediums has been a crucial part of our mix. We're lucky enough to be living in a golden age of TV writing now, so we've canvassed the best in the business to help create a definitive list and awards for the year's best in show. And we're naming it after our own early effort, which beamed an early signal out to a new and enthusiastic audience.