TIME's movie critic (and TV whiz in his own right) Richard Corliss sent along this e-mail about last night's Mad Men, which I'd noted played up the fascination/leeriness of Americans for Europeans in the early '60s:

The touchstone was LA DOLCE VITA, Fellini's divine-decadence drama that sold Americans on the notion of Europe as a Tussauds gallery of sybarites who have nothing to do and thus will do Anything. Other European films released here in '62 (LA NOTTE, LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD) buttressed this fantasy; Pauline Kael wrote a famous piece called "The Come-Dressed-As-The-Sick-Soul-of-Europe Parties." LA DOLCE VITA was a huge hit in the U.S. in 1961-62 (most people saw it in a dubbed version) and still, in real dollars, the highest-grossing foreign-language film of all time.

Especially noteworthy, considering that we know Don Draper has been playing hooky to take in foreign films. Apparently he found the real thing alluring, yet creepy.

Those of you not in the mood for action vehicles for Christian Slater (that are also action vehicles for actual vehicles), and who have not gotten enough politics on TV already, might want to check out The Return of the War Room on Sundance tonight. A sequel to the renowned documentary about the rapid-response team that helped elect Bill Clinton in 1992, this 90-minute film from Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker takes a look at how campaigns, and the way they are fought in the media, have changed in 16 years.

Or at least it tries to. Relying heavily on interviews with and retrospectives of the Clintonians (and their rivals) from the original War Room—George Stephanopoulos, James Carville, Dee Dee Myers, etc.—the new doc spends a lot of time walking down Memory Lane. If you're interested in more behind-the-scenes about how Clinton came back in the New Hampshire primary or how Carville and Mary Matalin became an item, the film will not disappoint. Personally, I wish it had spent more time on its other aim, which is to show how '92-style war rooms have changed—and maybe even been eclipsed—in the Internet era.

Still, even if the references to campaigning today (and the current campaign) are tantalyzing and short, some are fascinating. For instance, whether you think focus-group master Frank Luntz is a genius or the devil incarnate—or both—he gets off some great observations about how audiences and voters respond to nonverbal cues when candidates speak.

We've heard a lot in the debates about how, in '92, Bush sealed his fate when he looked at his watch, but Luntz recalls what was to him a more decisive moment: when Clinton approached a woman who had asked a question about the economy and answered her empathetically. What sold people, Luntz says, was not so much Clinton's answer as the woman's response: she silently nodded as he spoke, providing a moment of affirmation that gave voters at home the OK to support Clinton.

Likewise, he says, he was confounded doing a recent focus group, during an Obama speech, to find that his subjects were turning their dials all the way up to positive when Obama was not speaking. The reason: the Obama campaign made sure to seat enthusiastic supporters behind him. His audience seemed so happy, the dial group said, that it made them happy too.

These insights may not always be pretty, but if you're a politics junkie and want a break from cable news, this War Room is worth a return.

NBC Photo: Mitchell Haaseth

NBC's drama / car commercial My Own Worst Enemy, starring Christian Slater, debuts tonight. Pro: The pilot was much better than I expected it would be. Con: I expected it would stink.

Deadlines on a couple non-review pieces kept me from doing a full-fledged review, so I hope to come back to this after a couple episodes once we know better what it is you were dealing with. If you read TV blogs, you probably know the premise: Slater plays Henry, a mild-mannered family man, who gradually comes to discover that he is also Edward, a deadly, amoral secret agent. His other personality has, for years, been having adventures while Henry has had blank spells; now, he's gradually becoming aware that his mind has been partitioned like a hard drive by the government, and his life—lives—is/are in danger as a result.

A few implausibilities here, as you might guess, and if you don't expect or care that the show resolves them, you may find the first hour a reasonably decent time. For instance: why even bother creating—apparently at some trouble and expense—a dual Edward/Henry, unless it was the work of a secret government whose job is to manufacture far-fetched TV premises? For another instance: how could anyone possibly not have noticed that Henry—again, a husband with kids—repeatedly goes missing? (There are some half-hearted explanations involving business trips and the fact that he doesn't sleep.)

Those are problems I can get past. I mean, I watched every season of Alias. But unlike in Alias, there is so far, no compelling throughline of a story to make me eager to come back. The show is all premise, no plot. Second—as I'd worried earlier—Slater is not the actor to pull off the transition between two radically different selves. He's believable enough as Edward, but as Henry—well, Slater does mannered better than mild-mannered.

On the bright side, the pilot is pretty well-paced and promises interesting interplay in the future between Henry and Edward (who communicates via videotape). But it'll have to generate a more interesting narrative to make me a weekly viewer. Is either half of you interested in watching? Are you of two minds?

AMC

SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, try some exotic food—it's a pepper stuffed with cheese!—and watch last night's Mad Men.

(more...)

USA Network Photo: Isabella Vosmikova

Friday night, USA's The Starter Wife graduated from miniseries to full-fledged series. I neglected to point you to my brief review from the last print TIME, but better—or at least no worse—late than never:

At last, a Gossip Girl for the old people! Reprising her role from the smash miniseries, Debra Messing is author and recent divorcee Molly Kagan, trying to keep herself and her daughter afloat in a sea of affluence populated by smarmy L.A. sharks. Predictable but pithy, Wife takes itself no more seriously than the Hollywood-haves it skewers.

Not, in other words, something I'm more likely to spend any more time with than I already have, but successful at its own very limited aims. (Also, Judy Davis, as Molly's cynical friend, is the best thing in the show.) Any fans out there?