Ellen Page and Allison Janney In Netflix’s ‘Talulah,’ Plus the DNC and More TV This Week

Check out our weekly guide to TV this week, and make sure you’re catching the big premieres, crucial episodes and the stuff you won’t admit you watch when no one’s looking.

Last week we got to see the nightmare show that was the Republican National Convention. Now it’s time for the Democrats to descend on Philly for their nominating spectacle, televised nightly this week on various channels. Speakers include Michelle Obama, Senator Bernie Sanders, President Barack Obama, Senator Elizabeth Warren, President Bill Clinton, Senator Cory Booker, Senator Al Franken, LGBTQ rights activist Sarah McBride, Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin, out NBA player Jason Collins, Lena Dunham, Demi Lovato and the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Dontré Hamilton, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown, Hadiya Pendleton and Sandra Bland.

If comedy equals tragedy plus time, I guess enough time has passed for a reboot of zany sketch show MADtv. There’s certainly been enough tragedy. A whole new batch of fresh faces will tackle our turbulent times on The CW starting Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern. Like SNL’s sillier cousin, expect to see caricatures of political figures, pop culture icons and a few new characters. Original cast members like Nicole Sullivan, Will Sasso and Bobby Lee also make appearances over the course of the show’s short first season.

Ellen Page stars in Sundance fave Tallulah, dropping Friday on Netflix. As the titular Tallulah, Page steals a baby to weasel her way into the heart of Allison Janney, the mother of her ex-boyfriend. The indie film, written and directed by Orange Is the New Black writer Sian Heder, also stars Uzo Aduba, Zachary Quinto and Tammy Blanchard.

Get ready to double your recipe for the sweetest, loveliest reality show on television. There are two new episodes of The Great British Baking Show Friday at 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern on PBS. First, the remaining bakers will need to construct a tower of éclairs, then they’ll be baking Victorian treats fit for a queen.

Last night, John Oliver eviscerated the Republican National Convention with his signature sharp style. On Sunday at 11 p.m. Eastern, HBO’s Last Week Tonight will have plenty to say about the Hillary and the dems.

What are you watching this week on TV?

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NV Sen. Pat Spearman Kicks Ass and Takes Names for LGBT People at DNC Convention: WATCH

Out Nevada Senator Pat Spearman made a big splash at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night, ripping Donald Trump and Mike Pence for discriminating against LGBT Americans.

Said Spearman:

“We have heard Donald Trump say that he would protect the LGBTQ community. But he is against marriage equality and has said he is all for overturning it. Donald Trump says that anyone can use any bathroom in Trump Tower but he still supports heinous bathroom bills and he would strip away the rights of transgender Americans. But his worst attack on us was his vice presidential pick, Indiana Governor Mike Pence.”

Added Spearman, prompting boos from the audience:

“Governor Pence signed a law that allows individuals and businesses to deny services to LGBTQ Americans, and he used religion as a weapon to discriminate. As a lesbian, that hurts me. As a person of faith, that offends me. And as a legislator working hard to create jobs, that baffles me.

Watch:

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Gay NBA Player Jason Collins: I Came Out to the Clintons Before I Came Out Publicly

NBA player Jason Collins appeared with his twin brother Jarron at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on Monday evening, and told the crowd that he came out as gay to the Clintons before coming out publicly.

Said Jason:

“My dream was to play in the NBA and to live my authentic life as a proud gay man at the same time. I was able to accomplish both of those goals because of the people who have supported me throughout my life. Before I came out to the world on the cover of Sports Illustrated, I came out privately to the Clinton family. I’ve known their family for almost 20 years. I knew that they would accept me for who I was and that they would help pave a path for others to do the same. I am forever grateful for their words of wisdom back then and for their unconditional support. They knew that my sexual orientation made no difference in my ability to play basketball. Just as someone’s gender makes no difference in his or HER ability to lead our nation.”

Added Collins:

“Hillary has defended the LGBT community for years…from co-sponsoring the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act to helping pass the first-ever UN resolution on LGBT human rights to making sure transgender individual’s passports can reflect their true gender…this November we must elect Hillary Clinton.”

Watch:

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Demi Lovato Says She’s Living with Mental Illness, Gets DNC to Feet with ‘Confident’

Demi Lovato turned up the star power as primetime coverage of the Democratic National Convention opened with a rousing performance of her hit single “Confident” after telling the convention hall that she lives with mental illness and stressing the importance of getting treatment.

“Like millions of Americans, I’m living with mental illness. But I’m lucky. I have the resources and support to get treatment at a top facility. Unfortunately, too many Americans from all walks of life don’t get help. Either because they fear the stigma, or cannot afford treatment.”

“We can do better,” Lovato added. “I urge every politician to support laws that will provide better access to healthcare and support for everyone.”

Watch:

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Watch a Pulse Survivor Struggle to Move On (Video)

MTV’s True Life series follows four individuals who survived the shooting of a gay nightclub in Orlando.

www.advocate.com/television/2016/7/25/watch-pulse-survivor-struggle-move-video

Who Hacked the DNC? The Links Point to Russia.

The FBI has just announced an investigation into the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails that have overshadowed the just-opened Democratic convention.

But one journalist, Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, has already started his own investigation. And the evidence he’s found points to the Russian government as the likely culprits behind the leak.

“There’s no smoking gun,’’ says Franceschi-Bicchierai. “But everything that’s come out so far points to Russia.”

He cites evidence from CrowdStrike, a security company that found the attackers used the same malware that the Russian government has used.

But after Crowdstrike announced it believed Russia to be behind the hack, something unexpected happened: A group named Guccifer 2.0 claimed responsibility. Guccifer 2.0 claims to be from Romania and acted alone.

Franceschi-Bicchierai is one of the few journalists to have chatted with an individual or individuals claiming to be behind Guccifer 2.0: via Twitter. After their conversations, Franceschi-Bicchierai is all the more convinced that the Russian government is behind the hack. And that Guccifer 2.0 is a persona made up by Russian spies to try to deflect blame and confuse the public.

One jarring inconsistency: Guccifer 2.0 did not really seem to speak Romanian, Franceschi-Bicchierai says. When he asked him questions in Romanian, the hacker responded more slowly and often with poor grammar. Also, at first the English wasn’t very good, but then seemed to improve markedly. It was as if, Franceschi-Bicchierai says, a different group of people took over the account. And, in the original blost post, Guccifer 2.0 used emoticons that are most often used by Russians.

Of course, these are only “breadcrumbs,” says Franceschi-Bicchierai. But they are suggestive.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager said Sunday that Russian hackers might be releasing these emails in order to weaken the Democratic National Committee and help Trump win the election.

Franceschi-Bicchierai does not quite buy that. The timeline does not make sense, because it seems like the first hack could have happened maybe even a full year ago.

But it does seem like, he says, somebody is trying to confuse people.

“In a way, if this is really Russia, they have won, at least for now,” says Franceschi-Bicchierai.

While the Kremlin denies being responsible for the leak, there are well-established financial ties between Trump and Russia.

“[Trump] was here in Moscow to hold a Miss Universe competition and made quite a bit of money off of that, in fact, using Russian sponsors to pony up the money. He’s repeatedly tried to open businesses here, a Trump Tower for Moscow. It never quite worked out for him, but he seems to be pursuing that as well,” says Charles Maynes, a journalist based in Moscow.

And not only does Trump have financial ties to Moscow, but perhaps personal ones as well. Back in December, Vladimir Putin called Trump a “colorful person,” but Trump interpreted the phrase to be he’s so bright that he’s a “genius.”

“He called him a yarki chelovek, which means a colorful person. It means that he’s a guy that you take notice of, but not a lot more than that necessarily. I think Trump ran with this as a genuine compliment,” Mayes explains.

While the Russian president has not yet actually outwardly complimented the Republican nominee, Trump’s questioning of defending NATO allies struck a chord.

“From the Russian side, at least from the Kremlin political side, they’re very against NATO expansion. They’re interested in encouraging NATO’s disintegration in whatever means that they can,” Maynes says.

“In the same way that the Russians don’t overtly promote Brexit, there was a sense of celebration that a splintering in the Western alliance is a good thing for Russia. I think in that same way that if Mr. Trump did come to the White House, this sort of splintering of the NATO allies would be a good thing for Russia as well.”

In many ways, Maynes says “Russians look at this and it looks very familiar to them.”

“There’s a person on the political scene here for many years, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is a nationalist and a member of the Duma — part of the so called official opposition, which isn’t really an opposition at all — he embodies some of these same traits: A combination of a circus entertainer and politician and scandalist all at once and invoking a little bit of nationalism as well.

“I think, for Russians, they look at Mr. Trump more as a version of Zhirinovsky, just one who actually has a chance at the White House.”

This article first appeared on PRI’s The World.

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Justin Vivian Bond Looks for the American Dream: DNC Kick-Off Report

Day 1 MxVivDNC #DNCinPHL

Woke up this morning in my West Philly Show Biz Safe House , “The Beardquarters”, so named because it’s home to several bearded ladies. After I checked my news feed and discovered the allegations that Putin of all people had leaked the DNC files which caused the downfall of Debbie Wasserman Schultz I got in the shower and started thinking about the “old days” when everything that went wrong in this country was a “pinko, communist plot” used to scare people to the right and make them vote for nut-jobs like Eugene McCarthy, Richard Nixon and Pat Buchanan who were going to sweep all the corrupt democrats out of office for daring to create programs like social security and Medicaid–you know, the things they blame for having destroyed the fabric of this country. Time to tear up the social contract and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

After Trump’s speech last week slamming NATO no one should need to question why Putin would want to disrupt the Democratic Convention. If Trump wins Putin will basically get a pass to take the Baltics or anyplace else he’d like. Who’s gonna stop him?

We’re no longer keeping old promises if they cost us money. With Trump as president, Brexit architect Boris Johnson as the new British Foreign Secretary, and ol’ Vladimir Putin calling the shots it would be the blonde leading the blonde all in lockstep to a new world order of casinos, oil wells and very tall buildings glued together with LAW AND ORDER. Bang! Bang!

Then I stepped out of the shower.

After some coffee I put on my lipstick and headed to City Hall to see what the Bernie people had to say about it. Mostly saw nice people carrying signs about legalizing weed, the one percent, Bernie or Bust, not much really–but all in good spirit!

It’s hot as hell and last week I received a press release about an “American Dream” ice sculpture that was supposed to be going up in Liberty Park. ART! I like art and ice so I made my way past all the huge color posters of aborted fetuses to hopefully cool off and enjoy the poetic melting of the American Dream during a heat wave.

They announced the sculpture would be up at 1pm.  I’ve been sitting in The Independence Visitors Center for over an hour and all I see is a platform with a bunch of cold water on it. I hope that’s not what we see at the convention tonight.

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