Free and easy: Super Bowl viewing, film screenings and more

Watch New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning face off against the Patriots for free at Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse Sunday. (Marcio Jose Sanchez - AP) Free this week: Watch the Super Bowl at Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse, attend a free film screening at AFI Silver and more.

Monday

Best of INPUT 2011: “Village Without Women”

Each year, public broadcasters submit more than 1,000 programs to INPUT, the International Public Television Screening Conference. On Monday, AFI Silver screens one of the top selections, “Village Without Women,” which chronicles the trials and tribulations of Serbian brothers trying to keep their tiny village from dying.  

Tuesday

Paul Dresher

Not only is Paul Dresher a reknowned composer and musician, but he also makes some of his instruments by hand. He performs at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and discusses how he creates his instruments. 

Wednesday

Live ‘N’ Tronic

Nexgen Music brings together musicians, DJs and producers for a night of music and dancing at U Street Music Hall. Featured artists include TiNiN, DJ sPm, Jahny Aleus and Affectionate Grooves.

Free for age 21 and older, $5 for ages 18-20.

Thursday

Naomi Benaron

Author Naomi Benaron, a teacher at Pima Community College and with the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, reads from her new novel, “Running the Rift,” about a young Rwandan runner caught in the Hutu-Tutsi conflict. The novel recently was awarded the Bellwether Prize for Fiction. 

Friday

Last chance: “Dan Tulk, Lines and Shadows”

Artist Dan Tulk’s work uses everyday objects and inexpensive materials to create sculptural installations that emphasize simplicity and the fragility of nature. An exhibit in memory of the artist — who was killed in an accident last year — closes Friday.

Saturday

Black History Family Day

The National Portrait Gallery hosts an all-out, family-friendly Black History Month bash, complete with performances by the Taratibu Youth Association and local bluesman Warner Williams, as well as tours of the “Black List” exhibit.

Sunday

Super Bowl XLVI

Don’t let the thought of another Super Bowl without any local teams get you down. Head to Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse, where the game will be shown for free on the big screen. Table service makes it easy to toast to victory (or drown your sorrows).

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Quoted: Madonna’s on her Super Bowl burden

(Mike Segar / Reuters)

“I’m going to come in halfway [through] the church experience and I’m going to have to deliver a sermon that’s going to have to be very impactful.”

— Madonna explaining how stupendously high the stakes will be when she performs at the Super Bowl, “the holy of holies in America,” she tells Anderson Cooper on his talk show. “I have 12 minutes to put on the greatest show on earth.” Thank you, ma’am, and godspeed.

View the original article here

Obama laughs at Romney vs. Gingrich Super Bowl in the New Yorker

Longtime New Yorker illustrator Barry Blitt has scored his third hit Obama cover with this week’s magazine: An image of the president giggling at Mitt Romney and Net Gingrich, locked in combat on the Super Bowl gridiron.
(New Yorker)

Blitt’s first famous Obama cover was the controversial image of the president and his wife dressed as a Muslim and a revolutionary, respectively, and doing the “terrorist fist jab.” Blitt also designed a cover of Obama walking on, and then falling into water. Obama reportedly asked for a signed copy of Blitt’s work.

Blitt’s not the first parodist to turn a chuckling Obama on to the GOP primaries. A viral image of a laughing Obama made the rounds after the South Carolina primary.

(Don Slutes) An Arizona man, Don Slutes, took a little liberty with The Washington Post front page, doctoring it with an image of Obama laughing and the headline “Gingrich Wins S.C. Primary.” The fake newspaper cover tricked a few people, including the Detroit News. Slutes said he based the montage on a National Lampoon front page of Richard Nixon laughing beneath a “McGovern wins nomination!” headline.

With the tight race in Florida coming to a head Tuesday night, we’ll have to wait to see who has the last laugh.

View the original article here

‘X Factor’ winner Melanie Amaro’s Super Bowl ad prize has a twist

Melanie Amaro p (Dan Steinberg - AP) Remember how the “X Factor” winner was going to get his or her very own Super Bowl Pepsi Commercial, which, Simon Cowell kept assuring us, was like hitting the mother lode — which his sidekick Paula Abdul seconded, explaining that it is the dream of every artist is to have a Super Bowl ad?

Well, turns out that “X Factor” winner Melanie Amaro will not technically get her very own Super Bowl ad.

She’s sharing it with Elton John. He will play a king in a rock-fantasy version of medieval times and, if the video tease is any indication, Amaro will play some kind of buxom lass who gets to sing Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” in front of the Royal Court of Rock.

View the original article here

Super Bowl ads 2012: The Coca-Cola polar bears are back

Coca-Cola’s cute, cuddly, caffeine-crazed polar bears will make their triumphant return to the smallscreen in new commercials to be aired during Super Bowl XLVI.

Nothing parches the palate quite like a ferocious endangered carnivore in a red scarf dancing around a polar ice cap. And nothing quenches a thirst quite like a jaw-dropping catch — followed by an ice-cold Coke.

It’s a wonder Coca-Cola waited this long to bring the bears back for the greatest soft drink reception in Super Bowl commercial history.

Ladies and gentlemen, ‘The Catch.’

And Coca-Cola’s return to the North Pole doesn’t stop there. The Coke bears are hosting their own Super Bowl viewing party which will be aired live during the game at CokePolarBowl.com. It’s all part of a grand plan to take advantage of the burgeoning social media industry and its role on the biggest sports television event of the year in the U.S.

“The trick is to be everywhere consumers are,” Pio Schunker, Coke North America head of integrated marketing platforms and content, told USA Today.

With a 30-second during NBC’s broadcast going for a rate of $3.5 million, trying to build hype on Facebook and Twitter makes sense.

As the big game nears and the anticipation continues to build for a rematch between Tom Brady’s New England Patriots and Eli Manning’s New York Giants, we’ll be giving you sneak peaks at the ads you will see during the game. Check a playlists of ads from this year and last year’s best efforts — including Volkswagon’s Lil’ Darth Vader classic — with our video playlist  here .

How will this year’s lineup stack up to year’s past? And which companies will hit the mark?

More Super Bowl coverage from Washington Post Sports:

Super Bowl ads 2012: GM’s ‘Chevy Happy Grad’

Super Bowl ads 2012: John Stamos does Dannon Oikos

Giants, Patriots prepare for rematch of memorable Super Bowl XLII

Early Lead: Who will win Super Bowl XLVI?

Cultural zeitgeist, scored by Super Bowl commercials

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Stephen Colbert, Herman Cain turn spotlight on super PACs in South Carolina

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Stephen Colbert, Herman Cain turn spotlight on super PACs in South CarolinaView Photo Gallery — ?Comedian Stephen Colbert is asking South Carolinians to vote for the former GOP contender because it was too late for Colbert to get his name on the primary ballot.

Text SizePrintE-mailReprints By Melinda Henneberger,

Charleston, S.C. — Not everyone hooting Herman Cain at the Stephen Colbert rally here Friday was laughing with him. But he didn’t mind being the butt of jokes, he said, if only Americans could learn how to take one. His message? “As I said in one of the debates, America needs to lighten up.”

Colbert’s message, on the other hand, was as serious as its delivery was lighthearted. Politicians in both parties promise to bring Americans together, but Colbert actually does, through comedy. And this rally on the campus of the College of Charleston, the day before the state’s presidential primary, was an extended riff on the serious subject of money in politics.

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Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain broke out in song during a rally with Stephen Colbert at the College of Charleston. He also quoted “Pokemon.” (Jan. 20)

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Debate fatigue strikes on GOP trailThe Fix: S.C. debate’s winners and losersFact Checker: 15 dubious statementsRomney campaign looks to consolidate support of GOP establishmentSOPA, PIPA votes delayedSupreme Court sides with Texas on redistrictingPolarized in South Carolina House Republicans hold subdued retreat

With Spanish moss framing the backdrop of a campus that not only looks like an Old South movie set but has served as one many times, the Comedy Central host bounded onstage, sang “This Little Light of Mine,” with a gospel choir as backup, then gave a history lesson.

Calling himself the “Martin Luther King of corporation civil rights,” Colbert said that in a time maybe not everyone in the audience could remember — two years ago — corporations were sadly limited in the amount of money they could pour into political campaigns.

But that changed, he said, when “five courageous justices” on the Supreme Court ruled in the 2010 Citizens United decision that “corporations are people,” that people are entitled to free speech, that free speech equals money and that corporations should thus be entitled to dump as much money as they like into the political water table, provided they don’t coordinate with the campaigns they’re funding.

It’s the super PACs that are funding the flood of negative ads that the candidates all say they hate, even though the Citizens United decision was widely praised by Republicans.

Then Colbert asked the crowd, which included people of all ages and political persuasions, to send a message about super PACs by voting for Cain, who is still on the ballot here, though he suspended his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. And, somehow, both Republicans and Democrats were charmed.

Joe Wright, a college sophomore and a Republican who said he was torn over whether to support Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney, said that while super PACs “are not a good thing,” the main point of the rally, for him, was that “Colbert makes the campaign a little lighter” and less nasty.

“I love that he’s making such a mockery of Republican politics and the super PACs,” said Cookie Washington, a Democrat who grew up in the District but has lived here for 25 years. “But this is South Carolina, so I’m not 100 percent sure people know it’s satire.”

Eleven-year-old Avi Goldschmidt, whose mother had driven him here from their home in Myrtle Beach, was not in that camp: “I like the way he’s pretending to be a Republican and is really a Democrat,” he said. (“He’s in the gifted and talented” program at school, said his mother, Natasha, who said she saw his day off from class as a “social studies field trip.”)

The event — dubbed the “Rock Me Like a Herman Cain South Cain-olina Primary” — began with a gospel rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” with Colbert harmonizing, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and the crowd shouting, “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

Continued12Next Page

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Stephen Colbert Super PAC ad attacks...Stephen Colbert (Video)

"Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" (Kris Connor - GETTY IMAGES) Last week, when Stephen Colbert announced he was turning over his Super PAC to Jon Stewart in order to form an exploratory committee about running for president of the United States of South Carolina , his lawyer made it very clear that Colbert could not coordinate with his Super PAC.

And to prove how much he’s listening to those instructions, the Super PAC’s latest ad attacks...Colbert himself.

“Come on. Why is the T in his name silent? What else is he silent about? Letting murderers out of jail?” sneers the ad, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.

Anyway, the ad also urges people to vote for Herman Cain. In case you missed it, Colbert is holding a rally in South Carolina a day before the state’s primary featuring Cain as a special guest.

Colbert promises that the rally — called “The Rock Me Like a Herman Cain: South Cain-olina Primary Rally” — will be even better than his “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear”in Washington last October, if only for the absence of Jon Stewart.

Related reading:

The Fix: The Stephen Colbert effect

Run, Stephen Colbert, Run!

Colbert and the Super PACs: The men who stare at votes

View the original article here

Super PACs alter the dynamics of fundraising

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Super PACs alter the dynamics of fundraisingText SizePrintE-mailReprints By T.W. Farnam,

Well-established candidates have always had the edge in fundraising, but under the new rules governing money in politics, it looks as if the rich are just getting richer.

The vast majority of the $14 million in spending from “super PACs,” a new type of political group, has been spent on behalf of three candidates: Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman Jr., federal records show. Those are the same three candidates already most reliant on money from large donors.

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Super PACS alter the dynamics of fund-raisingIn primary fights, longer is often better than shorterRomney says he feared the pink slip

“It’s just proven to be a vehicle for getting around contribution limits,” said Michael Malbin, a scholar at the Campaign Finance Institute, which advocates for regulations encouraging small donors. “It’s made for people who’ve already maxed out.”

Two years after the Supreme Court decided the landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, it is becoming clear that the super PACs created under the new rules will act as a counterweight to a rise in online grass-roots fundraising. The online efforts, which tend to attract small donations, have been driving unconventional contenders in the GOP field, including Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.). (Bachmann dropped out of the race last week after a sixth-place finish in Iowa.)

By contrast, super PACs, because they can pull in donations well above the $2,500 limit on donations to campaigns, are boosting establishment candidates who already rely on rich donors.

The Citizens United decision created a cascade of lower-court rulings, allowing for the creation of super PACs that can accept huge donations from individuals and corporations. Several of the groups active in this year’s race have already accepted many donations over $1 million from one person.

The advantage is likely to grow as the candidates move to the next round of primaries and caucuses, where they will be competing in bigger states and relying more on television advertising to reach voters.

Spending on television ads by groups independent of the campaigns is already five times what it was during the entire Republican primary season four years ago, according to estimates from Kantar Media/CMAG.

Romney has received $5 million in help from the super PAC founded by three former aides from his 2008 bid.

A group aiding Perry has spent $3.8 million on ads backing him, and Huntsman has benefited from $2.5 million worth of ads from a super PAC.

Combined, those three candidates are receiving 80 percent of all super PAC spending.

The super PACs helping Romney and Perry have spent more on television ads than the candidates themselves in recent weeks, according to Kantar’s estimates. Huntsman’s campaign just launched his first ad.

Paul and Bachmann received more than 60 percent of their money from donors giving less than $200. A super PAC helping Paul has spent $735,000 on Internet advertising. And a group that initially announced it was helping Bachmann went on to run $500,000 in ads for Romney.

While Newt Gingrich’s campaign was struggling in the summer, he relied more on smaller donors. As he gained steam, he received help from a super PAC founded by former aides. But the group’s late start appears to have been a problem: It has reported $1 million in spending so far.

Rick Santorum has benefited from about $755,000 in spending from two super PACs backing him.

Just as the Internet allowed candidates to raise money from small donors faster than they had through direct mail, the same is true for super PACs.

“You make a phone call and get a million dollars,” Malbin said.

The new wave of spending has also allowed some candidates to benefit from negative advertising while avoiding the blame for attacking fellow Republicans.

Campaign finance regulations passed by Congress in 2002 have a “stand by your ad” provision requiring candidates to appear on screen stating their approval of the spot. But rules prevent super PACs from coordinating the campaign operations, allowing candidates to say the ads are out of their control.

“It changes the dynamic for candidates who are more reliant on small donors,” said a Paul strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to talk freely. “You have two tiers of candidates: those with super PACs that can have negative messaging without having to take the heat for it, and those who have to do it themselves.”

Read more from PostPolitics:

Romney slips in second debate

The Fix: Winners and losers of the N.H. debates

Case tests FCC’s power over TV indecency

Election year begins Monday at the Supreme Court

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