Mad News, December 1-6, 2008
- Christina Hendricks on the cover of Southern Beauty magazine. (h/t to Basketcase Jannah.)
- The Hollywood Reporter opens the Golden Globes Guessing Season. Hamm and Slattery are both considered contenders.
- Ausiello speaks to us:
Question: Any new news on the contract talks with AMC and Mad Men exec producer Matt Weiner? — G
Ausiello: No movement that I know of. In other Mad Men news, perennial supporting actress contender January Jones wisely decided to enter herself into the lead actress race at this year’s Golden Globes. Her superior season 2 work more than justified the upgrade, wouldn’t you say? The only drawback: She’ll have to go head-to-head with the equally awesome Elizabeth Moss. - Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt attended a gala honoring Samuel L. Jackson. And they looked very pretty.
- Rosemarie DeWitt (Midge Daniels from season 1) has been nominated as Best Supporting Female by the Independent Spirit Awards. Her film, Rachel Getting Married, also garnered nominations for Best Feature, Best Director (Jonathan Demme), Best First Screenplay (Jenny Lumet), Best Female Lead (Anne Hathaway), and a second Best Supporting Female (Debra Winger).
- AMC has a brief interview up with Talia Balsam.
- January Jones is once again an “HD Hottie.” TV Predictions also dubiously honored her with this award in August and September. Methinks someone has a crush.
- From the Washington Post comes an article on the hotness of men on TV, and how can you even spell “hotness” without H-A-M-M?
- The show Fear Itself, previously on TV, is premiering on the ‘net. So, new interviews with Elisabeth Moss.
- A cartoon based on one of the Season 2 promo shots.
- Best Week Ever notices a stunning similarity between Peggy’s campaign and McD’s. (h/t to Basketcase Jasmine.)
- Matthew Weiner has been nominated for a Caucus for Television Producers, Writers and Directors award.
- Weiner also attended PEN USA’s 18th annual Literary Awards Festival.
Weiner, the creator of “Mad Men,” was in rare form as well. When I congratulated him, mistakenly assuming he was there as winner of the Teleplay Award, he immediately corrected me. “No way,” he said. “I’m the loser. I’m here to give the award to Terence Winter.” (Winter won for one of his “Sopranos” scripts.) That’s very generous, I said. Weiner shook his head. “I’m not generous,” he explained. “I’m competitive.”
- Apparently there’s some kind of movement out there to mimic Christina Hendricks’s hair color.
- First look video of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Basket of Kisses: The unofficial blog of AMC's Mad Men. Where all the cool kids meet & greet to talk about Don Draper, Janie Bryant, Christina Hendricks, Jon Hamm, Matthew Weiner, & subtexty things.
December 7th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Rachel Getting Married is quite good, though it sometimes seemed to me to be more like an Altman film than a Demme film (that's likely a function of the screenplay). Rosemarie DeWitt is quite good in her role as Rachel, so I'm glad that not all of the attention is going to Hathaway's star turn.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Has there been any mention of the yummy feature GQ ran on Jon Hamm?
http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=conte...
Hamm is a feature in their Men of the Year issue. He's the Breakout. I bought the issue with him on the cover, during our layover between Miami and Liberia, Costa Rica.
It's a really good piece, delving into some biographical similarities between Hamm and the fictional character he portrays. It turns out that Matt Weiner fought as hard as he did for this actor because he seems to believe in casting to type — quite literally.
Great stuff.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I think the GQ thing made the prior edition of Mad News, but I agree that it was a really good profile and anyone who missed it should give it a read.
December 8th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
For next week, January Jones is on the cover of January's Town and Country (saw it in my doctor's office today, apologize if it it was mentioned before)
December 8th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Interesting about January going lead at the GG's. Buzz is in her favor this year, especially since Glenn Close is out of competition for this year. I honestly would rather see Elisabeth nominated for her performance in the S2 finale, but I'd be thrilled with either.
And there's still part of me screaming for someone to nominate Christina for something. One of these days…
December 9th, 2008 at 8:23 am
I would guess that both JJ and EM get GG nominations. I suppose settling it with a catfight is out of the question.