Swing Vote

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. In addition to the selections below, you can also add Kevin Costner's Swing Vote to your queue.

Brideshead Revisited
Here's a movie I never got around to seeing in '08, which makes it my favorite kind of new DVD release! This lavishly costumed period drama starring the wonderful Emma Thompson sort of gives me an Atonement vibe except it didn't get nearly as much critical or box office attention.

Based on the bestselling novel, the movie follows "the memoirs of Captain Charles Ryder who is stationed at Brideshead Castle during WWII and remembers his involvement with the owners of the Brideshead estate: The aristocratic yet Catholic Flyte family and in particular brother and sister Sebastian and Julia."

Special features include deleted scenes, filmmakers' audio commentary, and a segment titled "The World of Brideshead."

Two more up next, so read more

Now that the Fourth of July has come and gone, I need a new summer event to look forward to. This might be it? The movie Swing Vote stars Kevin Costner (I wonder if it's been a long time since anyone's written that phrase. . .?) and hits theaters August 1. Here's the premise: when historically inexplicable yet "mischievous antics" of a 12-year-old girl leave the outcome of the presidential election relying on a single vote one man (dubbed a "likable loser) all eyes rest on him to decide.

I'm dying to see how they make this work, you know, with the electoral college and laws, history and the like, but that might be part of the fun? The flick promises a "stunning series of events that place the fate of the free world in the hands of a man more comfortable slinging cases of beer." OK, there you go — stunning. Here's to hoping!

The presidential candidates are played by Dennis Hopper and Kelsey Grammer, with Nathan Lane and Stanley Tucci playing their campaign managers. Not a shabby cast! Here's one of the phoney campaign ads from the movie, it's pretty funny — and that Dennis Hopper is kind of striking. What do you think, will you be lining up to catch this one — or voting "No, thanks?"

Participation in a Univision sponsored debate might not be enough to solve the GOP's Hispanic vote problem. Republican immigration rhetoric, which can have an us-against-them tone, has seemed to reverse the inroads George W. Bush made with the fastest-growing segment of the population. In 2004, Bush captured 40 percent of the Hispanic vote.

Currently, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, 57 percent of Hispanic voters call themselves democrats, while just 23 percent identify as republicans. Hispanic voters rank immigration below other issues such as education and health care. Yet, it is the only issue that sharply rose in importance.

Hispanic voters loom as potential swing voters, as they are located strategically on the electoral-college map. If the GOP does not find a way to reconcile the concerns of Hispanics with the more native wing of the party, it may lose votes from Hispanics who are in line with the party on most other issues.

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