“No one likes to dwell on past failures, but it’s good to see Jack Tanner back again. As a Democratic presidential candidate in the 1988 race, Tanner seemed hopelessly outmatched, a dark horse trailing the pack. But as an ex-candidate returning to the Democratic National Convention in 2004, Tanner is blissfully outside the fray, and while we’re following him, we are as well.Read More »
Summary: In 1988, renegade filmmaker Robert Altman and Pulitzer Prize–winning Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau created a presidential candidate, ran him alongside the other hopefuls during the primary season, and presented their media campaign as a cross between a soap opera and TV news. The result was the groundbreaking Tanner ’88, a piercing satire of media-age American politics, in which actors Michael Murphy (as contender Jack Tanner) and Cynthia Nixon (as his daughter) rub elbows on the campaign trail with real-life political players Jesse Jackson, Gary Hart, Bob Dole, Ralph Nader, Kitty Dukakis, and Gloria Steinem, among many others. The Criterion Collection is proud to present the complete eleven-episode television series—more relevant today than ever.Read More »