Page 8 - Edwin Oconnor News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

All the latest with your favorite Irish and Irish-American talent. 1. The Academy Award nominations will not be announced until January 16, 2014, but one of Hollywood’s strongest contenders – expected to get serious consideration in several categories when the Oscar winners are announced in March – is an Irish movie in theaters now. Philomena, starring Steve Coogan and Judi Dench, tells the story of an Irish woman who became scandalously pregnant in 1950s Ireland and was forced to give up her son for adoption. Many years later, Philomena’s story winds up in the hands of a journalist...

Rep. Peter King's last hurrah Print this article The Last Hurrah is the finest fiction about American politics. Edwin O’Connor’s 1956 book won the Atlantic prize for best novel, and John Ford made it into a movie. Spencer Tracy won a best actor award for his portrayal of Frank Skeffington, a fictionalized James Michael Curley (the four-term Boston mayor, two-term convict, and one-term Massachusetts governor). O’Connor’s book and Ford’s film are valedictories to the broad-shouldered, deep-chested, Irish-Catholic Democratic political machines that ran Northeastern and Midwestern cit...