Monday, November 22, 2010

Palin Family Circus News - Monday, November 22, 2010 -- Now with DWTS liveblog! -- Now with VIDEO!

Has Sarah Palin quit narrating the audio book of America by Heart? Chris Michael, comedian and artist, says so.


The Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes writes The TV Column. This morning she wrote about the controversy over Bristol Palin's longevity on Dancing With the Stars, and she has a lot of comments from the show's executive producer, Conrad Green.


The NY Daily News has talked with a dietician about Bristol's weight gain on DWTS. Update: Gryphen has weighed in on this story with his experience as a personal trainer.


Life & Style Weekly quotes named sources on Willow Palin's 1:00 AM drug buy and underage drinking. Gryphen added his insight into the Palin family's problems here. Perez Hilton has posted a story, too.


I thought The Proposal, a 2009 movie with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, might afford people looking for Alaskan scenery an alternative to Sarah Palin's Alaska. Although most of the movie is set in and around Sitka, it was actually filmed in the Cape Ann area of Massachusetts, mostly in Rockport. There is some beautiful scenery in the movie, however. It is a romantic comedy and held my attention; it wasn't boring. The contrast between the New York office and the outdoors, wherever it was, was especially interesting.

This morning Mudflats posted "Voices from the Flats: This Movie Was Shot in Alaska." It is very informative and has an extensive list of films shot in Alaska. "The King (Salmon) is Dead. Long Live the Mine" mentions that the December issue of National Geographic is now online and links to a slideshow of Michael Melford's very beautiful photos of Alaska.


Update: I must have lucked-out or become wise before I'm old. I waited until 7:45 PST -- oops! 6:45 PST; I've retreated to an undisclosed location for the holidays and should reset my watch -- before tuning in to DWTS. Bristol started in a cage, and it was Mark Ballas who ended up in the cage! Freestyle. They received scores of 8, 9 and 8 for a total of 25; 52 out of 60 for the night. Apparently, they're going to dance again, tomorrow night? I don't regularly watch DWTS, so I am unfamiliar with the rules.

I must say that Bristol's size can depend on lighting and camera angle. Before she danced she expressed her feelings about the "haters"; obviously, Mama has schooled her on the sympathy vote. The camera panned to Sarah Palin -- in the audience, again. Jennifer and Derek are up next. Derek is very good; Jennifer not so good in comparison with Derek. The judges are more enthusiastic about their dance -- scores after the break -- it's 10, 10 and 10!

Yes, more dancing tomorrow. The leaderboard: Jennifer/Derek, 60/60; Kyle/Lacy (?), 56/60; Bristol/Mark, 52/60. Can "the people" save Bristol? Whatever the outcome, there is sure to be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Apparently they danced twice tonight, and in my "wisdom" I missed the first dance.

OMG! Skating With the Stars is on next! When will we see Sleeping With the Stars?


Update November 23: The Hollywood Gossip has a summary of what happened last night.


Here is last night's first dance:



Carrie Ann Inabe had a little criticism of the way Bristol pointed her toes, but then said she was more "vibrant." You have to watch the video and see her say that to understand what she means. The judges were all enthusiastic about the dance. Bristol and Mark got three nines.

I am not sure why the video embeds at 240p. After it starts, it can be changed to 480p for a clearer video (there is a widget to the left of the YouTube logo, on the control panel).

People magazine has a story with backstage comments from Carrie Ann Inabe and some of the other participants, here.

PopEater's Rob Shuter writes that Sarah Palin is lobbying the show's producers to have failed senate candidate Christine O'Donnell appear as a contestant on DWTS! "Christine is not a bad idea at all," one ABC executive tells me. "After Kate Gosselin and Cloris Leachman, O'Donnell would fit right in. She certainly would be so controversial that the amount of press attention and buzz the show would get would be huge. Plus, you know they would make her dance in a witch's hat with a broomstick." That's the way it is. Isn't life wonderful?

3 comments:

nswfm said...

Sleeping with the Stars! I think that's called Hollywood!

Thanks for your wit and wisdom.

Anonymous said...

Do catch the 1st dance.

Joie Vouet said...

9:10 PM, It's in the update!

**

I have stricken the "boring" non-circus news (well, it is and it isn't) from the post. Perhaps it will find its way into a separate post. It was this:

Frank Rich's op-ed "Could She Reach the Top in 2012? You Betcha" all but concedes the 2012 Republican nomination to Sarah Palin. He writes:

... These insults [from Susan Collins, Karl Rove and Peggy Noonan] just play into Palin’s hands, burnishing her image as an exemplar of the “real America” battling the snooty powers-that-be. To serve as an Andrew Jackson or perhaps George Wallace for the 21st century, the last thing she wants or needs is gravitas.

It’s anti-elitism that most defines angry populism in this moment, and, as David Frum, another Bush alumnus (and Palin critic), has pointed out, populist rage on the right is aimed at the educated, not the wealthy. The Bushies and Noonans and dwindling retro-moderate Republicans are no less loathed by Palinistas and their Tea Party fellow travelers than is Obama’s Ivy League White House. When Palin mocks her G.O.P. establishment critics as tortured, paranoid, sleazy and a “good-old-boys club,” she pays no penalty for doing so. The more condescending the attacks on her, the more she thrives. This same dynamic is also working for her daughter Bristol, who week after week has received low scores and patronizing dismissals from the professional judges on “Dancing with the Stars” only to be rescued by populist masses voting at home. ...


But we should remember that the voting on DWTS isn't quite like the voting in an election for office. Apparently Frank Rich wasn't aware of an article, "Why Sarah Palin Shouldn't Run: Give her a TV Show, not the presidency," written by Mona Charen -- a card-carrying anti-liberal -- for National Review Online; every palinbot is and they are all up in arms that Charen would write:

Voters prize judgment, above all, in a presidential candidate. Some of Sarah Palin’s 2010 endorsements were sound and arguably helpful. Others betrayed flightiness and recklessness. Tom Tancredo, Palin’s choice for governor of Colorado, has ridden his anti-immigration hobby-horse in a style perfectly suited to alienate Hispanic voters (describing Miami, for example, as a “Third World city”). Her endorsement of Christine O’Donnell was irresponsible and damaging, losing a seat that would otherwise have been a Republican pick-up. [...] O’Donnell was a thoroughly unqualified candidate.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn't mention that Rich is writing about the contest for the Republican nomination; Charen is writing about the general election. If Palin is nominated, it'll be 1964 all over, again.