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Sarah Palin’s one-day stint as co-host of the Today show was billed as a showdown of sorts between the former vice presidential nominee and Katie Couric, the interviewer who caused Palin endless embarrassment during the ’08 campaign and who was co-hosting rival morning show Good Morning America on Tuesday. Sorry, Katie: Palin may have won this round, with critics hailing her performance as “oddly charming,” “magnetic,” and “poised.” During her Today cameo, Palin predictably blasted President Obama, interviewed Tori Spelling, and weighed in on pop culture issues like Oprah Winfrey’s failing OWN…
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How does NBC top ABC’s gambit of bringing in former Today star Katie Couric to co-host Good Morning America this week? By having one of Couric’s most storied interview subjects, Sarah Palin, guest host the Today show on Tuesday. After their infamous 2008 interview, in which Couric stumped the vice presidential nominee simply by asking what newspapers she reads, the irony of pitting the two against each other anew “is just too sweet,” says Chris Ariens at MediaBistro. When Palin was asked how it feels to face off against Couric when Today‘s ratings dominance is vulnerable for the first time…
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The video: Long before the March 10 HBO premiere of Game Change, the movie adaptation of the eponymous book, HBO released the first photo of Julianne Moore in her role as former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Did she look the part? “You kinda sorta betcha!” said James Hibberd at Entertainment Weekly. As the film proved, however, Moore’s ability to channel Palin went well beyond looks, says Troy Patterson at Slate. Aside from nailing the accent and the intonation, she “aced the immodest task of humanizing the media beast called Sarah Palin,” and delivered a performance “so compassionate…
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Game Change, the buzzy TV movie premiering Saturday night on HBO, may be racking up strong critical notices, but a certain former Alaska governor is unlikely to tune in. The film is based on John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s 2010 bestseller about the 2008 presidential race, zeroing in on the chapters devoted to John McCain’s hasty decision to add Sarah Palin to his ticket and the crash-and-burn fate that befell the duo, played by Ed Harris and Julianne Moore. (Watch the trailer below.) Palin herself maintains she won’t see the film, blasting it as “Hollywood lies.” And while her PAC is urging…
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Viewers will have to wait until Saturday to see HBO’s buzzy new telefilm Game Change, an adaptation of the gossipy 2010 book chronicling John McCain and Sarah Palin’s tumultuous, ill-fated White House bid. But the movie, starring Ed Harris as McCain and Julianne Moore as Palin, is already outraging conservatives, who argue that it’s disrespectful to the former running mates. “I won’t watch it,” McCain says. “I know it’s based on a book that’s totally unfair and untrue, especially to Sarah Palin.” (Jay Roach, the movie’s director, defends his work as “an incredibly well-researched…
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Last year, HBO teased us with a short clip of its upcoming movie adaptation of Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s dishy look at the 2008 presidential race. Now, they’ve dropped a full trailer, focusing much more on the movie’s central figure, Sarah Palin (played by Julianne Moore) but also offering tantalizing peeks at Ed Harris’ John McCain. (Watch below) Produced by the creative team behind HBO’s 2000 presidential drama Recount, Game Change will almost certainly be “poignant, unrelenting, and all done with comedic flair,” says Jesse Carp in Television Blend. We’ll have to wait until…
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The video: Can Julianne Moore possibly rival Tina Fey’s indelible Sarah Palin impression? According to some critics, “You betcha.” The four-time Oscar nominee stars as Mama Grizzly in the upcoming HBO film Game Change, based on John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s gossipy behind-the-scenes account of the 2008 presidential race. A new teaser for the film, which will air in March, focuses on the introduction of Palin as John McCain’s running mate. “We desperately need a game-changing pick,” says Woody Harrelson, playing McCain advisor Steve Schmidt, “and none of these middle-aged white guys are…
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Harry Potter isn’t the only big-name movie hitting theaters this weekend. At long last, the two-hour Sarah Palin documentary, The Undefeated, is out — at least in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Orange County, Calif., Orlando, and Phoenix. Sorry, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago — you’ll have to wait. No one was expecting a Tea Party Citizen Kane from conservative filmmaker Stephen Bannon, but all the same, critics (who’ve so far given the movie a 0 percent favorability rating on Rotten Tomatoes) are deriding the film, not just…
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Sarah Palin took some ribbing earlier this year for failing to sign an application to trademark her name. But now, after she and daughter Bristol resubmitted their paperwork, and nobody challenged it, the names Sarah Palin and Bristol Palin will be trademarked within three months. Sarah Palin is claiming a trademark for both references to “political issues” online and “educational and entertainment services,” including “motivational speaking.” Entertainment and politics? Bloggers and the Twitterati couldn’t resist such a big target:
Only in America!
“Sarah Palin will soon be making people… -
Unconventional. Unorthodox. A rule-breaker. Sarah Palin is once again proving she’s all those things with her “One Nation” bus tour of historic sites along the East Coast. The unusual trip has “left reporters confused and scrambling,” says Chris Cillizza in The Washington Post. “Which is, of course, exactly how Palin likes it.” She even “pulled a clever bait and switch on reporters in Gettysburg” Tuesday, sneaking out of her hotel early while leaving her bus in the parking lot to give reporters chasing her the impression she was still inside. The possible GOP presidential candidate told Fox News…
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Sarah Palin’s one-time future son-in-law, Levi Johnston, reportedly just signed a book deal for a tell-all memoir on the Palin family. Johnston, the father of the GOP star’s grandson, has a rocky relationship with the Palins, and his book “will have good stuff,” says his manager, Tank Johnson. “He isn’t leaving anything out.” But when Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Crosshairs comes out in the fall, it won’t be the only Palin exposé on the shelves: At least three more are slated to come out first. Here’s a look at the upcoming crop of anti-Palin tomes:
1. The Lies of Sarah…
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Self-styled Tea Party queen Sarah Palin is probably the last person you’d expect to line up for a government handout. But it has emerged that her reality TV show, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” received a $1.2 million subsidy from the state, covering almost a third of the show’s Alaskan production costs. The state subsidy was signed into law by Palin herself in 2008. Could the fact that Palin took a chunk of taxpayer money to fund her reality TV show come back to bite her if she runs for president next year?
Yes. This is just more evidence of Palin’s self-interest: There’s a phrase for this in Washington…
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“The Palin buzz has gone,” says John Doyle in The Globe and Mail. The presidential ambitions once harbored by the former Alaska governor are all but dead, with even the Republican base rating her in polls as “strongly unfavorable.” And if there’s one thing to blame for her short-lived national political career, it’s television. It was TV, of course, that brought Palin to fame in the first place, as an “emanation of the reality-TV culture.” The idea that the most ordinary person could be a compelling public figure was central to Palin’s popularity. She was “authentic, populist and dismissive…
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HBO and director Jay Roach (Meet the Parents, Recount) are bringing the gossipy 2008 campaign book Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime to the small screen, and they’ve already made the most-anticipated casting decision: Julianne Moore, a lauded actress who’s been nominated for four Oscars, will portray Sarah Palin. Is she really the best choice to portray the former Alaska governor?
Palin should be pleased: At the very least, “Moore will make for an interesting Palin,” says Nardine Saad at the Los Angeles Times. Whether or not her Sarah can “compete…
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The video: Fox News host Bill O’Reilly had Sarah Palin on his show Friday night to discuss entitlement reform, and he wouldn’t take vague generalities for an answer. O’Reilly repeatedly pressed Palin for specifics on how she would tackle Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, until Palin “got testy” and told O’Reilly that it is hard to “get my point across to you if you interrupt.” (Watch the clip below.) O’Reilly “backed off a bit after that,” notes Politico‘s Andy Barr.
The reaction: “It’s hard to say why it happened,” but it sure was fun watching O’Reilly ditch the “the usual softballs” Palin… -
The story: Political celebrity Sarah Palin and her daughter Bristol have certainly become their own personal brands, says Suzi Parker at Politics Daily. And now, “these savvy women are taking all the prudent steps a brand holder does to protect an asset” by seeking to license their names as registered trademarks. That would presumably forestall the Tina Feys of the world from making money by impersonating the former Alaska governor. Palin’s request, however, has been rejected — for now. The patent office wants more information about how Palin’s name has been used for commercial purposes…