http://widgets.nbc.com/o/4727a250e66f9723/4a70eecd19aeb451/4a70a05e87bf812d/1eac9ee7/-cpid/46ef5eebbf47d139 Oh, the power of *acting*. To start with apparent nonsense and carry it into the realm of beauty and truth. Take it away, Mr. Shatner.

The latest issue of Tales From the Crypt (inspired by the 1950s EC Comic of the same name) features Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin wielding a hockey stick at the Crypt’s storytelling inhabitants. The publisher assures us that his intentions were completely non-partisan: “[A]ny White House candidate who even entertains a conversation about book banning ... read more »

2008, the year of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, has also been the year of the comic actress in television and film. It’s not that comic actresses haven’t always been around, but I cannot think of another year in which so many comediennes were so prominently leading the comedy pack. Television has brought us Tina ... read more »

Confession time. I HATE it when people wink at me. It always feels like an unearned, forced attempt at intimacy – especially when the person is some celebrity whom I have not even met (like Lindsay Lohan or Sarah Palin, above). A wink says, “You and I share a naughty little secret,” when, in fact, ... read more »

While personally I view Sarah Palin as more Barbie-Doll-Puppet than Angela-Lansbury-style Puppetmaster (Puppetmistress?), I enjoyed reading colleague Erich Kuersten’s post on Cinema’s Sexy-Evil Palin-Types, and would like to add one more – albeit from televison. I’m talking about whatever-happened-to-her Jane Badler who starred as Diana, Alien Overlord of Earth, in the1983-84 sci-fi TV series, V. ... read more »

Watching the original MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE the other day, I got lots of extra frisson from the eerie similarity of vice presidential candidate Sarah Pallin and Jessica Lansbury (above) as the commie puppetmaster wife of a commie-bashing vice presidential candidate Senator John Iselin. In that film, Mrs. Iselin’s hysterical red-bashing was just smokescreen defense (she was ... read more »

We here at Bright Lights After Dark take every kind of media seriously – including YouTube, a haven for basement filmmakers and garage auteurs. The idea of comparing Sarah Palin’s answers to a question about “the Bush doctrine” to the answers of a Beauty Pageant contestant faced with a similar civics question is a brilliant ... read more »

I expect that quite a few of you – especially the many Alaskan readers of this blog – will recall with fondness the 1991 made-for-TV movie Sarah Palin, and Tall, in which Glenn Close played the feisty frontier housewife, Sarah, and Christopher Walken played her creepy husband, “Tall.” Not to mention its two sequels, Skylark ... read more »

 Anna Faris in Smiley Face (above) and The House Bunny (below). I first noticed Anna Faris in the Scary Movie franchise in which she parodied, among other things, Neve Campbell’s role in Scream. Following that, Faris provided expert comic relief playing supporting roles in two of the most prestigious productions of the last decade, Sofia ... read more »