Television

[madupont]

Yeah, most of The Departed, who got up and walked out of here a quarter ago.  Although, jbottle, who may be here or maybe not, has been a great fan from the beginning. Not sure if rantbo followed all of it. Some did not understand why I was not fond of the setting; which had come about from the situation as it was last time I went through Baltimore and have not returned.   It is similar to wondering why what happened to New Orleans happened, five years ago, and not having a clue!

[kam]

Sorry, it was more of a rhetorical question. 

[pugetopolis]

True Confessions (2010)

Bristol Palin
Levi Johnston
Sarah Palin

Made for TV

(NEW YORK—CBS)  Just three weeks after announcing their surprise second engagement, Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston have reportedly split up AGAIN.

The question is —WHY?

It looked as if Bristol and Levi had settled down and were ready to raise their year-old son, Tripp, together, as a married couple. Now, Bristol says that's all changed and she's called off their engagement.

CBS News National Correspondent Jeff Gloryhole said on "The Early Show" it was a picture that was hard to believe, Levi and Bristol, back together after a year-and-a-half-long public feud. The pair, with their infant son, announced their engagement just three weeks ago in US Weekly.

Bristol told reporters, "He got down on his knees and begged me to marry him."

But not long after, Bristol told People magazine there was trouble.

Betsy Glurk, People’s executive editor, said to CBS News, "What Bristol told People is that, on the very day that the world learned they were going to get married, Levi came home and said to her that he may have gotten another woman pregnant. Bristol’s own mother Sarah!!! Bristol was shocked!!! Tripp was Sarah’s child? Was Andrew Sullivan in “The Daily Dish” right? Bristol was dismayed & totally discombobulated!!!"

Bristol said in People that the final straw came when Levi was spending more time trying to become Sarah’s Vice President candidate than being a father. She said, "He's just obsessed with the POTUS limelight and I got played."

Glurk told "The Early Show", "Bristol is heartbroken. She described texting him and getting no answer, and then eventually she said Levi said, 'Hey, do you want to be on a “real” reality show, honey?"'

Bristol, however, says she wants no part of Levi's presidential reality show plans. The Phoenix Republican Convention was enough for her.

In a statement to People.com, her mother, Sarah Palin, even weighed in, saying, "I wish for Bristol to be able to move forward in life with her same forgiving, gracious, optimistic Palin spirit, just like me. But from henceforth she'll know to trust nobody—except, of course, Republican politicians like Senator McSame and Tricky Dick Nixon. Bristol is strong like me, she is independent, and she knows what is right for her son."

Gloryhole added on "The Early Show" that Bristol has reportedly moved back in with her parents — on their orders. As for Johnston, Gloryhole reported he is shooting a music video in Los Angeles with Lady Gaga in which he plays a lover whose romance is thwarted by his girlfriend's disapproving mother.

On "The Early Show" Bonnie Fuckit, editor in chief of Hollywoodlife.com, said the engagement isn't a stunt. The couple actually had shush money on the table for $1.5 million, she said, and they walked away from the offer.

Fuckit said the producer told Hollywoodlife.com that the show couldn't go forward without an entire family — Bristol, Levi and Tripp — on board.

"There was no interest in just Levi and his so-so Playgirl nude model body on his own," she said.

Fuckit added the producer was very surprised by the split, saying the producer sent someone to Anchorage to talk to them, and suddenly, Fuckit said, "they disappeared."

Fuckit said, "Suddenly, he's back in L.A. and his people are claiming that he's got all kinds of other offers on the table."

So, is this the real end of Bristol and Levi?

Fuckit said, "They are 19 and 20 years old, very young. You know, teenagers get together and break up all the time. And I think he particularly is very immature and he's in love with fame. He's in Hollywood right now, talking to people, at parties, filming a music video — supposedly mocking her family — though he's denying that, but he did film it."

What about Baby Tripp?

Child psychologist and "Early Show" contributor Dr. Jennifer Jerkoff said, "One of the main victims is Tripp, is this little boy whose dad is in and out and in and out of his life. There is no stable presence. It's very confusing for a 19-month-old to understand what that's like. That's really going to be confusing for him down the road. ... They'll have to find positive people to be in his life to take the place (of his father)."

"Early Show" co-anchor Erica Shrill pointed out Bristol told People magazine she feels trapped.

Shrill said, "Absolutely. She's 19. She's isolated. She's working. She's taking care of this child. What friends of hers are in the same place? Who has kids like she does? She can't go out and just hang out. It's a really tough position. She's not in the same typical 19-year-old position as her girlfriends and friends may be. She’s hot Beltway Material now."

Fuckit added, "I think (Bristol) does feel trapped and she looked at this as an escape. The fact Levi didn't sell a show and came back into her life, she was looking to create a stable family. Then she made money by selling their engagement story to the magazine. And there was all this other money. It was an escape, a way out. Now she's moved back with her parents."

Shrill said Bristol is looking for someone for support and help her.

She said, "Why do we always go back to old relationships? They don't always change but we go back because we know them. The devil we know is better than the devil we don't. She needs to learn to grow out of that need and be self-reliant and find the best person for her."

[rantbo]

A couple of members have mentioned Burn Notice here in the past....finally got around to seeing a couple (the first two hours, in which Westen receives his burn notice and finds himself back in Miami, solving an art theft for rent money) and enjoyed this spy-turned-PI show -- the VO's sounding like a training tape for new agents, the clever improvisations with home-made gizmos, the unflagging charm of Jeff Donovan and Bruce Campbell, and the whole concept of "this is the life I get while I'm making other plans to get my real life back."   

 

[madupont]

Adjusting to a large screen tv which was doing a repeat of the third episode of Boardwalk Empire, I suddenly realized that Buscemi reminded me of an old time Hollywood actor who was making films before I was born. But who, exactly? Could not remember his name at all.

Then, after a day has gone by, it showed up. This guy was somebody I'd taken an active disliking toward and, before making movies prominently in the 1940s which led to lots of tv work in the next two and last decades of his life, he had begun way back in the beginning of the Thirties from experience as a theatrical actor during the Twenties.  Would you believe he even became the son, that is Newland Archer,jr. in the first production of Edith Wharton's, The Age of Innocence? (Which we first saw in the Martin Scorsese version.)

That in a nutshell was Franchot Tone whose hair-style necessarily reminded me of  Buscemi's "Boardwalk Empire" lead, Enoch, Nucky Thompson; or, vice-versa, actualy Buscemi's hair-style, wardrobe for the era, and mannerisms all eventually reminded me of Franchot Tone who had been there, done that, then.

He was even married to Joan Crawford.

[weezo]

Starz is showing Miracle at St. Anne's  .... just finished seeing it. It raises question of some historic authenticity (high fives), but it was a very emotionally touching movie.

I will watch it again... it was hard to catch the text on our small screen

[jbottle]

"Rubicon" is the best drama on TV.

[kam]

Descontrol is the best show on the spanish channel.  And i don't understand a word.

[rantbo]

The middle daughter on "Medium" looks a lot like my daughter at that age.  The show, as a whole, is based on a silly premise, but I like the way they approach it with humor and unconventional plot.

[harrie]

Descontrol is the best show on the spanish channel.  And i don't understand a word.

Have you seen 12 Corazones (a dating show based on astrological signs)?

[jbottle]

Rubicon, 10 minutes, white people.

[madupont]

Nucky Thompson,aka Steve Buscemi, finally made out last night as the eve of St.Patrick's Day passed on as prohibited.  (Not that he doesn't have a sex-life that is sometimes lively though, coitus interruptus continually, due to his valet-amanuensis who continually walks into the bedroom, unable to discriminate between what is important at the moment and any other time will do.)

We shall have to wait a week to determine what the outcome was for his Irish sweetie.

[jbottle]

She's got an interesting version of playing hard to get, but yeah, last night's episode directed by Terrence Winter, who along with Van Patten directed the best Soprano's episodes, there is the difficulty of not having a blank slate, tabula rasa to write your imagination and let the jokes, come out of the characters more organically, but the the series is having more cohesive and distinct episodes, not unlike the fits and starts of the Sopranos seasons.  Last night and the prior Van Patten ones stand out even above the exposition-laden dense Scorcese deput (but probably not on multible digestions of same), anyway, great show but sunday night is killing me with good tv because I stay up so late just to get through Rubicon, Mad Men, Bored to Death, BE, and Eastbound and Down; some 4 hrs., starting at 9, minus DVR past commercials on the AMC stuff, and then I ended up watching Rubicon w/commercials and MM, and then Rubicon w/aid of DVR ff. again like a moron, but it's all really good, and the variety is fantastic.

[madupont]

I know. Just resolved a reception problem competing with the upstairs flat by trying a flat-screen down-here. That works! But it is an upgrade in complications.

[madupont]

http://www.pbs.org/pov/mostdangerousman/watch.php

Daniel Ellsberg/POV/Tuesday night


What did I mean: Tuesday night?  Check your local channels.