Levi & Bristol: Dancing With Stardom by Elizabeth Searle

Visit our Film Website…& stay tuned for the announcement of Disgraced Celebrity of Summer 2010…

BREAKING: Paris Hilton photos from Las Vegas arrest; thanks RON for his Song about Paris…

LEVI & BRISTOL: DANCING WITH STARDOM

Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston are doing some fancy footwork lately.  Bristol landed a gig Dancing With the Stars.  Not to be outdone, Levi officially ‘takes back’ the Public Apology he’d issued to the Palin family during his week-long re-engagement to Bristol.

Levi now claims he never did lie about the Palins– except in that Public Apology he fears makes him look like a ‘liar.’  Levi has also filed papers to run for Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska– a dubious project he is of course pitching to Reality TV.

Bristol Palin had my sympathy when she was thrust onto the national stage holding her baby brother with a giant white blanket hiding her own pregnant belly.  The teenage girl with the pretty madonna-like face and sad eyes seemed dazed as she was trotted out with Levi onto the GOP Convention stage.

Since then, Bristol‘s become an unlikely spokesperson for Abstinence and now a Reality Show ‘star’ competing with Kate Gosselin as the most underqualified choice ever for DWTS.  (Of the newest DWTS batch, I’m curious to see if Jennifer Grey still has her Dirty Dancing moves)…

I’ve been doing some fancy footwork myself to follow Levi and Bristol’s trajectory.  First FANZINE published a short story of mine imagining a Candidates Daughter trapped on a Campaign bus caring for her famous mother’s baby and plotting escape.  My project has morphed into an ‘unauthorized novel’ about an eternally morphing Candidate’s daughter named ‘Cristal’…

Will this story ever end?  How much further can these two fame-seeking missiles, Levi and Bristol, take their stranger-than-fiction Fifteen Minute flight?

(photos: US.com, alanmedia.com, tmz.com)

Read Full Post »

Final Heat for Disgraced Celeb. of Summer, 2010: Lindsay, Levi, Dr. Laura, Mel & more by Elizabeth Searle

Speaking of Celebrities in Disgrace, visit our Film Website…

BREAKING: Paris Hilton arrested in Las Vegas for possible cocaine possession; Glenn Beck & Tea Partiers stir controversy; Levi Johnston ‘takes back’ his Public Apology to the Palins while Bristol P. takes a gig Dancing With The Stars…

WHO WILL BE DISGRACED CELEBRITY OF SUMMER, 2010?

As summer hits its homestretch heat, we race to decide who will ‘win’ Disgraced Celebrity of Summer, 2010.  Till the end of August, you can leave your votes as COMMENTS on any Post.  There’s no shortage of suspects.

Mel Gibson and Lindsay Lohan spent the early part of summer vying for first place in our Race for Disgrace.  But now Mel has acted like a ‘perfect gentleman’ after crashing his Maserati and Lindsay is raking in a million for her first post-jail interview.

Repeat offender Levi Johnston (who tied with Jon Gosselin for Disgraced Celeb. of Fall, 2009) may score an unprecedented Double-Dip Disgrace after his brief re-engagement to Sarah Palin’s dsaughter Bristol went down in flames amidst new Baby Daddy scandal rumors.  This week, tireless fame-chaser Levi has filed papers to run for Sarah Palin’s old job as Mayor of Wasilla, AK.

Meanwhile, Mama Grizzly Sarah Palin angered many by Tweeting a defense for Dr. Laura’s racially charged radio rants.  America’s sometimes-Sweetheart Jennifer Aniston found herself in hot water over her own offensive words.

BP Oil CEO Tony Hayward took our ‘highest honor’ last time as Disgraced Celebrity of Spring, 2010.  Now, Jennifer A’s ex Brad Pitt is calling for an even harsher punishment for BP exec.s: the Death Penalty!  But don’t let Brad Pitt be the only overheated underqualified Judge here.

We can ALL weigh in on who ‘owns’ DISGRACE for the Summer of 2010…

PS: Thanks to CAITLIN for alerting us to SPENCER PRATT, who gets her vote!

(photos: mtv.com, blatherwatch.com, Googleimages)

Read Full Post »

“What Goes Around, Comes Around”: SCRAP METAL, The Rock ‘N Roll Rat Pack is Back by Caitlin McCarthy

THANKS Caitlin for covering the Scrap Metal concert and providing super links to videos & more!  Check out Caitlin and Elizabeth Searle in the Boston Herald together…

An award-winning screenwriter at international film festivals and labs, Caitlin McCarthy has two feature films in development: “Wonder Drug” with director Tom Gilroy (“Spring Forward”); and “Resistance” with director Si Wall (“The Dinner Party,” premiering November 2010). She also has a TV series treatment, “Free Skate,” which is currently being considered by top production companies.

“What Goes Around, Comes Around: SCRAP METAL, The Rock’N’Roll Rat Pack is Back!” by Caitlin McCarthy

Caitlin with Chris & Karen at Scrap Metal

The 80s are making a serious comeback these days. Sly Stallone currently has the number one movie in the country with “The Expendables.” Leggings are being sought out by teens shopping for school. And radio stations – from rock to Top 40 – are playing all the hits from that decade. The “oldies” have turned into “goodies” that people want.
Which brings me to SCRAP METAL. Known as the “rock and roll rat pack,” SCRAP METAL is a confederacy of multi-platinum artists from the 80s Arena-Rock generation who took over MTV and held the airwaves hostage (in a good way!) for a decade. These “scraps” are all lead singers and front men/women who were the voices and faces of rock’n’roll in America for the good-time rock generation.

SCRAP METAL was created by close friends and rock stars Gunnar Nelson (who with twin brother Matthew Nelson was half of the hit group NELSON) and Mark Slaughter (of the rock group Slaughter). Their bands’ number one mega-hits are still in regular rotation on most radio stations today: “(Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection” (Nelson) and “Up All Night” (Slaughter), just to name two. NELSON also just returned with Mark Slaughter from performing live in Suzhou, China at the Holisland Rock Festival as part of the NELSON 20th Anniversary “After the Rain” tour. This October, NELSON will be performing in the U.K. for the very first time ever at the Firefest in Nottingham. And if that’s not enough, NELSON has a new album coming out soon with Frontiers Records called “The Blond Leading the Blond.”

Read Full Post »

A DOCTOR & A DAUGHTER IN DISGRACE: Dr. Laura Offends, Snooki ‘Annoys’ by Elizabeth Searle

See PREVIEW to CELEBRITIES IN DISGRACE & coverage on WBUR & BOSTON HERALD: ‘Ice-ing on the Cake’.

Update: Twitter backlash for Sarah Palin defense of Dr. Laura; Thanks AntiSTAR for the suggestion that L. Lohan donate her million to addiction-therapy CHARITY.  Stellar idea & hope you listen, Lindsay…

A DOCTOR & A DAUGHTER IN DISGRACE

The Doctor is Out: this week on Larry King (recently calling it quits himself), radio personality ‘Dr. Laura‘ announced that she is ‘done with’ radio after the furor stirred up by her using ‘the N-word’ 11 times in a 5 minute broadcast segment– in a rant that she dubiously described to King as a ‘philosophical point.’

The doctor claims her 1rst ammendment rights were being violated– though the 1rst ammendment applies to the government suppressing free speech.  What Dr. Laura was facing was public outrage over her rants by offended listeners, who were exercising their own Free Speech rights by objecting loud and clear.

Meanwhile, on the beach in New Jersey, TV reality star ‘Snooki’ was arrested for ‘annoying’ fellow beachgoers.  An unrepentent Snooki admitted she’d had ‘too many cocktails’ but declared she was ‘too pretty to be in jail.’

How do you judge these latest ‘disgraces’?  Does Dr. Laura have a leg to stand on?  Has success spoiled Snooki?  And in a related development on the Celebrity Crime beat, should ‘too pretty’ Lindsay Lohan draw a cool million dollars for her first post-jail interview?

(photos: getty.com, cnn.com, makli.com)

Read Full Post »

PRETTY BOYS NEED NOT APPLY by Libby Cudmore

Be sure to catch the PREVIEW to CELEBRITIES IN DISGRACE, plus coverage in THE BOSTON HERALD, an Inside Track story: ‘Ice-ing on the Cake’.  And check out Libby’s Record of the Month post on Scott Pilgram…

Libby Cudmore‘s recent works include essays in The MacGuffin and the Yalobusha Review, as well as stories in upcoming issues of Connotation Press and Crime Factory.  She just finished graduate school and is almost finished with The Shield and has no idea what to do with her life in the absence of Walton Goggins.

Pretty Boys Need Not Apply By Libby Cudmore

Anyone who has spent more than five minutes with me knows that I am obsessed with The Shield.  Anyone who spends more than six minutes with me also knows that I’m obsessed with Sheild star Walton Goggins, who plays cowboy-cop Shane Vendrell.

Walton Goggins is not what you’d call a pretty boy.  He’s more Steve Bucemi than Robert Pattinson, with a receding hairline, woodchuck teeth and small, femmy eyes.  And Shane Vendrell is not what you’d call a good cop.  Bad cop is still a little too nice a descriptor.  Vendrell routinely takes bribes, sells drugs confiscated in gang busts, bangs girls who may or may not be eighteen and are defiantly not his wife and, on occasion, murders people.

But those eyes!  That grin!  Those legs and that ass inside those perfectly fitted boot-cut blue jeans!  Hick he may be, Goggins can wear a pair of pants like nobody’s business.

I’ve always been fonder of odd-looking men than those found on the pages of Teen Beat.  Jonathan Taylor-Thomas and Devon Sawa made me want to gag, but I preferred the ultra-geeky Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day and Jurassic Park.  Benicio del Toro took my breath away as Jackie Boy in Sin City, and my friend Beth took away my right to declare guys hot.  Brian O’Halloran was so normal looking in Clerks that I liked to imagine I had a chance to score if our paths ever crossed.  I think Mickey Rourke is sexier now, with the scars of hard living worn so openly on his ravaged face, then he was in 9 ½ Weeks.  And I maintain my position that Tom Waits, best known for a singing voice that sounds like it’s coming from six feet under and a face that bears witness to that crawl from the grave, shows off his surprisingly tight and toned ass when he’s frisked by the cops in Down By Law.

Read Full Post »

THE BACHELORETTE, the Finale: The Final Rose by Tigh Rickman & Sarah Kowalski

THANKS to Tigh & Sarah for seeing Ali through!  And thanks to Woods Hole Film Festival for seeing Celebrities in Disgrace through to its exciting premiere on August 6th.  Along with coverage on WBUR, Boston’s NPR radio, check out THE BOSTON HERALD, an Inside Track story: ‘Ice-ing on the Cake’.

Good to hear from my Tweet friend RON again; check out his SONG ABOUT ALI…& ALI #2 plus a comment/Ali theory…

Sarah Kowalski and Tigh Rickman are recent graduates of Stonecoast MFA. Both longtime fans of reality televison, they are both relative newcomers to ABC’s The Bachelor. However, much like crack cocaine, it only took a small hit to hook them both, and now both watch religiously with their fiction writers’ eyes.

It is said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. For Ali, the first step was having her heart broken by Jake on The Bachelor, and she’s come a long way since. Over the course of her journey she has toured the world, from Los Angeles to New York, from Iceland to Portugal, and it ends here, in Bora Bora, an idyllic if not muggy paradise where the seed of her future will be planted in dark volcanic soil. But before she chooses between the masculine yet sensitive Roberto and the sensitive yet masculine Chris, both men will meet her family who will in turn provide council to Ali as the moment of truth draws ever closer. This is it. The Finale. The episode Sarah and Tigh have been waiting for. The time for Ali to make her choice and thus forever change her life is here.

Tigh: So this was it. The finale. The episode you and I have been waiting for. The time for Ali to make her choice and thus forever change her life is here.

Sarah: Indeed: and many, many opportunities for Chris Harrison to intone his trademarked Coming Up… as we were treated to flashbacks and prequels galore. I swear, sometimes The Bachelorette feels like its own Cliffs Notes.

Tigh: Hey, it isn’t easy filling 120 minutes, just ask MTV’s Kennedy. Of course, as we suspected, the Big Choice ended up being more the Big Forgone Conclusion.  But there were still dates to be had and the Fedotowskys to meet, and first up to bat…the left fielder…Roberto Perfeeecctooooo (cue entry salsa music).

On Roberto Meeting the Fedotowskys

Sarah: So, the manufactured drama of the first half of the episode was whether or not both men would win over Ali’s family: particularly her father, the floppy-haired Mr. Fedotowsky whose “blessing” was all-important to both Roberto and Chris. Unsurprisingly, Roberto had little trouble charming Ali’s clan with his earnest smiles and salsa-dancing lessons.

Read Full Post »

Celebrities in Disgrace PREMIERE: On the Cape, In the Boston Herald & More!

Elizabeth Searle at Woods Hole Film Festival with blog favorite, screenwriter Caitlin McCarthy

Many THANKS to the wonderful Woods Hole Film Festival where Celebrities in Disgrace premiered on August 6th to a sold-out crowd.  Along with coverage last week on WBUR, Boston’s NPR radio, we were happy to receive coverage this week in THE BOSTON HERALD, an Inside Track story headlined ‘Ice-ing on the Cake’.

Star entertainment reporter Laura Raposa of The Herald wrote: “Arlington scribe Elizabeth Searle helped to close out the Woods Hole Film Festival this weekend with rave reviews for her flick, ‘Celebrities in Disgrace'”.

We give our own rave reviews to the Woods Hole Festival.  At our premiere, we were delighted to be shown with a truly cool group of films including David Henry Gerson‘s haunting portrait of an Andy Warhol muse, ULTRAVIOLET FOR 16 MINUTES and Alysia Reiner’s unforgettable and unsparing look at death in modern times, SPEED GRIEVING.

The festival also featured our director Matthew Quinn Martin among several other stellar filmmakers and  writers including Taylor Toole and George Harrar in a panel discussion SHORTS & STORIES, clips & Q/A co-sponsored by PEN/New England .  THANKS to Woods Hole and to our producer Mark McNutt, our talented crew and our whole cast for an exciting premiere!  More photos and info are coming soon; stay tuned for news on future festivals and other venues as our film makes its way into the world, with your help…

Read Full Post »

SUMMER OF LOVE, For Better or Worse: Chelsea’s Wedding, Bristol’s Break-Up & More by Elizabeth Searle

Be sure to catch the PREVIEW to CELEBRITIES IN DISGRACE, coverage on WBUR (Boston’s NPR) & updates this week from Woods Hole Film Festival!

Our celebrity Summer of Love began dismally with news of Al & Tipper Gore‘s break-up.  Ironically, considering how Gore has always distanced himself from Bill Clinton’s marital woes, the Clintons presented a picture of family unity this July as their daughter Chelsea wed.  Against all odds (imagine Junior High with Rush Limbaugh as a nationally broadcast bully mocking your looks) Chelsea has turned out beautifully.  Congrats to Chelsea and Marc!

Meanwhile, things aren’t going so well for Sarah Palin’s beautiful beleagured daughter Bristol– who reunited with fame-chasing Levi Johnston only to break up again within a week, amidst Levi’s new Baby Daddy scandal allegations.  Grizzly Mama Sarah has weighed in to PEOPLE with a subtly I-told-you-so ‘statement.’  (Plus, the whole Palin saga and my own fascination with Bristol has led me to work on an ‘unauthorized novel’ inspired by Bristol– but don’t tell her Mom!)

Penelope & Javier on Vacay...

Off in Hollywood, Mad Mel Gibson‘s divorce-gate just keeps getting uglier.  But filmland also gave us perhaps the most stunning real-life couple of the summer, as the fabulously hot and happy Penelope Cruz and Javier Barden wed.  Hopefully those two will stay together long enough to have a gorgeous child.

And don’t forget our own favorite ‘Onscreen’ couple of the summer: Julian Brand and Patrice Bunch, burning a hole in your computer screen if you do check out our Celebrities in Disgrace preview…  Enjoy, and let us know your thoughts on real-life ‘hit and miss’ celeb. romances…

(photos: zimbio.com, PEOPLE.com, moldova.org, comcast.com)

Read Full Post »