I know we don’t cover Politics on EM, I’m a flaming liberal looking for a party to believe in, I despise the Republican party and don’t like the Democratic Party either. But I just had to sing, “Oh, Happy Day…” or maybe “Ding dong, the witch is dead…” Sarah Palin shocks everyone today by resigning her Governorship. She gave one of her classic, jumbled, rambling speeches justifying her reasons using some dumb sports analogy. Can we please ban Politicos (reporters, pundits, all of them) from using stupid sports metaphors to “explain” stuff to us?  But here’s where she’s brilliant and gets to stick it to the pundits one last time. She makes the announcement on a major Holiday like today when all the pundits are on their vacations. So we don’t have to here an idiot like Chris Matthews trying to turn this into some dumb boxing analogy, “Is she knocked out of the arena?” Blah, blah.  But she’s politically dead, there’s no amount of spin that could justify her quitting when she built this image as being a tough as nails “fighter.” Someone as egotistical as her doesn’t simply quit, there’s another shoe waiting to be dropped.

Point Pleasant was a quirky little horror/fantasy series that was snuffed out too soon. Tomorrow, July 4^th, beginning at 11/10C, Chiller will run the entire series – including the five episodes that were never aired. If you miss the fun because of Independence Day celebrations, but are too adrenalized from the day’s activities to get to sleep right away, the entire marathon will be rebroadcast beginning at midnight/11C. A complete listing of the episodes follows:

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According to Variety.com, Sci Fi is developing a new take on Alien Nation, the 1988 feature that previously spawned a spinoff series on Fox.

Tim Minear – a veteran of sci-fi TV, having worked on The X-Files, Firefly and Strange World – is developing the pilot and series bible for the series, which is built upon the relationship that develops between a human cop and one from the ranks of the alien “Newcomers” whose ship crashed on Earth twenty years earlier.

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Company of Angels (CoA), which was co-founded in 1959 by actor Leonard Nimoy, one of the renowned stars of Star Trek, is celebrating its 50th Anniversary as Los Angeles’ oldest non profit professional theater now headquartered at the historic Alexandria Hotel in downtown LA.

CoA is readying to celebrate this milestone in the history of Los Angeles Theater – with a prestigious Charity Awards Gala slated for October 17, 2009 which will honor actor Leonard Nimoy for his role as a founding member as well as veteran actor Robert Ellenstein. The Award Gala is produced by actress Marlene Forte who sits on the board of CoA as Artistic Director. Marlene Forte was recently seen on the big screen beaming people away as the first Latina Chief Transporter in JJ Abrams’ blockbuster film “Star Trek”.

The award -The Leonard Nimoy Angel -  named after actor Leonard Nimoy, is an award bestowed on individuals and/or organizations that have made significant contributions to theater in Los Angeles, and to Company of Angels, in particular. 

“I’m looking forward to celebrating Company of Angels’ 50th Anniversary Award Ceremony and Gala.” Nimoy says of this special event in which he is proud to be a part of.

Always dedicated to the exploration of a diversity of perspectives, COA is uniquely multi-cultural with members reflecting the various ethnic groups that make up the City of Angels. As the first repertory company in LA, it was originally incorporated by legendary entertainment attorney Bertram Fields and included actors Richard Chamberlain and Vic Morrow – it also had veteran actor Robert Ellenstein as its first artistic director. Other notable current members include actress Marlene Forte (JJ Abrams Star Trek), Armando Molina, Justin Hueng and acclaimed playwright Oliver Mayer (Blade to the Heat).

Check out the official website to learn more about The Company of Angels

I didn’t even know this was on. It’s cable, so hopefully I’ll be able to catch the Replay. But apparently the BET Music Awards really went all out on the Michael Jackson Tribute.  Janet came on at the end apparently brought everyone to tears with her closing statement.  Here’s the video of her tribute.

Billy Mays, who died this weekend, was on Conan recently. Here is a clip of his appearance.

It’s been an really strange week in Hollywood, starting with the Kate and Jon divorce, ending with M.J.  Now we have this news. Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman known for his boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean, has died. He was 50. Tampa police said Mays was found unresponsive by his wife Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m. There were no signs of a break-in, and investigators do not suspect foul play.  Tampa area media outlets reported that Mays was a passenger on a U.S. Airways flight that made a rough landing on Saturday afternoon at Tampa International Airport, apparently blowing its front tires in an incident that left debris on the runway. Tampa Bay’s Fox television affiliate interviewed Mays after the incident. "All of a sudden as we hit you know it was just the hardest hit, all the things from the ceiling started dropping," MyFox Tampa Bay quoted him as saying. "It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head." 

The 35^th Annual Saturn Awards were presented yesterday, with The Dark Knight taking the most awards for film. Lost and Battlestar Galactica led the way for television. The complete list of winners follows the jump.

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Ok, I’m always late on these manufactured cultural bandwagons, but it’s like all of a sudden these people are everywhere I look for the last few weeks and my question was/is. Who the heck are they and why should I care? What’s Jon and Kate Gosselin’s claim to fame, other than their ability to procreate? I’ve avoided talking about this because, frankly I hate most reality Television and I worked for Discovery and TLC for 4 years, so I’m not really into promoting their programming. Am I the only one who think it’s pretty sleazy that they actually teased the fact that they were getting a divorce to spike ratings for their TV Show? Apparently their ratings, according to several reports, were dropping fast.  “In a statement, Jon Gosselin says he and wife Kate filed for divorce Monday afternoon. The co-stars of "Jon & Kate Plus 8," who are parents of sextuplets and twins, spoke of their decision to separate during Monday’s episode of the TLC reality series. The network had promised a major on-air decision from the couple, whose increasingly troubled 10-year marriage has dominated the series in recent weeks as well as fueling a firestorm of tabloid coverage.”

I can’t believe I’m really looking forward to a reality show! And that’s partly because I would be the last person to extol the virtues of reality TV. No disrespect meant to viewers who enjoy them, but I am certainly not within that group. I admit to having been madly in love with American Idol at one time, but the love affair ended somewhere during the fourth season and now it is simply an occasional acquaintance. I prefer to tune in more for all those hilariously entertaining bad auditions than for the real singers, who will no doubt go on to stardom and whom I will be hearing anyways, like it or not.

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