Remember Saturday Night Live’s Rachel Dratch- who played Debbie Downer and did a dead-on impersonation of Harry Potter? Dratch left the show two years ago and has had small roles in a few movies and TV shows since then, including the Tina Fey comedy “30 Rock,” but she hasn’t found the same success as some of the other funny women from SNL. Adding insult to injury, Dratch was saddened by the recent Vanity Fair cover story on the rise of comediennes- the included most of her old co-stars, but not her.

Rachel Dratch is learning it’s not funny being an out-of-work comedian. She left Saturday Night Live two years ago and then was replaced on 30 Rock. What’s she up to now? “Maybe you can tell me,” she said at a Smart People screening on March 31. “I know you’re supposed to come up with fake stuff you’re doing. But honestly, I’m not doing much.” After SNL’s hectic pace, isn’t downtime nice? “It’s starting to get old,” she said. “I’m starting to go crazy. I’m ready for a job.” The low point came, she said, when last month’s Vanity Fair arrived with its cover story on women in comedy, featuring a dozen top comediennes—none of whom was Dratch. “Dude, that was a dark day,” she recalled. “I was like, Oh, there’s everyone I worked with.” She’s not picky about her next gig. “I’d work in a black-box theater company at this point,” she said. “I’d work with George W.”

[From NY Magazine]

I admit- I didn’t even think of Rachel when that story came out. I was so excited to see Amy Sedaris and Tina Fey on the same magazine cover that she slipped my mind. And I think, in a nutshell, that’s Rachel’s problem. She’s talented and funny, but not very memorable. If her greatest claim to fame is Debbie Downer- which was never all that funny and was done to death on the show- then it’s not a huge surprise that her career’s in trouble. But I do think she could be very funny in character roles, if given a chance. Hopefully some Hollywood casting director will read this and give Rachel a call. Because the thought of her working for George W. is very sad to me.

Rachel Dratch is shown at the “There Will Be Blood” premiere on 12/10/07, thanks to PRPhotos.

While I love any list, particularly a top ten, Film Threat’s list of Hollywood’s Coldest People is one of my absolute favourites.

FILM THREAT’S FRIGID 50: THE COLDEST PEOPLE IN HOLLYWOOD 2007

1. George W. Bush
2. Angelina Jolie
3. Jim Carrey
4. Comedies Not Associated with Judd Apatow
5. Owen Wilson
6. Nicole Kidman
7. Hilary Swank
8. Eli Roth/Torture Porn
9. Jennifer Lopez
10. Jon Heder

While I might have to question George W. Bush’s inclusion on the list, it’s apparently because of his ‘appearances’ in movies like Transformers or TV shows like South Park. Number two Angelina Jolie currently has the number one film in the American box office Beowulf, so it seems particularly bad timing to have her on the most frigid list. Although, have you seen her legs lately? Not hot.

You can check out the full list of 51 on Filmthreat, and the reasons for inclusion, but I have to add that number eleven was Star Wars. I am completely on the anti-Jedi bandwagon. Sci-fi lovers, just because the films were great in the 70’s doesn’t make their prequels good – in fact, it’s like remaking The Dukes of Hazzard or Invasion of the Body Snatchers – perhaps a good idea in theory, but not in practice. Now, commence my stoning to death as I have violated the sacred nature of The Force.

Nicole Kidman may rank high on the coldest people list, but I think she’s hot after she spoke out about the Australian government’s attitude to domestic violence.

“I know why people call violence against women a pandemic.

“It is perhaps the most widespread human rights abuse violation.”

The star called for a greater level of support for victims.

“I urge the Government to do more in relation to victim support services,” she said.

“There needs to be a dramatic increase in counselling services for victims of sexual assault and victims need to be supported better by police and the courts.

“And secondly, there needs to be a huge increase in short and long term accommodation for women and children fleeing domestic violence.

“At the moment, I believe, one in two women who approach a refuge are turned away.”

news.com.au

Now, this might not seem like a big deal, but in Australia celebrities don’t get behind political parties like they do in the United States, and an election is only days away. Voting is compulsory there, probably because Australians care so little about politics if it wasn’t no one would vote at all, and if you didn’t make it law for everyone over 18 to vote you’d have to ambush people on the street and force them into polling booths.

Note by Celebitchy: I wanted to find fictionalized portrayals of George W. Bush, and while Wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive list it wasn’t that easy to dig up clips and photos. I did find one though, a clip from Family Guy of George W Bush showing up for Vietnam.

Family Guy George Bush Misses Vietnam

Family Guy shows us how George W Bush missed Vietnman.

Get humor videos at NothingToxic

And here’s a link to a full length clip from the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror VII that first aired in October, 1996 featuring Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. I looked hard for Clinton’s appearance on the “Max Power” episode of the Simpsons where he tells Marge he’ll be in the shed out back just in case, and the one where Lisa tells him he gave a lousy lesson and he says “Well, I’m a pretty lousy president” but this was all I could find. Presidents are always fair game for parody, although I doubt Clinton would have made this coldest list ten years ago. I am striving for neutrality here if it isn’t obvious.

One of President Bush’s twin daughters, Jenna, 24, got engaged on Wednesday. Her boyfriend of nearly two years, Henry Hager, 28, popped the question. Hager is a former White House aide and worked for Bush’s re-election campaign under Karl Rove. Good to see they’re keeping the conservatism in the family. Jenna is the less pretty/more drinking/less intelligent/ of Bush’s twins. She is said to take after her father.

“Jenna Bush, one of President Bush’s twin daughters, is engaged to be married to her long-time boyfriend, Henry Hager, the White House announced Thursday.

“No wedding date has been set for Jenna’s wedding to Hager, said Sally McDonough, press secretary for first lady Laura Bush. The two were engaged on Wednesday.

“Hager, who is attending the University of Virginia School of Business, has been a White House aide and worked on Bush’s re-election campaign. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. John H. Hager of Richmond, Va. The groom-to-be’s father is a former lieutenant governor in Virginia and former director of Virginia’s Office of Commonwealth Preparedness.

“The younger Hager has been dating Jenna, 25, for several years, and is often seen with her at family Bush functions and formal events, such as a White House dinner in November 2005 in honor of Britain’s Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.”

[From the Associated Press]

Shunning the family’s long preference for Ivy League schools, Jenna attended the University of Texas at Austin – supposedly because, even as a president’s daughter, she couldn’t get in to his alma matter. Jenna also takes after her father, having two arrests related to underage drinking in April 2001 and trying to use a fake ID to buy alcohol in May of 2001. She pleaded no contest to both. Jenna has reformed a bit since graduating from college. She’s worked in the Washington DC public school system, written a book (I would assume it’s ghostwritten, but who knows) and worked for UNICEF. According to Wikipedia “She is currently teaching at a shelter several days a week as part of an internship for UNICEF’s Educational Policy Department in Latin America, specifically in Panama.”

Jenna came in at a respectable 17th in FHM’s “Most eligible Bachelorette” competition. The criteria included wealth and looks. I would have found this all a lot more interesting if she was marrying someone with a little more kick to him than Karl Rove’s former employee. I know the Bush twins have rebelled a bit in their own way, but wouldn’t that have been a lot better?

Picture note by JayBird: Header image is Jenna Bush at Book Expo 2007 in February. Image thanks to WENN.

See this dress Laura Bush is wearing in this official White House Holiday photo? It’s by Oscar de la Renta and costs $8,500 freakin’ dollars. You’d think if you were going to spend that much money on a haute couture dress and wear it to an official event, you would make sure it was an original, right? So nobody else would be wearing the same dress as the Queen of the Free World?

Well, it seems Mrs. Bush didn’t have someone do that for her and ended up wearing this dress not only for the official White House Holiday photo, but also to a celebrity studded party for fat cats at the White House. Imagine her surprise when she discovered that three other women were wearing the exact same dress! Oh, the horrors!

Letitia Baldridge, Jacqueline Kennedy’s Chief of Staff and White House social secretary says the gown was beautiful, but triple the trouble was quite the mess.

“They all should have congratulated one another on their good taste and the fact that they could afford the dress,” Baldridge says. “Jacqueline Kennedy, when she was first lady made sure, and her couturiers made sure that nobody else wore that dress that season. “

Oh please, Laura Bush is no Jacqueline Kennedy. That’s like comparing apples to oranges. But Laura did try to rectify the situation by running upstairs and changing into another gown. The other three ladies who had the same dress on didn’t have that option, and for the remainder of the night, tried to stay as far away from each other as they possibly could.

White House Holiday photo via The White House

The Dixie Chicks have refused to appear on the dumb women’s roundtable talk show, “The View,” saying they have to be selective about the shows they choose. They mentioned “The View” specifically in an interview with Time Magazine, saying that they use Bruce Springsteen as their model for publicity choices, and that he would never appear on the show:

This pissed off “View” cohost Joy Behar so much that she ripped up the article on the air:

What a idiot Joy Behar is. She may be the token liberal on the show before Rosie joins, but she’s not acting like it. The Dixie Chicks are ahead of their time. They criticized George Bush back when it was taboo, but now everyone hates the murdering son of a bitch. We think their refusal to do “The View” is a harbinger of the shows demise, and that most of the cohosts will go on to fabulous careers as spokespeople on infomercials.

The Dixie Chicks aren’t too good for XM Satellite Radio. They are shown performing on May 23rd on “Artist Confidential” in the pictures below. They are also seen at Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People event on May 8th.

Tom Cruise may be a crazy cult spokesperson, but he didn’t lie to start a war that’s squandering all our nation’s resources, and resulting in soldier and civilian deaths by the thousands.

US Weekly compares Tom’s approval rating with the pResident’s, and notes that Tom’s is slightly higher:

It just goes to show you that acting crazy and hating psychiatric drugs is less damning that ruining the middle east and getting a lot of people killed. Now if only much-deserved impeachment hearings were started, we might get rid of world’s worst pResident of all time.

It seems like low box office numbers could help tone down Cruise’s career. Mission Impossible 3 isn’t doing as well as expected. It’s not exactly tanking, though.

It would certainly be a welcome change if both Bush and Cruise would ride/fly off into the sunset.