She's On A Roll

Just as my fellow entertainment blogger expected, the Taylor Swift hosting of Saturday Night Live this past Saturday on November 7 turned out to be a great success for the 19-year-old starlet. Swift was as charming as she was--surprisingly to me--funny, stealing the spotlight in every character. As we all hopefully expected, Swift did make at least one reference to Kanye West in her opening "monologue song" where she poetically sang:

"You might be expecting me to say, something bad about Kanye and how he ran up on the stage and ruined my VMA monologue. But there's nothing more to say, 'cause everything's okay--I've got security lining the stage."

Within the same song, Swift also socked a few punches at ex-boyfriend Joe Jonas, and then followed up by not-so-discreetly confirming her romance with handsome Twilight star, Taylor Lautner. 

However, my favorite SNL performance of the night would have to when she gave a driving public service announcement as a whiny, pubescent teen in "Teenagers Raising Awareness About Awful Parent Drivers," or "T.R.A.A.A.P.D."

Overall, Taylor Swift's performance on SNL this Saturday was well-received by audiences young and old, and if you include that with her sweeping the Country Music Awards last night, I would definitely say the gorgeous, talented and young musician is on a roll.

She's Still A Kid

Despite being in numerous hit films, including the highly anticipated, upcoming film The Twilight Sage: New Moon, 15-year-old movie star Dakota Fanning is still a regular teenage girl-or at least she attempts to be. Monday's Yahoo's entertainment blog  featured an inside look at the actress's life off-camera. Fanning is photographed cheering at her local suburb-of-Los Angeles high school football game, and even gaining a bid on the school's Homecoming Court with flowers and a hunky football escort at hand. It's the typical high school photo-op you wouldn't expect for Hollywood's highest paid star under the age of 16. 

I commend Dakota Fanning for attempting to live as normal of a life as possible. It's difficult to be in the spotlight at such a young age, and those special high school moments, such as the Homecoming football game, are memories that she should be able to have and cherish for the rest of her life. I think participating in average, teenage experiences is what keeps young celebrities grounded and humble. Although, I do wonder if Dakota was a little embarrassed at being nominated for Homecoming Court given that she is already a Hollywood starlet?

Octomom And Octodad?

Hopes for a joint dating reality TV show with infamous Octomom, Nadya Suleman, and Jon & Kate Plus Eight's Jon Gosselin have been shattered when Jon Gosselin announced late last week that he was not interested in doing a reality show with Octomom, according to CNN's Showbiz Tonight. 

The debate is up as to whether declining the reality show offer was a smart move on Gosselin's part. Hyla, an entertainment journalist on 5dollarprep.com and panelist on Showbiz Tonight, regarded the Gosselin/Octamom venue as a good business decision that would benefit everyone: "For him [Gosselin] to team up with possibly the second or third or fourth biggest story of this year, that's a reality superpower. That's huge! That's gana make the network money and that's gana make Jon Gosselin money. Business wise--great. For us, a bit of a headache."

However, I would have to disagree with Hyla and go ahead and say that Gosselin's decision was the right move to make. Both Octomom and Gosselin have become a bit of a joke in Hollywood, and if they were to team up, it would harm America's ability to take either of them seriously. Octamom is especially a step-down for Gosselin, who, thankfully has some sort of dignity left.

It's obvious Gosselin still wants to remain in the public eye, but I think he needs to disappear for a while on the pop culture radar before he comes back to make any type of show business deals. This guy has lost a lot of credibility ever since his fall out with Kate and TLC. Jon needs to take some time off in order to not seem like a shallow, greedy, almost-dead-beat-dad.

Get Paid To Party

According to an article on CNN's Entertainment Web Site, there is a growing trend of chosen celebrities getting paid thousands of dollars by club owners and managers to appear or party at their select location. This list of celebrities includes Paris and Nicky Hilton, Kim Kardashian, Jon Gosselin, Ashlee Simpson-Wentz, and Britney Spears. For example, Kim Kardashian was reported paid $50,000 to celebrate her birthday at a nightclub in Las Vegas.

Many club executives believe that the cost is worth the benefits because after hearing about the possibility of being able to party with a celebrity, people will come swarming in, or so the executives hope. 

Personally, hearing something like this disgusts me. Although I know it is very unlikely to work, this is what I would like to see happen instead: instead of paying the celebrity directly, they should tell the celebrity that if they make an appearance at their night club, they will help enhance the celebrity's image to the public by making a generous donation in the celebrity's name to a charity or nonprofit organization. That way, the money isn't being spent on the already-overblown salaries of the A-list wealthy and it will go towards a good cause. Then again, will the opportunity to come off as a good samaritan and not as a spoiled socialite be enough motive for most celebrities to show up? Probably not.

Reality Shows

It seems as if America has reached an all-time high for saturation of worthless reality shows. Viewers can't even flip through five channels without seeing a reality show pop up on their TV screen. There's a show for almost every kind of interest/profession: Playboy Bunnies, truck-drivers, surgeons/doctors/nurses, chefs, designers, families, zoologists, mechanics, gamers...etc. Some of these shows have reached the end of their lifespan because, according to Los Angeles Times, Fox Reality Channel will be disbanded in March 2010.

I actually do enjoy the reality shows where talented people actually do things (like Top Chef) and compete against one another in good sportsmanship fashion. However, I don't consider being blonde with big boobs while living in the Playboy Mansion a talent. What I'm sick of watching the most are the really redundant reality TV shows such as dating shows or shows like Big Brother and The Real World where a group of strangers are forced to live together. The biggest anticipation for everyone who watches those shows is to see who hooks up with who, and hopefully catch a little snippet of it on a hidden camera. I don't see why people don't just go and watch porn if that's the kind of reality they are seeking. 

What happened to good old fashioned written shows? I think they're finally making a comeback, especially in the last couple of years with shows like Grey's Anatomy, Weeds, House, Glee, 30 Rock...etc. Finding a good TV series to watch, however, is getting even more and more difficult.