Last Friday, before conspiracy theorists were questioning who actually birthed newborn Trig Palin, and long before it was announced that Bristol Palin is a (first time?) teen mom-to-be, I was innocently thinking of the more simple Sarah Palin movie. The one that goes sorta like The Contender, except that in this case the nude photos, which may or may not be of the female VP candidate, are pageant-related rather than a remnant of sorority hazing.

Now, of course, despite the gossip blogs’ wet dream that there are indeed scandalous photos out there of the former Miss Alaska runner-up, the movie goes a little more like Juno — or, as many a site has effortlessly pictured it, Juneau. Either way, both The Contender’s Joan Allen and Juno mom Allison Janney could easily pull off the role of Sarah Palin, but I’ve got my heart set on someone else for the part (see above). And I’ve gone ahead and cast the rest of the movie, too (see below). But feel free to comment below with your own choices for each of the cast.

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The Democratic National Convention is over, and all the ecstatic party members have left Denver to go back to their zombie-esque lives (Bob Hope said it, not me). But after four days of celebrating what it means to be a Democrat, some may not wish to settle down and calmly wait out the next two months until Obama’s (possible) win, let alone the next five months waiting for the candidate to (possibly) be sworn in as President, participating in the normal non-specifically-Democratic, non-self-congratulatory activities that most of us are content with.

So, one thing excited Democrats can do is watch movies that will continue to inspire and encourage their beliefs and politics. As Karina already wrote, The American President is one movie that just barely may allow Obama fans to relive his DNC speech. Also, beginning yesterday, the Oscar-nominated documentary No End in Sight will be available in full on YouTube through till Election Day. Of course, there’s always other anti-war and anti-Bush docs for free viewing online, at such sites as SnagFilms and FreeDocumentaries.org.

And since there are so many docs out there that can make a Democrat giddy with the want for change, I’ve decided to limit today’s list to fictions and dramatizations, because they are more about feelings than facts, and that’s all you really need for political inspiration these days. As usual, I’m leaving out a lot of picks, both obvious and obscure, so feel free to tell us what movie make you feel most proud to be a Democrat.

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As I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m a bit addicted to MSNBC, mostly because it’s where loose-canon conservatives go to fade away. So I’ve been watching it, like, a lot. And I know they’re working live without a script, but is that really an excuse for the whole team to fall back on the Chris Matthews gold standard of dragging metaphors out of movies? In the past 12 hours, I’ve heard Brian Williams, Andrea Mitchell and Joe Scarborough all compare Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech to The American President, the Rob Reiner/Aaron Sorkin political romantic dramedy starring Michael Douglas and Annette Benning.

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Driving past Inesco Field again today, I noticed that there are actually TWO billboards for Oliver Stone’s W across the street from where Barack Obama will give his big speech this week. One facing traffic from each direction.

I’ll upload some more photos to flickr later, including documentation of Gloria Alred, caught in a mob of Hillary supporters chanting references to the Dixie Chicks. But now, off to a screening of the Lee Atwater doc that infanously premiered at LAFF a couple of months back…

So far all of my fears about this trip to Denver– that my flight would never make it out of JFK, that I’d get stuck in a traffic jam trying to get into downtown Denver, that the Secret service would decide I had insufficient credentials and throw me in a secret DNC prison–have been proven to be totally unfounded. 90 minutes after my plane landed (early!), I was sitting in the Starz Green Room, eating brie, awaiting my first Impact Film Festival screening. Maybe the Democrats can run the world after all.

The photo above? That’s in front of the security checkpoint outside the Denver Film Center. At some point I’ll try to get a pic of the billboard for Oliver Stone’s W, which sits right on the highway opposite the football stadium where Obama will speak on Thursday. The Starz! employee who drove me to the Film Center sighed as we passed by, “I never thought I’d see Brand from Goonies playing the President of the United States.” Did you?

California may have spent the last five years under the rule of a Republican movie star, but news that major industry players are anything but super-lefty liberals still seems to strike many as a surprise. Responding to a story in which it’s casually mentioned that Dennis Hopper is expected to attend the Republican National Convention, Defamer’s Kyle Buchanan writes, “Did we miss the memo that said the countercultural director of freaking Easy Rider was a Republican? We’d assumed his appearance in the right-wing Zucker film An American Carol was a strict paycheck gig…”

I’m not sure when the “memo” first went out, but Hopper has been a registered Republican for over 25 years. …Read more

• Fox has brought a lawsuit against Warner Brothers, claiming that the latter studio does not have the right to release Zach Snyder’s Watchmen movie, because the former studio never full gave up their rights to the property. The movie’s supposed to come out on March 6, and though a court could decide that Fox should be cut in on its eventual profits, apparently that studio would prefer if the film was shelved altogether. Why did they wait until the film was finished in order to take action? Your thoughts, please.
• Josh Brolin, Ben Affleck, Charlize Theron and Morgan Spurlock are among the celebrities expected to “either cross paths with or interface with such politicians as Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and assorted other city, state and national elected officials” at the Starz! Green Room at the Democratic National Convention next week.
• The Coen Brothers have hired “Michael Stuhlbarg, a Tony-nominated actor with little experience in front of the cameras, and Richard Kind, a character actor best known for his role on ABC’s Spin City,” to star as brothers in their upcoming period comedy, A Serious Man.

Never one to pass up an opportunity for bullying, Michael Moore has posted excerpt from his new book on his website, entitled “How to Blow It.” It’s a snide, six point “blueprint from the Democrats’ past losing campaigns” to ensure that “the Democratic Party establishment, can help elect John Sidney McCain III to a four-year extension of the Bush Era.” As Nikki Finke points out, the final item on the list is “especially intriguing” — in that Moore conflates his own self-importance with Democratic cowardice.

“Denounce me!,” Moore shouts. Obama, he says. “Better denounce me or [Republicans and pundits] will tear him to shreds. He had better back away not only from me but from anyone and everyone who veers a bit too far to the left of where his advisers have told him is the sweet spot for all those red state voters.”

Remember, this is an Opposite Day list, which means the clear implication is really, “Embrace me or you deserve to lose.” Because we certainly haven’t wasted enough time talking about which candidates are in bed with which media figures, right?

Last Friday, I suggested that the prologue to Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia be featured ahead of Olympics coverage. But I’ve changed my mind after seeing this montage created by L.A.’s Cinefamily (the gang behind the recently revitalized Silent Movie Theater) & Pimpedelic Wonderland for a 4th of July event last month. It clearly says everything there is to say about America, and it would certainly pump us up adequately for patriotically rooting for the U.S. teams. Plus, unlike like Olympia, it’s not made by Nazis; like Olympia, though, it has nudity!

The only thing possibly more appropriately American than this video is Entertainment Weekly’s new interviews with Barack Obama and John McCain about their pop culture preferences, a feature that finally allows us to make up our minds based on things more fun than “important issues”. I don’t know about you, but I’d never vote for anybody who honestly thinks We Were Soldiers is the best Vietnam movie of all time. Thanks, EW, for keeping me from making a terrible mistake on Election Day.