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William Shatner gives Sarah Palin a poetic sendoff

William Shatner has produced another spoken word gem, this time a poetic reading of Sarah Palin’s resignation speech as governor of Alaska. Shatner was on “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” on NBC on Monday night, and he sat down on a stool with a conga drummer and a bass player in the background, injecting dramatic flair into a paragraph from Palin’s speech, which included the words: “It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild good life teeming along the road that is north to the future.” (Video below)

NBC scored big when “Saturday Night Live” veteran Tina Fey lampooned Palin last year during the presidential campaign, and the network stands to get a lot more clicks on its Web outlet Hulu.com with this latest comedy piece. Now that Palin has quit as governor of Alaska, maybe she can work on her Shatner impression. It’s not that hard to do.

Would Kate Winslet win awards for her speeches?

British actress Kate Winslet keeps picking up awards for her 2008 film roles and admits she is struggling with her acceptance speeches.

On Sunday, she won best supporting actress from the Screen Actors Guild for her role as a German woman with a Nazi past in “The Reader,” adding to her double win at the Golden Globes a few weeks ago.

“I’m a bit lost for words, I’m sorry,” she said in her speech on Sunday. But she actually came off better than at the Globes, where she gushed her way through her speeches, especially after winning best actress for her role as a frustrated suburban wife in “Revolutionary Road.”

Backstage on Sunday, she joked with reporters: “I don’t have to make another speech do I? I am so bad at this..Clearly I am still learning.” She said that winning comes as a shock and “just takes her breath away.”

For the Oscars on Feb. 22, Winslet will by vying for best actress for her “The Reader” role, in which she has an affair with a teenage boy and bares herself in several intimate scenes. But her breath will really be taken away if she wins the Academy Award over multi-award winning actress Meryl Streep, who took best actress from the Screen Actors Guild for her role as a vindictive nun in “Doubt.”