'Stinker' Film Touts Sarah Palin's Rise

The Undefeated, the soon-to-be-released documentary about the defeated 2008 vice-presidential candidate, "is a two-hour encomium to Palin, a zero-warts version of her trajectory from Wasilla mayor to Alaska governor," reports the Los Angeles Times. Using previously unseen photos from Palin's childhood, the "hagiographic" film examines her rise to power from outside the GOP's traditional power structures. "It's a uniquely American story," said director Stephen Bannon. "But it's not tied to whether she runs for president or not. It's a bio-pic."

While plenty of wonks and commentators have seen the $1 million film so far, only one professional movie critic has seen it, and he trashed it, calling it "so outlandishly partisan that it makes Richard Nixon look like Abraham Lincoln." But that did not bother Bannon, an ex-Goldman Sachs banker who has made other documentaries popular with tea partiers. "We didn't panic," he said. "I am not worried about its merits as a movie." (More The Undefeated stories.)