Quick Takes - Feb. 3, 2012

A ‘Jersey Shore’ for Pa.?

If Snooki and JWoww need a place to live, Jersey Shore will welcome them with open arms.

Jersey Shore, Pa., that is.

The Central Pennsylvania Film Office wants the stars of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” reality show to come to the tiny borough in north-central Pennsylvania or to nearby Williamsport to shoot a planned spinoff of their gym-tan-laundry lifestyle.

Lorena Beniquez, the commissioner of the film office, was quick to jump on the news that officials in Hoboken, N.J., had refused to issue a permit for the new reality show that will feature hard-partying stars Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi and Jenni “JWoww” Farley.

“Most of the time, when we make headlines, it’s for the Little League World Series,” Beniquez said, referring to the global tournament played in Williamsport each summer. “Or the gas industry. We want to be known for something once the gas industry is done and gone.”

—Associated Press

‘The Clock’ will tick overseas

Christian Marclay’s “The Clock,” seen at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art last year, is going to be time-sharing in Europe.

Israel Museum in Jerusalem spent a low six-figure sum to jointly acquire the video collage with the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Tate in London.

The 24-hour “The Clock,” which is composed of thousands of film images that include clocks, watches or announcements that illuminate the passage of time, premiered in London in October 2010.

“Given our commitment to contemporary art, this is a signature acquisition for us,” said Israel Museum Director James Snyder.

The joint acquisition means that screenings will be coordinated among the partners so it is on view at only one venue at a time.

—Bloomberg News

$100,000 poetry prize awarded

Timothy Donnelly, poetry editor of the Boston Review since 1996, has been named the winner of the annual $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, one of the largest monetary poetry prizes in the U.S., Claremont Graduate University announced.

Donnelly received the award for “The Cloud Corporation,” his second book. He is on the permanent faculty of the Writing Program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.

Katherine Larson, a research scientist and field ecologist from Tucson won the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award for her book of poetry, “Radial Symmetry.” The Kate Tufts Discovery Award is given annually for a first book by a poet of genuine promise.

A ceremony for the winners will be held on the Claremont Graduate University campus April 19.

—Associated Press

Argentine critics pan ‘Iron Lady’

Meryl Streep may have been nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady,” but Argentine critics panned the film during its premiere in Buenos Aires on Thursday.

The film opened in Argentine theaters amid a furor over the Falkland Islands, which Thatcher’s Britain and Argentina fought a brief and bloody war 30 years ago. In the movie, Thatcher is shown ordering Britain’s military to sink the Argentine warship Belgrano, which killed 323 Argentine sailors and remains controversial because the ship was considered to be outside the war zone.

She also dismisses the entreaties of the American ambassador to settle the dispute peacefully, suggesting that as a woman, she’s had to “go to war every day” to maintain her hold on power.

Reducing the war to a question of feminism “is absurd, to say the least,” the daily Clarin wrote in Thursday’s review.

Others praised Streep’s acting but panned the script as mediocre.

“A character so controversial for her own citizens, the citizens of the world and especially for Argentines, Thatcher deserves a better movie,” huffed La Nación.

—Associated Press

Finally

Casting: Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan have been signed to play famed sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson in the pilot for a drama series on Showtime, “Masters of Sex,” which will be directed by John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love,” “The Debt”).

Renewals: New seasons have been ordered for Fox’s “Kitchen Nightmares,” ABC Family’s “The Secret Life of an American Teenager” and TV Land’s “The Exes.”

Music education: Gustavo Dudamel, music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will appear with Elmo and other puppet characters on Monday’s installment of “Sesame Street,” airing locally at 10 a.m. on KOCE-TV.