Christoph Waltz/Alabama Shakes (2.17.2013)

Okay, here’s my review. This was a rather middle of the road show in terms of this season. It was one of the strongest shows just in terms of cast performances rather than writing. In terms of writing, I would say this show started out really strong and then quickly ran out of steam. Even the sketches that were good just felt like they established a good premise early on and then just repeated the same jokes over and over again. This show also tried to pack in so much topical humor on events of the past two weeks and succeeded with very little of it. Also, I find it a bit odd that they included two casual throwaway gag references to Colorado in the same show. Still, the cast really hit it out of the park with their performances. Good to see everyone get a lot of airtime as well, but I’m not too crazy about Armisen coming back so strong. Anyway, here it is.

Triumph Cruise - This cold open is a strong candidate for best of the season. Everybody did well with their part and Cecily and Jason did a great job as leads. It was nice to see Cecily and Tim get more airtime at the top of the show and I did like Jay’s second self-reflexive moment in a little over a year. It's also nice to see they can do a topical open without resorting to a lame speech straight to the camera. It's also nice to see they tried to work the LFNY line into the sketch instead of lazily tacking it on to the end. Also, does anyone find it a weird coincidence that the name of the ship is “Triumph” and most of the news story seems to revolve around errant feces? A-

Why was Hader impersonating Don Pardo this week?

Monologue - This was a little disappointing. The only real highlight was Taran as casual Hitler. When Waltz mentioned making "humorous observations" about his homeland, I was expecting him to do some bizarre standup routine but they kind of ruined it by tacking on a musical number (what was with that weird interaction between Fred and Cecily, BTW?) Besides, it was already lacking any direction to begin with. I was expecting more from a song titled "Smile, Damn You, Smile". It should've been a lot darker than it was. C-

What Have You Become? – At first, this seemed like it was going to be great. It's not often these days that you see a real conceptual sketch which a lot of writing went into. Hader and Bryant were especially good in this. Then, after Jay and Kate came in as relatives it started to get a little repetitive. Still, Waltz was great at the end as well. Even though this sketch seemed to be written to just play to Waltz's strengths, I could easily see any host taking his part. Also, it’s obvious that they must have either put the dress rehearsal version online or just fixed the audio gaffe because the hulu/nbc.com version features the audience chanting the title whereas the live version didn’t. B-

Papal Securities - This was a decent fake ad. It was a fresh take on the Pope resigning. It's nice to see SNL stepping up with the topical humor this week. I particularly liked the "No Other Testimonials Available" gag and Waltz as Benedict being placed in various everyday suburban settings. C+

Tippy - I didn't know what to make of this new Nassim character until it also became pretty repetitive. It reminded me of something Cheri Oteri would've done in the mid to late '90s. I wasn’t inclined to look this up at the time I wrote this and I’m still not after others have been kind enough to do it for me. A lot of nbc.com commentors are complaining that this is a ripoff of an old Jim Norton bit but that's a whole different story. It was endearing and quirky enough the first time before Nassim kept moving around the room, but I just can't see them recurring this. C-

Djesus Uncrossed - This was another great filmed piece. It accurately captured the ultra-violence of Tarantino's films and the ridiculous historical "creative liberties" he's taken with them recently and highlighted them in a sharp satirical context. Taran and Christpoh were particularly good here. This has to be the ballsiest piece SNL has done in decades. I can already see some relatively ignorant people online commenting on SNL's unacceptable blasphemy, saying their corrupting America's youth and how they plan to stage a boycott and filing FCC complaints. Surprisingly, this didn’t take place on hulu or nbc.com, but some looney out there posted  a bible verse in the comments of the cruise cold open. Hell, more people were upset over the Tippy/Jim Norton connection than this. Still, even this suffered from too much repetition. B-

Jamarcus Brothers - This record ad wasn't anything special. It reminded me too much of when Kenan and Maya Rudolph were "T.T and Mario" in the Jason Bateman/ Kelly Clarkson episode from 2005. Still, Waltz was great in it (especially during the final song with him and Kenan) and I liked Cecily's sultry performance. This was a decent night for her. C+

Update was all over the place. Seth's first few jokes before Taran's commentary were good, but the rest were forgettable. Speaking of which, Taran as Marco Rubio was a little disappointing. I felt he played it far too broad and they did the exact type of humor I would expect them to (having Rubio detail what he ate/did just before his speech that gave him drymouth) but he still made the most out of it. Kate's commentary as a Russian woman was also just okay while being rather predictable. It felt way too long and just as unfocused as Kenan's Ray Lewis commentary. Stephen A. Smith was decent, but is another repetitive bit that doesn't really need to be recurred, but it is a decent night for Jay and all the FPs. Thankfully they kept this shorter than the other Update commentaries even if it ended rather abruptly. B-

Regine - They're recurring Fred's drag character from the Daniel Craig episode? Goddammit, WHY?!? As soon as Fred made his entrance, I immediately tuned out and started thinking I was a little hard on Update. What's worse is that Fred was sprawling around and playing this as broad as broad can be, you know causing Hader to break. This very nearly drags this show down past Renner as the worst of the season, but maybe I'm jumping the gun here. F-

FOX and Friends VI - I really don't think they needed to do this again, but Bobby is still funny in this and Vanessa had some funny lines. Hader as Ted Nugent was good, but his impression wasn't. I kept mentally comparing Hader's performance to Nugent's cameo on The Simpsons last year and Hader sounded a bit off. Still, he had good lines and I liked the bit about crazy people's eyes. Fred's part seemed really tacked on and the England Burger King Horse meat is kind of old news by now but I did like Fred's line about American stereotypes. I also liked the "backwards" Obama speech. Also, this sketch might have benefitted from Waltz having some kind of role in it instead of being conspicuously absent. He could’ve easily filled Fred’s role (probably with some difficulty anyway) and even his take on Ted Nugent might have been interesting. C+

Dimitri’s Letter - This sketch was the best sketch of the night by far. It's really the first thing I genuinely laughed at in the entire show. This was more effective at playing to Walt's performance strengths than the game show sketch and the whole cast performed well in it (especially Cecily). B+

I can't say I'm looking forward to Kevin Hart hosting next month, but I guess a performance of "Thrift Shop" on SNL would be interesting to watch. Sure, Hart seems like he would do well in sketches but I find him to be quite overrated and not terribly funny. It's nice to get the occasional stand up monologue when a comedian hosts, but I really don't care for Hart's stand up at all. Still, I will go into this show with an open mind.

Once again, I leave you with my updated my rankings of this season’s episodes form best to worst.

1. Martin Short/Paul McCartney

2. Seth MacFarlane/Frank Ocean

3. Louis CK/fun.

4. Anne Hathaway/Rhianna

5. Christina Applegate/Passion Pit

6. Christoph Waltz/Alabama Shakes

7. Bruno Mars

8. Daniel Craig/Muse

9. Jaime Foxx/Ne-Yo

10. Jennifer Lawrence/The Lumineers

11. Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Mumford and Sons

12. Justin Bieber

13. Adam Levine/Kendrick Lamar

14. Jeremy Renner/Maroon 5

Have a great fortnight!

New Website, Old Blog

In my Digital Journalism class at CU, Professor Stevens had us doing in class exercise in writing HTML code so we could create our own website for his class. Even though this assignment isn't due for another week, I've already finished mine. Also, I found my old blog that I had to do for an assignment in my Contemporary Mass Media class two years ago. I may start updating this again, but I am definitely adding a link to this on the site where there is already a link to my two other blogs! See you tomorrow night or Monday with a review of tonight's SNL with Christoph Waltz and Alabama Shakes

Justin Bieber (2.9.2013)

Okay, here’s my review. Surprisingly, this was a moderately far cry from the absolute worst show of the season. This show had more funny moments than the last two shows, but they were more in spite of Justin Bieber than because of him. Beiber contributed next to nothing as a host and basically played himself through most of the show. Although I paid little to no attention to his musical performances, what I did catch from them seemed to be his most comfortable and in-his-element moments of the night performance wise...y'know since he's primarily a pop-song-and-dance kid and not a comedic actor…and yes, I’m aware that’s a fairly generous statement so no need to point that out. I’m just surprised that Jennifer Lawrence and Maroon 5’s lead singer helmed worse shows than Bieber did and yet Bieber had very little to do with it all. It just seemed like the writers tried saving some of their better material for him or maybe found him one of the less difficult hosts to work with this year. It must be the former since most of the sketches tonight seemed designed to let the cast do most of the heavy lifting acting-wise. It’s good to see the featured players and the rest of the cast all get good airtime (and I’m liking Armiesn’s decreased presence…hopefully they’re phasing him out) but it just seemed like they were all working around Bieber rather than with him. Anyway, let’s just get on with it.

Super Bowl - The open was just okay, but I'm sure it was less funny if you actually watched the whole game. I mean, I was only watching during the third quarter (and it didn't even look like that good of a game) but I'm sure they couldn't have struggled to fill dead air THAT badly. Pharroh did a funny Shannon Sharpe though. Good to see Robinson finally get some airtime though. C+

Monologue - This was pretty unremarkable, too. They could have done worse than Kenan coaching him on his wrong Black History facts. At least it wasn't all singing. I'm sure two performances from him will be more than enough. Whoopi's cameo was a nice touch, but didn't really do anything for me. I did like Mike O’Brien’s brief cameo though. D+

The Californians V - I'm sure no one was surprised that they bought back "The Californians" again. Cecily's performance was...interesting. Taran's performance is chuckle worthy. Bieber seems like he is impersonating himself, strangely enough. Hader's multiple takes were also a nice touch. Thankfully, it was short. D+

Sceurity Decoys - This sketch was better than it really had any right to be. Sudekis, Kilam, Moynihan and Hader were very good in it. I especially liked Jason's "neither are you, homie" line. B-

Bravo – This sketch was really pointless, but again Jason and Bill had some good one liners in it. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking SNL really overdid the Bravo/reality show parody humor especially during the Tina Fey years. D+

Update was another segment that is turning out better than it should be tonight, but maybe this is because Bieber is making Seth look FAR less smug than normal. His snow instagram/drone/Mama Boo Boo/Segal jokes were good. The best friends Bit REALLY didn't need to be bought back. Kenan's bit was...interesting. He's certainly making the absolute most of the material. His crunch/Brooklyn/popcorn chicken lines made me chuckle. Did he reminding anyone else of Donald Glover in this? Something about the horn rim glasses and afro made me say that. Thankfully, Update was short tonight but did anyone else notice the rather odd pacing of this episode? It seemed a little too early for Update and Bieber's first performance. C+

‘50s Romance - This sketch was surprisingly not all that bad, but Bieber felt a little out of place in it. This probably would've worked better in Tina Fey's 2010 episode when he was considerably younger. Cecily and Aidy were good in it and I liked some of the light absurdity of it like the puppies/witch lines, but the ending kind of killed it. C-

Miley Cyrus Show VI - I'm genuinely surprised that they tried the "new" Miley Cyrus show, but they obviously didn't change too much. Sudekis was pretty funny in it and I liked the gag of her whole band having her new hair as well as the incredibly long tattoo photo. This was actually Bieber's least annoying sketch moment of the night for me. He was okay, but not great. He just had better lines here. Still, like the decoy sketch he should've taken more advantage of the opportunities to poke fun at himself than he did. C+

Glice – This sketch was really over the top and repetitive and reminded me of some '09-'10 bullshit, but Taran (and Jason) made it was funnier than it had any right to be. I liked his lines “beautiful drifter and "I have the arms of a bat.” C+

Valentine’s Day Message – This was pointless and went nowhere. Bobby didn't do anything for me. The bird hitting the window and ultrasound oil jokes were okay. D+

Valentine’s Dance - I usually like the Principal Frye sketches and Jay had some funny lines here, but this would've been much better had it not been the obligatory "host-broadly-playing-against-own-type" sketch. This was Beiber's worst performance all night. His attempted nerd lisp really got on my nerves and Nassim was playing it WAY to broad here. C+

Well, that was...everything I expected in terms of performance but more than in terms of sketches. Christoph Waltz hosts next weeks. From the bits I’ve seen with him on Kimmell’s show, I could see him as a Walken-type odd personality host. Still, I hope the writing takes on an upturn. I’ll leave you with my season rankings of best-to-worst episodes so far which this episode left me feeling compelled to reexamine and update.

1. Martin Short/Paul McCartney

2. Seth MacFarlane/Frank Ocean

3. Louis CK/fun.

4. Anne Hathaway/Rhianna

5. Christina Applegate/Passion Pit

6. Bruno Mars

7. Daniel Craig/Muse

8. Jaime Foxx/Ne-Yo

9. Jennifer Lawrence/The Lumineers

10. Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Mumford and Sons

11. Justin Bieber

12. Adam Levine/Kendrick Lamar

13. Jeremy Renner/Maroon 5