Blogcritics

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

TV Review: SNL in the '90s - Pop Culture Nation

Cameron Archer — Sun, 6 May 2007 17:35:26 EDT

Let's get this out of the way. SNL in the '90s: Pop Culture Nation (May 6, 9-11 PM, NBC) has the same problems as SNL in the '80s had, albeit not as noticeably. Clips and musical guests still don't match the seasons. Not everyone from the 1990s versions of SNL offer interviews for the documentary, although some of the most notable cast members (Norm MacDonald, Mike Myers, and Will Ferrell) are prominently featured. There's too much backstage stuff to adequately cover ten seasons of Saturday Night Live.These are just minor gripes. Kenneth Bowser's third in a trilogy of SNL retrospectives fit their own SNL-like formula, but this second sequel to Live From New York: The First Five Years of Saturday Night Live doesn't follow diminishing returns protocol like the typical SNL recurring character. It's not as good as Live From New York, but SNL in the '90s is better than SNL in the '80s. The documentary is better paced than SNL in the '80s, covers its chosen decade more equally and features more than "greatest hits" clips.There's a Suel Forrester clip in the documentary, which surprised me - one of Chris Kattan's more underrated characters appears? Neat. I also wasn't expecting to see Norm MacDonald lambasting cue card and camera crews during a "Weekend Update" segment, but it appears here and I appreciate that.Chris Rock and the "token black guy" problem is talked about and covered in a surprising manner. Rock was at best a minor part of SNL when he was there, but those "Nat X" sketches weather well. SNL has always had its problems with tokenism, so it's nice that SNL in the '90s doesn't shy away from SNL's problems with regards to depicting black culture accurately. An "I'm Chillin'" clip has Chris Rock talking about how it was essentially a black "Wayne's World." It's a bit disconcerting to see a "Ladies Man" clip appear during a segment ostensibly about the 1993-94 season since "The Ladies Man" was a mainstay of the 1995-2000 years. A "Perspectives" clip would have made more thematic sense, since that and O.J. Simpson best marked Meadows' first five years on the show.Adam Sandler is put over by Robert Smigel and other contemporaries as quite intelligent for the style of comedy he did. I don't actually disagree with that assessment - a lot of his material (Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, They're All Gonna Laugh At You!) deals in stupid humour and he knows it. He can do more dramatic roles, but it's with concepts like the uninhibited Buffoon/Pedro and the manchild Canteen Boy that he made his name. I wouldn't go so far as to call Sandler a genius (for instance, Opera Man has not aged well), but some of his stuff is quite good for its utter lack of pretense. Like him or hate him, he's made his mark.The Wayne's World film is given its proper credit for renewed interest in Saturday Night Live during the early 1990s. While it would have been nice for Kenneth Bowser to talk about subsequent SNL films spun off from other recurring characters (see Coneheads, The Ladies Man, It's Pat!, A Night at the Roxbury), Wayne's World could have been ignored and I'm glad it wasn't.What amazes me about the 1994-95 season is that the documentary couches that season as quite heavily attacked by the critics (which it was - sample headline: "Dear Saturday Night Live, It's Over. Please Die.") but appealing more to the baby boomers' kids as opposed to the boomers themselves. Unlike with SNL in the 1980s, where the 1980-81 and 1985-86 seasons were given fairer assessments, 1994-95 is cast as a decent season weighed down by bad press.I'm amazed SNL in the 1990s focuses on this and skims over its own internal turmoil during 1993-95. Janeane Garofalo left after half a season, considering SNL a "boys' club." Mike Myers left before the end of the 1994-95 season. People like Garofalo, Morwenna Banks, Chris Elliott, Mark McKinney, and Michael McKean were drafted to fill Hartman- and Carvey-sized gaps in the cast. When Al Franken is using his Stuart Smalley character to complain about people preferring what he called "Dumb and Dumber... and dumber ...and DUMBER" over Stuart Saves His Family, that's not a good sign. The assessment of 1994-95 isn't all bad, though - the New York magazine article is lambasted as a smear job, and the press did have a field day tearing SNL new ones from 1994-96.The post-1995 run of SNL is treated respectfully. Proper credit is given to Ferrell, Cheri Oteri, Molly Shannon, Ana Gasteyer, and the show's late-1990s reliance on Monica Lewinsky jokes. Christopher Walken, Alec Baldwin, and John Goodman are mentioned as favoured guest stars during the 1990s. The deaths of Chris Farley and Phil Hartman are properly treated.Norm MacDonald's "Weekend Update" run is given fair treatment - there's an assessment by NBC executives Don Ohlmeyer and Rick Ludwin that MacDonald's last year at "Weekend Update" was subpar, and their opinions are not unfounded. MacDonald didn't seem to want to be at SNL his final season as he ended a lot of later "Weekend Updates" abruptly and his role on the show was drastically reduced. Considering it's easier to say "Norm MacDonald was fired for too many jokes at Ohlmeyer's friend O.J. Simpson," Bowser escapes coming across as a "fake news" fanboy. No mention of "Conspiracy Theory Rock" or MacDonald's F-bomb, though?A lot of notable things came out of SNL between 1995 and 2000, loved and hated - Darrell Hammond's Bill Clinton (with requisite thumbs-up), "TV Funhouse," "Delicious Dish," "Dog Show," Mango and Mr. Peepers, Ana Gasteyer's Martha Stewart impression, Mary Katharine Gallagher, "Celebrity Jeopardy!" and Bill Brasky. It prepped writers like Robert Smigel and Adam McKay for future success with essentially offbeat shit. The Ferrell run was also critically lambasted at one time - cue a possibly-tongue-in-cheek Time article putting over Norm MacDonald while bashing both the rest of SNL and MADtv - but time seems to have been kind to Saturday Night Live during those years.The documentary ends with some SNL ass-patting. I don't see Kenneth Bowser doing an SNL in the 2000s - at least for another two-and-a-half years, anyway. It'd be untoward for an official SNL documentary to call the current show crap, but the heavy pro-Lorne slant frankly comes across like a WWE documentary talking about how Vince McMahon is a genius. It's distracting and gives objectivity to what is essentially subjective opinion.The current version of Saturday Night Live has its share of problems like every other version. No show can last in perpetuity, but time will tell if SNL regains critical praise and popularity like it has in the past. Time always has.

Cameron Archer does some stuff for some people. Here's some of that stuff.

TV Review: Saturday Night Live - Drew Barrymore/Lily Allen

Cameron Archer — Mon, 5 Feb 2007 12:34:31 EST

Drew Barrymore is probably one of the less notable Saturday Night Live hosts to join the mythical Five Timers' Club. Her first hosting stint is infamous for her being the youngest person ever to host Saturday Night Live. Since then, her episodes have been more or less nondescript. It's not like she's been as memorable as fellow five-or-more-timers Tom Hanks, Bill Murray, Christopher Walken, Candice Bergen, Danny DeVito, or John Goodman. Hell, lowly four-timers Eric Idle and Michael Palin have had more memorable moments (though most of their moments were in the first five seasons of the show.) Still, five times. It's amazing that she's at that level.As for the idea of more SNL seasons on DVD (as evinced here), bring them on. It almost cheapens the idea of best-of DVDs for the show. Of course, the obtaining of rights clearances for at least 31 more season-long sets would be maddening. There's obviously a market for the first five seasons of Saturday Night Live and a market for the Hartman/Lovitz/Carvey period. Considering it took until 2006 to get to a first-season DVD release, how long will one have to wait until the seasons when SNL really started to make that push over the cliff?Finally, Lily Allen. Let's see if the hype for her is warranted. It's nice to see her making the late-night rounds, but you know what happens when hype meets reality. Sometimes those two freaks want to kill each other.American Idol - The bad contestants are literally animals, and there's a subtle-as-a-jackhammer gag involving fish in a barrel. In the words of Vince Russo, GET IT?! I'm surprised the corpse of Barbaro wasn't wheeled out so it too could be beaten. Aren't I timely and lamely controversial?There was nothing distinct about this cold opening, but Jason Sudeikis' Simon Cowell impersonation was accurate. Other than that, it's the standard American Idol parody that appears from time to time.Monologue - Centred around many a parody of the romantic comedies Drew Barrymore tends to often appear in. It could have been funnier, but Andy Samberg holding a boombox over his head -- the gag is old, we all know -- and Will Forte declaring his love for Kenan Thompson (no gay kissing, thankfully) saved this from being an average monologue. Barrymore threatened a Five-Timers' sketch, and that could have been worse/better depending on one's tolerance for Five-Timers' sketches.Wow, SNL went from the monologue straight to a sketch without cutting to a commercial first? That rarely happens on Saturday Night Live. It's a slight variation in format, but I'd like to see more of that.The Dakota Fanning Show - Amy Poehler plays a Pynchon-referencing and hardly childlike Dakota Fanning. This was somewhat more intellectual than the standard SNL sketch, or at least had a higher degree of pretension. Poehler had some good lines. Fanning putting down her bandleader for being more down-to-earth was all right, but The Dakota Fanning Show seemed more like an embryo of an idea than anything else. I'm not going to complain if this is recurring, though."Dioxin Poisoning" - Husband and wife work out their relationship, with the wife poisoning her husband with Dioxin. Good idea, good execution, but there wasn't much funny about this sketch. At this point in the show, it's nice to see SNL go for the more sophisticated humour instead of just throwing Deep House Dish out there and hoping for the best.SNL Digital Short: Body Fuzion Low Impact Workout - This was pretty damn funny - well, I laughed. It's a parody of every bad workout video ever with the bad editing, many crotch and breast shots, washed-out video quality, and horrible workouts. The attention to detail with the SNL Digital Shorts is commendable. The people doing them really pay attention to the little things, something I wish SNL would do more of in general."Target Greatland" - More of the same from one of Kristen Wiig's headline characters. Her Target clerk acts like she lives in the store, the new-employee-du-jour makes mistakes and so on. Fans of the Target Greatland character will like this, but there's nothing here to convert the huddled masses."Disturbed Job Applicant" - This started off weak but improved as Drew Barrymore's character became more obnoxious (she steals wallets, mentions drawing a penis on a dry-erase board, and calls the black male employer “grown-up Webster.”) This sketch featured the best acting by Barrymore, considering she's usually either low-key or doing English accents when on SNL.Lily Allen Performs "Smile" - Allen's big hit from her album Alright, Still. She's the perfect musical guest for Drew Barrymore, really. "Smile" wasn't that bad, and beats Gwen Stefani's taking a strip off reggae a thousand fold.Weekend Update - Stronger-than-usual WU here purely on the strength of good topical jokes, although Seth Meyers comparing Barbaro to his grandmother felt a little too near-the-knuckle to be actually funny. Even Kenan Thompson was better than usual as one rarely sees him do physical comedy like lunging at Meyers. Yes, his Barbara Birmingham character actually lunged at Meyers this week. That put me off-guard.Versace Super Bowl Party - Wow, Donatella Versace was pulled out of the mothballs and Horatio Sanz returned as Elton John?! Huh. All I have to say is, why was Sanz more professional here than he was during his last few years as castmember? Why were you holding out on us, man? Other than that, this was the standard Versace-killing-pretension sketch. Now GET OUT!!!"Jojo" - Country-club type is loved (and obsessed over) by a valet. What was the point of this sketch? It wasn't bad, it certainly wasn't good, and it seemed to exist purely to fill time. It's always weird seeing Poehler play a male character, and she really doesn't pull it off here.Firestarter Brand Smoked Sausages - Good idea killed by a weak execution and Jason Sudeikis' constant singing. Hell, at first I thought Sanz had conned a writer to put him in another sketch the way Sudeikis' voice sounded. It's good to see more of a range by Sudeikis than usual this episode, but is this the best SNL can do with the Firestarter reference? Seriously, a smoked sausage commercial? At least SNL is referencing the more cult end of the Barrymore oeuvre, though.Lily Allen Performs "LDN" - Lily Allen does the upbeat reggae-pop while the lyrics ape Fear's "I Love Livin' in the City." It's good to see the Springsteen way of playing upbeat music with downbeat lyrics isn't dead yet. I'm not being needlessly cynical here. I thought this song was very good."Peter O'Toole and Drew Barrymore" - Barrymore and O'Toole long for the days when drunks were drunk. Why exactly is Saturday Night Live doing a sketch making fun of Drew Barrymore's childhood drinking problem? Not that I'm offended, but that's kicking a dead Barbaro. Hader pulled out his O'Toole (his impersonation, perverts - although the sketch did make reference to O'Toole letting out his little man) here and the sketch was surprisingly good for the subject matter. I guess Barrymore's comfortable enough with her past to do a sketch like this.So, when's Peter O'Toole hosting? He oughta.Nelson Baby Toupees - Why pull out a bad commercial parody from last season to fill time? I don't get the logic in that.This SNL episode continued the tradition of Drew Barrymore episodes being nondescript, although it wasn't too bad as per this season's quality. Hopefully Forest Whitaker's turn next week is better. Also, isn't it odd to have Keith Urban on the show? I'm not saying that's bad, it's just that country music isn't well served by shows like Saturday Night Live these days. At this rate, maybe Slayer being on SNL isn't too far off.

Cameron Archer does some stuff for some people. Here's some of that stuff.

TV Review: Saturday Night Live - Jeremy Piven/AFI

Cameron Archer — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 03:23:19 EST

When it comes to Saturday Night Live, the comments from Blogcritics readers are following a certain formula. There's at least one negative comment towards SNL in general every week I review the show, usually words to the effect of "Why is this show still on the air?" or "Where's the edge?" Many of the same commenters appear with varying frequency - Lono, Al Barger, Baronius. Some people think I'm being too hard on SNL. Others wonder why anyone would still bother with the show.As for the show's recent "memes" (as the e-kids e-say), "Dick in a Box" and Jake Gyllenhaal's monologue are mentioned with the most frequency. The Steve Jobs' segment of last week's Weekend Update is also doing well. The "please kill SNL" comments are always frequent. It's always nice to see the comments about SNL being as predictable as the show itself. Don't ever e-change, e-people.Hardball with Chris Matthews - Different than the standard Hardball three-guests-and-Matthews-takes-the-piss-out-of-'em format as he and Hillary Clinton engage in mutual ass-kissing (not that kind, you sick freaks.) Better than usual for a cold opening and for Hardball, as it's about time this long-running sketch embraced a different format. Features censored swearing, which makes one wonder why Saturday Night Live doesn't hightail it to one of NBC's cable channels if it plans to rely more heavily on profanity.Monologue - Jeremy Piven chats with a random audience member, talks about sexual relations with dolphins and cribs lines from the Alec Baldwin playbook. Good monologue, and I don't think the audience member was a plant from SNL's staff. SNL should really do this more. I wonder if the audience member got to keep the puppy and iPod Piven "gave" her.Urigro - Urigro controls the quality of a man's piss. This wasn't much different from Dr. Porkenheimer's Boner Juice from a couple of seasons ago - remember Rob Riggle? Instead of "meatier" erections, the selling point here is "frothier, headier" urinations. This set the lowbrow tone for the night."NFL on CBS" - Andy Samberg plays a kid from the Make-A-Wish Foundation doing play-by-play. He says "That'll move the chain" a lot. Lazy ending, too - Samberg's character claims he has ADD, which in his case actually stands for "Automatic Death Disease." I wonder how many scripts were rejected this week so this could air as a leadoff sketch. Geez.TV Funhouse: Fun with Real Audio and Stuff - President Bush appears in the form of a cartoon chipmunk to bolster his sagging approval ratings, with imitators following suit (Tony Danza, The Sopranos etc.) Not that bad for a "Fun with Real Audio and Stuff" (how long has the term "and Stuff" been appended to the title?) segment, making a point about how lame trends and memes can get. At the same time, this could have been better - Dubya farting in a shallow pool? Couldn't the TV Funhouse animators have just digitally placed a Christmas box near Bush's groin and killed two birds with one stone? I'm just saying, is all.The First Person in the History of the World to Dance - Caveman hears a techno song, starts dancing and whips out glow sticks at one point. Pure surrealism, but much better than some of the sketches that followed it.MacGruber #1 - A MacGyver parody in 2007, with a running joke about a dog turd? Where do the writers come up with half this shi...ahh, now I understand.Two A-Holes at an Adoption Agency - Finally, the A-Holes are recognized by the audience. Not the worst A-Holes sketch, not the best. The running joke of one of the A-Holes pointing out that something "looks like a rabbit" was recognized by Wiig's character pointing to a picture of a rabbit. Finally, that running joke can be put to bed.MacGruber #2 - Uh...the title sequence was faithful to MacGyver's? This MacGruber segment centred around pubes.AFI Perform "Love Like Winter" - I should point out that I don't hate AFI for their music - it's all right, but I'm not crazy about their brand of punk. Their fanbase and look, though? Could it be any more obvious that they're milking this 'dark' phase for all it's worth? I remember when AFI stood for "Asking For It" and they were on Nitro Records playing hardcore, for chrissake!Weekend Update - Highlights here were Darrell Hammond's turn as Rich Little being critical of George W. Bush through Johnny Carson, Pee-Wee Herman, and Dan Rather impersonations and the first appearance of "Really!?! With Seth and Amy." This week they pick apart Michael Vick's trying to bring marijuana onto a plane. Typical of this season's Weekend Updates, like I haven't been saying this for weeks."Common feat. The Blizzard Man" - Yes, Common did appear in this sketch. I'm honestly surprised The Blizzard Man was made a recurring character - it's just Samberg doing dorky versions of gangsta rap lyrics. Sadly, this sketch didn't stray from the Blizzard Man formula established in the Ludacris episode and was rather predictable. Sketches like this only work once, since all follow-ups are going to be rehashes by design. SNL is starting to rely way too heavily on Samberg.MacGruber #3 - Bum sperm. MACGRUBER!"Save a Unicorn Foundation" - "dave nj" from the Saturday-Night-Live.com forum summed this up more succinctly than I ever could - this did feel like "Magic Fish Town Meeting" and "Mr. Belvedere" wadded together.The sketch was still lame, though. What's so amazing about a rhinoceros mutant, even if it is magic?SNL Digital Short: Nurse Nancy - Scott Garbaciak seemingly plays every character in the film. Not bad, not good. Some people have already taken this as a slam on Eddie Murphy, but this seemed broader in scope. It reminded me of a running joke from a South Park episode, although "Rob Schneider is The Stapler/A Carrot" was a much better execution of said joke.SNL's Soundboard Crashes During Performance of "Miss Murder" - Did you know there are people that think this live snafu was an attempt to sabotage AFI? Why don't you overreactive fans just tie that in with the Zapruder film? Using their logic, SNL also tried to sabotage Common.Lansford Brothers & Associates, Hangmen-At-Law - Another 12:50 lawyer sketch and it ties in with the botched Iraqi hangings? Meh.Michael DiBari 1954-2007Goodnights - Piven shills Smokin' Aces, thanks AFI & Common and talks about da Bears as the closing credits fail to appear. That must be an attempt by SNL to sabotage Piven! Damn them!In closing, I'm actually surprised Piven didn't mention Ellen or Cupid. He did mention Entourage, but I still owe myself ten bucks.

Cameron Archer does some stuff for some people. Here's some of that stuff.

TV Review: Saturday Night Live - Jake Gyllenhaal/The Shins

Cameron Archer — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 10:24:31 EST

I like Saturday Night Live's tastes in hosts more this season. The show doesn't stray too far from the mainstream in picking most of them - no one should expect otherwise from one of the longest-running television shows currently on air - but there's more of a focus on people who might do well under the SNL format. Bringing in a few ringers (Justin Timberlake, Alec Baldwin) doesn't hurt either, and it looks like Jeremy Piven will continue the trend of decent hosting choices next week.The first four episodes of this season had me wondering where the hell the show was going, but so far there hasn't been stunt casting on the level of Lance Armstrong. Around this time last year Peter Sarsgaard's name was the centre of more sketches based on how funny his name was than necessary, and sketches like that are never necessary. If this SNL season isn't an improvement on last season, I'll change my name to Shecky Shabazz.Bush Cold Opening - Dubya wants to draft anyone with a uniform and/or a gun (anyone - policemen, Civil War reenacters, mailmen, Crips, Bloods etc.) to bolster his troops for the War in Iraq. Stronger-than-usual political cold opening for this season as Jason Sudeikis' Bush is improving. His Dubya is going to be here a while.Monologue - No one wants to promote Zodiac instead of going for the easier Brokeback Mountain jokes? At least that "gay cowboy" itch was scratched, and Gyllenhaal's performing a song from Dreamgirls wasn't nearly as bad as it should have been. He also didn't look that bad in a dress, not that I'm "that way" or anything.Deep House Dish - This is worthy of being a lead-off sketch? It's been little more than a month since the last installment. Is this really necessary? Andy Samberg and Kenan Thompson are developing a routine within the sketch's format - Samberg's character T'Shane makes a bad pun and Thompson's DJ Dynasty Handbag shoots it down. The sketch still has a repetitive format (song, interview segment, banter between hosts, repeat) and it just isn't funny. Routine and annoying? More like "rounnoying!" CAN I GET A WHAT WHAT UP TOP, T-BAG?Bronx Beat - Not a bad trial balloon for a prospective couple of recurring characters, Betty Caruso and Jodi Deitz. This felt a bit too much like Coffee Talk with Linda Richman but without the Yiddish and the references to getting verklempt. It's two ladies, they talk about stuff, the sketch is okay, no big whoop."Trump Press Conference" - Rosie O'Donnell put-downs! The Apprentice! More Rosie O'Donnell put-downs! The Apprentice! Barbara Walters is a gargoyle! The Apprentice!"Smokin' Meatballs!" - Anthropomorphic meatballs (and chicken parmesan) perform for two restaurant patrons. Well, they're not actually performing - the two patrons are on 'shrooms. Really weird sketch, this, but it ended the only credible way it could. This felt like a relapse to earlier in the season, but at least this sketch wasn't "Big Wigs."SNL Digital Short: Laser Cats! 2 - I never saw the original Laser Cats! short and one has to wonder if the writers for the SNL Digital Shorts are on 'shrooms, but this was entertaining.What really made this sketch was the no-budget nature of Laser Cats! 2, with the NBC Universal offices in New York standing in (poorly) for a dystopian future, as a space base and as Doctor Scientist's lair. The little details like Doctor Scientist's laser cat being a dog for a second and "reloading" a laser cat by feeding it were in keeping with great bad shot-on-video efforts.Sure, Laser Cats! 2 is sophomoric - that's why the sketch is as good as it is. There's a right way and a wrong way to use Andy Samberg, and Laser Cats! 2 isn't the wrong way.I wouldn't be surprised if the SNL Digital Shorts rate a best-of within the next year or two.Stock Footage Awards - Not a bad follow-up to Laser Cats! The concept is in the title, but the execution of said concept was surprisingly good. I liked the fact that the same stock footage of a clapping audience was used throughout the sketch. Best of all, I imagine this sketch was incredibly cheap to produce.The Shins MG Segment #1 - The Shins aren't bad for indie rock. Considering I'm not a fan of indie rock and vice versa, I'm surprised to find the band's music as good as it was. I can understand why people are buying Wincing the Night Away.Weekend Update - Good for Update. Weekend Update is better this season than last season, but most of the Updates aren't standing out from each other. That's good in a way - WU needs that sort of consistency - but it looks like Poehler/Meyers isn't going to be the best part of Saturday Night Live like with Norm MacDonald's or Kevin Nealon's Updates. This week featured Fred Armisen as a creepy Steve Jobs (with his nigh-godly iPhone) and Maya Rudolph's Whitney Houston impression."Law and Order Acting Workshop" - Did what it said on the tin. Fred Armisen as a Sam Waterston impersonator thinking he's Sam Waterston due to a mental disorder stole the sketch."Wheelchair Date" - Anyone with a disability can relate to this sketch, even though the previous sketch did deal with a mental disorder. That must have offended all the Sam Waterston impersonators that think they are Sam Waterston. Bad move, NBC!Two party hosts try to hook up their wheelchair-bound friends, the hosts being absolutely horrible in their attempts at political correctness. There was some overacting here, but it helped the sketch somewhat. Maya Rudolph shouting "HOW DO YOU GO TO THE BATHROOM" was the best part of the sketch due to its delivery, being blurted out randomly.I'm surprised this sketch was shoved into the bottom half of this week's SNL. Was the "restaurant patrons on drugs" sketch that much better by comparison?The Shins MG Segment #2 - Not as good as the first song. Didn't seem like much of anything, honestly. In short, typical indie rock.Kaplan, Leibowitz & Dolemite - That is a good premise for a lawyer sketch, much better than the "Stanfield and Partlow, Cat Lawyers" sketch from the Annette Bening episode. Too bad the sketch was shorter than the opening credits. Also, the sketch would have been funnier had Dolemite himself actually been the lawyer - as if it's hard to get Rudy Ray Moore to cameo. Sort of a wasted premise, this sketch, but Kenan Thompson's lines as the grandson of Dolemite were decent.One other thing before I piss off into the sunset: wouldn't a band like AFI make more sense as a musical guest for somebody like Adam Sandler? Why saddle Jeremy Piven with those guys? Doesn't he deserve better? I can't see the Piven fanbase and the AFI fanbase meshing well with each other. Then again, I hate AFI.Also, ten bucks says Piven's going to reference his roles in the late-1990s ABC series Cupid and/or Ellen. That seems like a smart bet.

Cameron Archer does some stuff for some people. Here's some of that stuff.

TV Review: Saturday Night Live - Alec Baldwin/Christina Aguilera

Cameron Archer — Mon, 8 Jan 2007 10:10:31 EST

No opening tirade here, aside from the fact that Classic Saturday Night Live no longer airs on NBC All Night (as of January 2007, anyway.) That's not a bad thing. The reruns were getting to the point where every episode from five or six years ago was considered classic. Don't get me wrong, some of them are, but Val Kilmer/U2? How about Sam Kinison/Lou Reed, jerks?Nancy Pelosi Cold Opening - Better-than-average political cold opening, with some japes at the Democratic Party focusing too much on the minority vote. Also, there were sex slaves. Sure, the cold opening made fun of the stereotypical right-wing impression of Democrats, but what the hell. If every other cold opening this season was as good as this one, it'd make for a stronger SNL. It really would.Alec Baldwin Monologue, Featuring Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan - Typical solid Baldwin monologue, bolstered by his interplay with Tracy Morgan. Seeing Morgan again (and considerably thinner than he was when he left SNL) reminds me of how good the man actually was a cast member, even though Morgan tended to play "the other black guy" for most of his tenure. Too bad about his DUI, though.e-zdate.com - Meh. That's all, just "meh." This weak dating site parody is the first commercial to air on SNL this season? Gurn."Britney Spears Divorce Settlement" - Britney Spears talks about her marriage to Kevin Federline. I didn't think this was much of a sketch, but my thoughts on the Britney Spears/K-Fed saga are enough that I can't review this sketch fairly. Honestly, who gives a shit about anything and/or anyone Spears does?"Saddam Hussein Talks To His Lawyers" - Baldwin plays Saddam Hussein. It's the Britney Spears sketch format translated for Hussein's trial, resulting in a better sketch overall. I couldn't see Hussein worrying about Borat or caring about American pop culture, though. I love reviewing reruns of shows I should have caught the first time.Valtrex - Not bad. The commercial parodies have been weaker than usual this season, and there has yet to be a commercial parody this season on par with what Saturday Night Live is capable of."Bobby McFerrin Raped My Grandmother" - Baldwin episodes aren't Baldwin episodes without build-up sketches, so SNL has to fill status quo here. Baldwin and Wiig carpool and trade stories with each other that make increasingly little sense. Lots of great one-liners were to be had here ("I'm metal from the waist down;" "I believe in Bigfoot... I've seen him twice, so he's real;" the aforementioned McFerrin line and subsequent callback to said line.) Sure, this sketch was no "Bill Brasky," but he's a tough man to follow.TV Funhouse: Kobayashi - The cartoon seemed lost on the studio audience, but this was a great parody of both Dragon Ball and Kobayashi Takeru's folk hero status as champion hot dog eater. My favourite moments included Refrigerator Perry's cameo "appearances" (basically saying "damn" at Kobayashi's hot dog eating prowess), redrawn Dragon Ball Z characters (hi, Dr. Gero), Kobayashi dipping his hot dogs in flood water and plenty of "repurposed" Dragon Ball Z clips in the background of the live-action segments. Remember, when you see a downed power line eat a lot of hot dogs very quickly!One niggling question, though: if Toriyama Akira's artwork is being parodied here, why isn't Refrigerator Perry in white-lipped blackface? That's an in-joke I'm sure only the millions of people who watch Cartoon Network and/or know about Dragon Ball's existence will ever get. Platinum Lounge, Featuring Some Cameos - There's the Five-Timers' Club and the Platinum Lounge (you have to have hosted twelve times to be accepted there.) I think they invented the Platinum Lounge just to keep Buck Henry out of the building. This was much better than usual for a Five-Timers' Club-type sketch due to the Baldwin/Steve Martin interplay - they're trying to kill each other, so they play a series of checks and balances with drinks - but the Martin Short and Paul McCartney cameos made sure this was more a series of amazing SNL moments than anything else.Short played drink server here, and humiliating roles like this are what happens when you appear on MADtv. Why should Short play favourites, though? He was on Saturday Night Live for one season, so he's not going to show favouritism to anyone.Christina Aguilera performs "Ain't No Other Man" - This song is overexposed on Top 40 radio, but she is getting better as a musician and this was a good performance for her. The Madonna-baiting look (although I can't identify which Madonna era Aguilera takes her look from - I'm assuming the Dick Tracy era) is unoriginal, but at least she's not a self-parody like Gwen Stefani.Weekend Update - Stronger-than-usual Weekend Update. At the time this episode first aired (I'm reviewing the rerun, in case you're reading this fifteen thousand years after I'm dead), Poehler and Meyers were becoming more of a cohesive team and the political humour started to become less slanted than during Fey's tenure on Weekend Update.I'm starting to really like the Poehler/Meyers pairing - Meyers has finally found his role on Saturday Night Live and the banter is not forced like it was with Fey and Poehler. The only duff routines here were Wiig's role as "Aunt Linda" (although her liking Saw III and rating it a "Watch and Learn, Martin Scorsese" is a nice touch) and Andy Samberg playing an incompetent waiter. It's nice to see WU dance around the non-news items involving Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, but Samberg needs to escape being pigeonholed into the "dopey student" role. I don't want to see him become Adam Sandler at his worst.The Tony Bennett Show, Featuring "Actual Tony Bennett" - This wasn't very funny, but who cares? TONY BENNETT! Another in a series of amazing moments for the show, but this was bound to happen eventually. Features crooning!"Brazilian Bar" - Baldwin's character tries to pick up women and fails miserably. This wasn't as good as earlier sketches, but there was one awesome line here: "You know what part of the woman I like best, and I'm not kidding about this? The vagina." Baldwin has the power to make lines like that comedy gold.Christina Aguilera performs "Hurt" - Strong performance from (and for) Aguilera, but the fake crying and "thank you" at the end was a bit much.A Moment With the Out-of-Breath Jogger From 1992 - GET THEE BEHIND ME, SAMBERG!Christina Aguilera and Tony Bennett perform "Steppin' Out With My Baby" - Sure, this amounted to a promo for Bennett's NBC special, but Bennett can still sing like a mofo. Why wasn't he the musical guest? Wouldn't that have made for better cross-promotion? This was the musical performance of 2006 for SNL, all jokes aside. I mean, come on. TONY BENNETT.After seeing this episode in full, I still think Alec Baldwin's latest go-round for SNL is just better than average comedically. The cameos improved the show instead of complementing it, although this was still the best Alec Baldwin episode since the early 2000s. I'll agree that this was the best SNL episode of 2006, and I'm not sure how the hell Baldwin is going to top himself when he finally catches up to and eclipses Steve Martin's record. I'm glad to see SNL reach a certain level of consistency again, and this episode is where that consistency started.

Cameron Archer does some stuff for some people. Here's some of that stuff.

TV Review: Saturday Night Live - Justin Timberlake

Cameron Archer — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 12:16:40 EST

It's funny how hosts of Saturday Night Live earn their reputations. Former SNL director Beth McCarthy-Miller holds Justin Timberlake up as her favourite guest. He was responsible for one of the stronger shows of the post-Ferrell period.Timberlake's first show still holds up as one of the more surprising hosting stints in recent years; picking him as both host and musical guest the first time felt like stunt casting, but here he is hosting the pre-Christmas show. Will Barry Gibb Talk Show be exhumed for another go-round? Will Timberlake return to Omeletteville and beat up more Muppets? How much singing is going to be in this episode?The answer to all of these questions is "E.G. Daily." That's right, the payoff to my buildup is a non-sequitur. I like E.G. Daily."Santa's My Boyfriend" - A surprisingly good song to open the show. The female cast members singing (and well at that) reminds me of the Chevy's Girls sketch from SNL's second season. This is actually one of the better Christmas songs coming from Saturday Night Live in recent years and might be future SNL Christmas special material.Notice how the best cold openings this year aren't overly political in nature? I know the cold opening has been traditionally about politics, and maybe that's a tradition that needs to die a quick and painful death.Monologue - Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, and Andy Samberg play Alvin, Simon, and Theodore while Justin Timberlake acts as their Dave. That's right, it's 2006 and grown men are wearing Chipmunks costumes and singing in falsettos. This opening was better than it had any right to be (and purely for Hader breaking the fourth wall every so often), but this was the second of many excuses to have people sing."Return to Omeletteville Homelessville" - At this point in the show the only people who haven't sung anything are Darrell Hammond, Seth Meyers, Jason Sudeikis, and Kenan Thompson.This was a retread of the Omeletteville sketch from Timberlake's first hosting stint. It wasn't horrible, but seeing this variation of it makes me wonder why it's considered classic by some. It's just Timberlake wearing a food-derived costume and reworking rap songs. The studio audience went nuts for it, but they were going nuts for anything Timberlake was doing."Target Greatland" - While I like Kristen Wiig, I hate when she plays quirky, Cheri Oteri-esque characters like the Target Greatland clerk. It just doesn't seem like the best use of her talents and the Target Greatland character just isn't that funny. Justin Timberlake does what he can here, but this felt like the typical SNL recurring sketch.SNL Digital Short: "Dick in a Box" - This is going to add more fuel to the "please cancel SNL" fire, being as it is a literal one-joke sketch centered around a literal penis in a box. Being on network television, SNL isn't going to show anything lewd, but the song gives instructions on how to make a dick in a box. They're not being subtle at all with this SNL Digital Short.Non-fans are going to point to sketches like this as proof of SNL going quantum leaps beyond scraping the barrel. SNL forums already think this is classic. Me? It seems ripped off from something, but I can't put my finger on it. "Dick in a Box" was taken as far as it needed to go, what with the song parodying R&B effectively. Sketch of the year, though? Shit, no.Barry Gibb Talk Show - Jimmy Fallon needed to come back to reprise this one-note sketch? I'm glad Fallon managed to keep from giggling the entire sketch (for the most part, anyway), but Fallon has better characters than this. Darrell Hammond's Jimmy Carter impression was solid and the SNL makeup department outdid themselves with the Carter mask, but it was wasted on Fallon's character wanting to beat up his guests and pointing out that he's Barry effing Gibb. I didn't need a reminder of how bad SNL was a few years ago and I got it here.Dry Eyes - Weak premise, weak execution. The object of this fake game show is to not cry at anything emotional. The cast and host do the best with what they're given, but Dry Eyes doesn't escape the realm of mediocrity for a minute.Justin Timberlake performs a song that isn't "SexyBack" - I don't like Timberlake's music and never will, but he's always improving as a musical guest and his current material was good for what it was.Weekend Update - Decent by this year's Weekend Update standards. Hammond was strong tonight with his Carter and Lou Dobbs impressions, although his Dobbs isn't that different from Darrell Hammond standard. As for using the gay couple from New Jersey as recurring characters, they weren't funny the first time and they ain't funny here. OH!Hip Hop Kids - Not really that different from the NASCARettes sketch earlier this year. The Hip Hop Kids get their gimmicks on and are picked off by falling boulders and strange humanoids. While it was better than the NASCARettes sketch, the high point of it shouldn't have been Justin Timberlake flubbing a line and breaking character."Virginiaca Sketch" - Not this again. Why is Virginiaca a recurring character, anyway? Is Kenan Thompson obligated to be the focus of at least one sketch every week? Do people on Saturday Night Live actually find this character funny? The sketch presupposed that Thompson and Timberlake in drag would make for a funny sketch, that or SNL is trying to find a viable calling card for Thompson. Virginiaca is actually one of Thompson's stronger recurring characters, but I still don't want to see this again.A Holiday Message from Nancy Grace - This was strange - a political sketch as last-sketch filler. I can see why that is, since her rant kind of bored me. It felt out of place amongst the other sketches and Grace threatening to pull someone's heart out of what she referred to as the "chestal cavity" wasn't different from Barry Gibb wanting to beat people up earlier in the show. Looks like Nancy Grace is Poehler's recurring character of note this year.Justin Timberlake performs another song that isn't "SexyBack" - See my previous comments about Timberlake's musical performance.SNL band awkwardly plays for a few seconds - That was weird. Was there a sketch cut for time or was this a botched attempt at featuring the band playing a Christmas song?Goodnights - Timberlake and Fallon talk in bad British street urchin voices during the goodnights. They look more enthusiastic about being on SNL than the actual SNL cast. Strange that.This wasn't a bad show overall. It was a little disappointing for a Christmas episode, but at least Schwetty Balls has some competition in the bad double-entendre department and there were some enjoyable moments.Too bad there were so many bad recurring characters, though. If I never see Barry Gibb Talk Show or Virginiaca again it'll still be too soon. Recurring characters aren't the devil, but SNL really should do better than the Target Greatland clerk and the gay New Jersey couple. I'm actually watching SNL enough to recap it, of course, so I have no room to talk.

Cameron Archer does some stuff for some people. Here's some of that stuff.