SNL: 38.13 – Christoph Waltz & Alabama Shakes

After the “let’s just get through this” host that was Justin Bieber, I was really looking forward to this week’s SNL with Christoph Waltz. There’s just something about real actors coming to do the show that makes it worth sitting through the teen idols. Waltz did not disappoint, at all.

Who ate Coco?
Credit to: bloggymoynihan

The cold open was quite strong. I thought they were going to stick with a political open but I was pleasantly surprised when instead the show opened with Jason Sudeikis and Cecily Strong as cruise directors for the ill-fated Carnival Triumph. Unlike last episode’s Super Bowl cold open, the cruise directors were well paced, the rest of the cruise staff was quick and funny, and the jokes were good; sad that this is out of the norm, but it was and it was good. However Ms. Strong, as a daughter of the great city of Mobile, Alabama, it is pronounced “mo-beal” not “mo-bile”. Come on, we are always a little sensitive this time of year, given how no one ever remembers that we were the ones that brought Mardi Gras to America but to not even know how to pronounce our fair city’s name? Well that’s just rude.

As for the monologue, that made me nervous. Here was a great cold open only to have a visibly nervous Christoph Waltz come out and sing. How many musical monologues does that bring us up to for the season? Way too many. I feared that his nervousness would make the rest of the show laborious but thankfully, it was short-lived. Actually you could tell Waltz was battling nerves in many of the sketches but he did a great job despite it.

Game show host Christoph Waltz
Credit to: waltzs

“What Have You Become” has the distinction of probably being my new favorite game show sketch. I would hope that it’d become a recurring sketch but it would be difficult to have the same payoff as the question being turned on the host so I’ll just have to re-watch this one numerous times. Christoph Waltz talking about his overbearing mother making him go to “game show school” was obviously the highlight but almost as good was Aidy Bryant having the chance to say anything about herself and choosing mediocre knitting. Well, mediocre knitting and her bitch of a daughter.

Christoph Waltz as retired pope SNL

In the first of two pre-recorded bits, Waltz played the retired Pope Benedict. I’m not a retiring pontiff but I was seconds away from setting up a meeting with my local “Papal Securities” office. Something about Jason Sudeikis in a pair of glasses makes me want fork over money.

While I enjoyed seeing Nasim Pedrard getting her own character, Tippy just didn’t do it for me. I respect that it’s difficult to get out of the shadow of a personality such as Kristin Wiig but it’s probably not wise to try to use a character that she would certainly excel at, as a vehicle. That being said, perhaps if it’s a recurring character Nasim can make it her own and work her way out of that shadow. Best of luck.
http://www.nbc.com/assets/video/xnxx-92/widget/widget.html?vid=n32896

The best part of the night was the second pre-recorded sketch, this time a movie trailer for the newest Quentin Tarantino film, Djesus Uncrossed. I am a huge SNL fan and usually laugh pretty heartily at various sketches, but I have not laughed as hard at something in quite some time that I did to this trailer. It was perfect. Anyone who has seen even half a Tarantino film recognized his style immediately, that style being very bloody, and often involving swords. Christoph Waltz was perfect as the freshly resurrected Djesus who sets out to take his revenge on the Romans. If there were any doubts about Taran Killam’s ability to impersonate Brad Pitt, they were put to rest as he did a great job and now I can’t even see the word “Roman” without pronouncing it as “R0-Mans”.

Credit to: wilderthanbilly
Credit to: wilderthanbilly

If the sketch itself wasn’t entertaining, the backlash certainly has been. Long story short, people are losing their shit. It has certainly kept my attention this morning and has been quite educational. Apparently if you thought the bit was funny you are either a god-less heathen, atheist, or a “libretard”. Oh and you are most certainly going to hell. I imagine the FCC is fielding their fair share of complaints this morning, and if this compilation of SNL complaints through the years is any indication, they probably make for fun reading. Good times.

Christoph Waltz

By the time the CD commercial came up for the JaMarcus Brothers, the show was on a roll unlike one I’ve seen all year. You could tell that everyone in the cast knew it as well. JaMarcus Brothers was probably one of the funniest “Time Life Music” bits they’ve had in a while, thanks to Waltz as the adopted white virgin. Hysterical.

I’m a huge fan of Alabama Shakes so no surprise that I really enjoyed their two pieces of the night. Brittany Howard is amazing, and I’ve decided that I would like her to follow me around and sing-narrate my life.

Mohawk and Bangs

Much in line with the rest of the night, Weekend Update was fantastic. No surprise to anyone, Marco Rubio (Taran Killam) made an appearance with his infamous thirst and dedication to maintaining eye contact with the camera. I wouldn’t have pictured Rubio as one to take on a YouTube meme such as the “cinnamon challenge” so you learn something new everyday. I’m waiting for his “Harlem Shake” video to hit the internet.

Credit to: stupidf***questions
Credit to: stupidf***questions

Kate McKinnon continues her campaign for full cast member status and this week, it came behind the Weekend Update desk. I don’t know if she’s writing these characters herself, or someone is writing for her, but whoever it is, they are hitting it out of the park.  Ann Romney and Cecilia Gimenez were both great but they pale in comparison to the Russian woman hoping the meteor was there to turn her into dust so she could be eaten by a goat and finally warm. So good.

Credit to: 3swallows
Credit to: 3swallows

If I had to choose to low point of the night? For me it’d be the return of Regine. The only plus to Fred Armisen’s crotch flashing drag sketch is watching the other cast members trying to keep it together. Of course when Bill Hader is involved, there’s not much chance of him keeping a straight face, and this week was no different.

Fox and Friends may seem tired, but it still makes me laugh, no doubt thanks to Bobby Moynihan and his absolutely ridiculous character. He certainly has a talent when it comes to making the dim bulb, Brian Kilmeade, very entertaining to watch. I think we can all agree that it’s about time they start crediting the fourth host of the Fox morning show, Vanessa Bayer’s rack. Woowee she had the girls out for a walk this week!

I probably shouldn’t have enjoyed the “Secret Valentine Admirer” sketch as much as I did. Awkward Christoph Waltz certainly is adorable and the payoff with Keenan Thompson’s reaction to a second “valentine” was great.

Overall? Easily the best episode of the season, if not the best of recent seasons. Even though there are plenty of people pissing and moaning that they are no longer watching the show due to the whole Djesus thing, there were enough of us who loved it that hopefully NBC won’t see any substantial blow-back. It was nice to see the writers taking a step back onto the unsafe and daring ledge, a refreshing change of pace from the somewhat predictable and pedantic.

Next week is a rerun, likely due to the Oscars on Sunday night, but they return on March 2nd with what looks to be a promising episode with host Kevin Hart and musical guest Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

Kevin Hart

Until then SNL fans!

Arrow, 1:14 – “The Odyssey” and News of a Renewal?

If you are a Diggle, Felicity, and island fan than The Odyssey was for you! I am that person and I was in heaven.

This week picked right where we left off last week, with Arrow telling Moira about how she had failed Starling City. If that wasn’t shocking enough, Moira, after pleading in the name of Oliver and Thea, goes off and shoots Oliver! Granted she didn’t know it was Oliver but still, she shot her own kid. Of course Ollie gets out of there and the camera pans to the pool of blood he left. I’ve watched enough crime shows to know this was a problem.

The Odyssey
Credit to: itseverdeen

In a very heads up play, Oliver finds his way into Felicity’s car, instructing her to the Arrowcave instead of the hospital. Finally! It’s about time that Felicity is told the truth, although I will miss the incredibly stupid cover stories Oliver came up with. The rest of the episode was basically Diggle and Felicity trying to keep Oliver alive. Another reason to keep Diggle around? Apparently he can dig (hehe) bullets out of bodies. He may not be so great with fritzy defibrillators, but that’s why Felicity “I’ve been fixing computers since I was 7” Smoak is there. They made a pretty good team and Oliver lives to see another day. However, I do have to call bullshit on Diggle’s proclamation that Oliver’s injury was a “Zone II wound” as a simple Google search classifies Zone II as part of the neck and that was clearly a shoulder shot. Come on Diggle, get it right man.

The majority of the episode was flashbacks to the island. Last week we met Slade Wilson and learned that the guy in the mask back at Fyers’ camp was obviously not Deathstroke, because Slade Wilson is Deathstroke and there he is helping Oliver escape. Come to find out this week that not only is the masked man not Deathstroke, but rather that’s Billy (William) Wintergreen. I don’t know why I didn’t even think of him last week, but I didn’t so I was surprised when Slade said his name.

The Odyssey

Now I know that Arrow hasn’t really been all that concerned with canon, but this whole thing with Deathstroke is really convoluted. Wilson and Wintergreen were friends. At times they took on a mentor/student role. Wintergreen was Wilson’s best man when he got married. In the endThe Odyssey Deathstroke/Wilson does end up killing Wintergreen, but that’s only because his son, well the spirit of his son, has taken over his body. It wasn’t actually Deathstroke himself, rather his son, Jericho. Wilson even mentioned his son to Oliver when he said that Wintergreen was his son’s godfather. So the idea that Wilson killed Wintergreen himself is a little bit of an annoyance, but then again the show is set in Starling City and Oliver Queen’s mother is a major character so really this is just another in a long list of taken liberties.

Obviously the focus of the island was the attempted escape by Wilson and Oliver. Before they could do that though, Oliver needed to become a somewhat trained soldier-like individual. Hence the training montage with him and Wilson. Of course Oliver, being from a very privileged and not very hands-on background, doesn’t do so hot with that. The best part of the episode came when after watching Oliver struggle to start a fire for hours, Wilson pulls out a lighter. Of course this is a family show so Oliver didn’t take all that newly learned hand to hand combat skills and beat the crap out of Wilson, instead he just laughed it off. It’s official, Oliver is a better person than I.

The Odyssey
Credit to: waspftw

So far on the island we’ve seen Oliver grow a little from the elitist douchebag to a somewhat more humble man, but this episode really brought his selfishness to the spotlight. He’s made it no secret that up until now he’s thought pretty much only of Oliver, so you’d think that when Wilson is telling him that you have to live for yourself, he’d be on board. However, instead of ditching Yao Fei to grab his assured seat on the plane out, Oliver heads out to try to get Fei to go with them. One has to wonder why instead of running through the jungle he didn’t just take one of the dozen Jeeps sitting there, but hey he went back and that’s all that matters. Of course Fyers was waiting for him and had Wintergreen attempt to execute him which ends up with Wintergreen’s death but the real revelation in all this is…

The Odyssey

SHADO!!!!!

I fear we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to poetic license on storylines, because I have a feeling there is no way we are going to see the comic’s version of Shado and Oliver’s relationship, but still it should be fun to see what happens. I can not tell you how happy I am that they had her as part of the island because as I said here, I was really quite concerned that she was just going to be some throwaway paralegal or something. I’ll admit that I have zero idea as to how they are going to continue the island story, but at least we don’t have to wonder (for now) how it is that Slade Wilson and Oliver Queen ended up on a plane together with there being no mention of Wilson being rescued.

After all the island excitement, we returned to the Arrowcave and what the what?!?! Oliver has the same tattoo as Shado! The intrigue, it is strong.

The Odyssey

Of course we couldn’t go an entire episode without Thea so she made an appearance, thankfully it was short. Annoying, but short. Oliver declares his mother off-limits to the Arrowcrew, and we finish up another visit to Starling City.

This was a great episode. Probably my favorite so far of the season as I love the island. It’s not that I don’t enjoy modern-day Starling City but I’ve really liked how they have told the island story so far and this episode was no different. Had there not been the wide injustices done to the Wintergreen/Wilson story, it might have been a 4.5 but going to have to stick with four out of five.

grizzly rating 4of5

Not only was it a great episode this week, but there was good news as well. Arrow has been renewed for a second season! It comes as a surprise to no one, given how strong the ratings have been, but it’s always nice to have that renewal become official. Not only that, but apparently the powers that be have seen the fan’s reactions to our favorite IT girl because it was announced that Felicity Smoak will be bumped up to a main character next season. No doubt there are ‘Felicity and Oliver’ shippers who are just beside themselves with this news.

The Odyssey
Credit to: selfcenteredcow

That’s all I have, until next week Arrow fans!

Review: ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’ or How They Tarnished the Franchise…

On July 15, 1988, 20th Century Fox released the newest movie from Predator director John McTiernan. It was the story of a Christmas party gone wrong, and featured a script that had already been turned down by nearly every A-list action star in Hollywood. So the studio settled for TV actor and co-star of the ABC show Moonlighting, Bruce Willis. The movie was titled Die Hard and it went on to become one of the highest-grossing films of the year, catapulting Willis into stardom and becoming the greatest action movie ever made.

On February 13, 2013,  20th Century Fox released the newest movie from Max Payne director John Moore. It was the story of a father-son relationship gone awry and featured a script that had been shown to only one A-list action star in Hollywood: Bruce Willis. The movie was titled A Good Day to Die Hard and it has now tarnished the franchise spawned from the greatest action movie ever made.

Continue reading Review: ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’ or How They Tarnished the Franchise…

Rob Zombie’s Newest ‘Lords of Salem’ Trailer

Rob Zombie’s new horror trailer recently came out online, and anyone who thought that Halloween 2 was the nail in his cinematic coffin may be proved dead wrong when they see this…

Continue reading Rob Zombie’s Newest ‘Lords of Salem’ Trailer

Gone Too Soon: ‘Cupid’

When people usually mention a Rob Thomas show that has been canceled way before it’s time, they most likely are talking about Veronica Mars or perhaps even Party Down. I agree that both of those were axed before they should have been, but today I’m here to pay a little tribute to a sometimes forgotten Rob Thomas classic, Cupid.

Continue reading Gone Too Soon: ‘Cupid’

Star Wars Update! Spin-off Movies on the Way Alongside the New Trilogy!

Geek Exchange have confirmed that Disney has more plans for the Star Wars franchise and certainly more movies in the pipeline. We also now know who will write two of them. Lawrence Kasdan (Screen Writer on The Empire Strikes Back) and Simon Kinberg (Screen Writer on X-Men: Days of Future Past) were confirmed by Disney CEO Bob Iger. He had this to say about the two writers:

[box_light]“[Kasdan and Kinberg are] working on films derived from great Star Wars characters that are not part of the overall saga, so we still plan to make Star Wars VII, VIII and IX roughly over a six-year period of time starting in 2015. But there are going to be a few other films released in that period of time, too.”[/box_light]

star wars spin off lawrence kasdan simon kinberg

So not only are Star Wars fans getting more of the continuing storyline of George Lucas’s epic saga, they are also going to be treated to more movies spinning off from Star Wars Mythology. Fantastic news to say the least and some even better news about the great talent behind these spin offs. Lawrence and Kasdan are established and clever writers and with Kasdan himself already a part of the Star Wars universe (with him working on Empire) we can expect great things. This format opens up a massive selection of characters that could be given their own stories.

While the movies lay dormant for quite some time after Return of the Jedi (until The Phantom Menace came onto our screens), the universe did not wait and expanded out into books, comics, with a huge amount of expanded stories that spanned through several era’s in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Stories concerning events set years before The Phantom Menace (The Old Republic, Tales of the Jedi), or during the original trilogy (Splinter of the Mind’s EyeShadows of the Empire),  and the continuing story after the original trilogy which are sagas in their own right (Dark Empire, The Thrawn Trilogy). So while the expanded movies will be original stories, there really is no limit to where they can move forward from here. Especially with a few stand-alone pictures mixed in. Can you imagine a whole film with Yoda (rumored) or Mace Windu? That’s what this turn of events could offer us.

star wars spin offs mace windu

Shortly after this was released to the masses, Bob Iger came back again with even more exciting news. Collider shared that two confirmed stories would be about a young Han Solo (following the young rogue smuggler after Revenge of the Sith to his appearance in A New Hope) and the mightiest of all bounty hunters Boba Fett (probably between A New Hope and Return of the Jedi, unless you go with the expanded universe version where HE SURVIVES) mixing it up with some other bounty hunter scum.

star wars spinoff boba fett and han solo

So what do we have here exactly? Well with these stories we could see a return of characters now dead in the franchise. Darth Vader could easily make an appearance again,as he hired Boba Fett and could have had dealings with Han Solo, whohas had trouble with the Empire before. And with Boba Fett involved you would think that Jabba the Hutt will pop up at some point as well as his old bounty hunter buddies like IG88. With Han Solo we could see him winning the Millennium Falcon or meeting up with his hairy buddy Chewbacca. There are lots and lots of possibilities here.

However, there are certain problems with this. Finding an actor to play a young Han Solo could be a problem. Those are some big boots to fill as every one remembers Harrison Ford as their Han Solo. Most people seemed to embrace Ewan McGregor as Obi Wan, so maybe it will not be an issue. As I mentioned before the comics and books about Star Wars have already expanded greatly on the adventures of certain characters and Boba Fett is one of the most talked about. He has had entire comic books written about his exploits so it will be interesting to see if any of these plot lines are taken for the movie. It seems that Boba Fett will not rise from the Sarlacc’s belly as he did in the comic books; just because of the fact his story takes place in between parts 4-6. Still, it would be great to see him jet off again in his own adventure.

star wars spin offs comics

Is it a good thing to do these spin-off movies at all? If Disney is spreading themselves to thin here, than will the spin-off movies be of a poor caliber compared to Episodes 7 – 9? Personally I think Star Wars content lends itself better to television format rather than other feature films. Television is better suited to character development. Certain new characters could be introduced to a fresh audience this way and established characters can be expanded on, giving older Star Wars fans something to get excited about. People could disagree with me here after the cheesy nature of The Star Wars Holiday Special, but television has moved on greatly since then and it has become a respected form of story telling in its own right. But at the end of the day it is still more Star Wars so as long as it does not turn out like The Phantom Menace (which I hate to say is still painful to watch even after its release in 1999 over ten years ago), then I think we can all agree it is an interesting time to be a Star Wars fan.

star wars spin offs holiday special

One finally note to this news which may be of interest. Yahoo has an interview with both Lawrence and Kasdan about how they feel taking on this established and beloved universe and some of their plans for it. Keep reading Grizzly Bomb for more information as it develops.