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OT: A 2017-2018 Saturday Night Live Thread (with a Hitchcock/Psycho Opener)

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
26 replies | jump to latest

We had one of these going on the old Psycho board. I didn't contribute on every episode, but it does seem that SNL has a direct link to the popular culture with a historical basis and an emphasis on "movie stars coming on TV to play" that would make this thread worthwhile to have here.

Here's something interesting to me: SNL debuted in the 1975-1976 TV season, over forty years ago. And in April of 1976 -- near the end of that first season(which looks so raw and primitive in its video-taped basics today) -- Hitchcock gave us his final film: Family Plot. I'm pretty sure that a REAL TV commercial FOR Family Plot aired on SNL(movies usually launch on that show.)

So basically, the Hitchcock Era ends just as the Saturday Night Live era begins. And having been alive then, it feels like 1976 was a long, long time ago. Its been a helluva trip.

SNL has been around for much of my life; from college on, I grew up with it, and now I watch it with the children of my generation.

A little bit of Psycho criss-crosses SNL:

Anthony Perkins hosted. I think in the second season. He had the great sketch where he played Norman Bates: "The Norman Bates School of Motel Management."

Vince Vaughn hosted -- to promote Van Sant's Psycho, on its release in December 1998. Darrell Hammond played the Ghost of Hitchcock. Vince said "I'm Vince Vaughn. I play Norman Bates in Gus Van Sant's shot by shot remake of Psycho." The Ghost of Hitchcock yelled: "Who's what by what what of WHAT?!!!"

In the 70's and 80s, I believe that two Family Plot stars -- Karen Black and Bruce Dern -- hosted on separate occasions. Black in the 70's, Dern in the 80s.

And in the early 80s, after Hitchcock's death, SNL ran a stop-motion "commercial" for "Brian DePalma's The Clams" -- based on Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, with the catchy tag line: "Once a year, Brian DePalma picks the bones of a Dead Great Director, and gives his wife a job."

And that's about it on Hitchcock connections to SNL, to my mind.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Lifted from my response to swanstep's comments(in another thread, downthread) on the opening episode of SNL last week, with host Ryan Gosling:

And so an "SNL" thread creeps in(we got static about that over at you know where. But I don't think that will happen here. C'mon, like I say, "its where the movie stars come to play.")

I had placed a bet that Gal Gadot would host the opener. I'm off by a week. She's next week. They need to promote Blade Runner first.

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Monologue about 'saving Jazz' dragged a bit but did make me laugh with 'Nerlins' and 'Chica-gee' and 'NYC city'.

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His line delivery was funny: "I ...savedjazz!"

Emma Stone showing up again reminded me that if I were Mrs Ryan Gosling I'd still be worried about her.

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They've played lovers a time or two. Or two more...

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Gosling cracks up way too much,

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Mainly in that "alien experience" skit that MacKinnon rules with comedy but I tell ya -- it seemed to me she was given almost the exact same lines and "visual butt gags" she got a year ago with this sketch. Gosling seems legit in his busting up...

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but I guess I can accept it from him whereas Fallon as a permanent cast member with this problem just made me mad.

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It seemed a permanent affectation with Fallon.

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Liked the Guy Who Just Bought a Yacht in Update and Gosling's part in it...and the Avatar Font sketch was appealingly deranged.

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Both funny. Agreed.

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The female side of the cast felt a little deflated without Vanessa Bayer to give crucial support in sketches. MacKinnon feels even more out on her own now.

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The talent base is low. I mean, Kennan Thompson is in, like, his 500th season. And he made a joke to that extent a full year ago when LAST season opened. And now here he is a year later. Bottom line: he's funny, and they seem desperate to keep him around.

As for the "white guys," they seem to split between good-looking and not so good looking. And they are desperate to break through.

I do like Cecily Strong's boozy "Cathy Anne" (last seen in a special summer Update episode.) That's funny vocal stuff.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Season 42? Episode Two: Gal Gadot

Well, Ms. Gadot turned up and made quite an impression. Truly a beauty, and with various wigs(including a blonde one) and hairstyles, Gadot gave us about five different versions of gorgeous. She's got a lock on "Wonder Woman" for a decade, I'm sure -- but what else can the movies do with this statuesque, exotic and yet "girl next door" beauty?

I thought the sketches were generally funny -- with Kate MacKinnon(openly gay) and Aidy (?) playing up the obvious "are they lesbians?" angle on Wonder Woman island and Ms. Gadot complying with a lengthy kiss with Kate. That's great TV.

But the show opened on a somber, thoughtful note by referencing the tragedy we haven't referenced around here this week: the Las Vegas massacre. Jason Aldean, the country singer whose act was the staging ground for the attack, appeared to open SNL -- I was lightly shocked to see him on the SNL stage six days later, to tell you the truth -- made a good brief speech, and then played Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down," which allowed SNL to salute a great musical artist whose death by natural causes, we all know, was weirdly factored into the same day as the Night of Vegas Death. Unanticipated tragedy on a large scale (the shootings); understandable tragedy on a small scale(Tom Petty passes at 66 of a heart attack). Life goes on.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

As has been noted, this was the worst mass shooting in American history, and came within two years of the LAST worst mass shooting in American history. They are coming fast and furious; this country has changed so much since my childhood -- which had its own backdrop of violence to be sure, but usually killings of politicians and in war overseas, not "regular people over here."

I leave the gun control debate where it always seems to be. Greater minds than mine will have that confrontation though, as always -- to make change, you have to change the elected officials in power.

No, I think I'll close out on the idea -- callous but on point, I think -- that the American media is engaged in a days-long attempt to stage a "shrink scene for all of us" and try to explain why this particular psychopath did what he did. Theories abound, but it looks like we are zeroing in on yet another madman whose "brain chemistry" went wrong(his bank robber father was a psychopath, too, which adds a "Bad Seed" element) but who might just be another embodiment of pure evil. As the villainous killer Kirk Douglas says in "The List of Adrian Messenger": "Oh, evil DOES exist."

We have more mass shootings...but we also have more evil psychopaths. Population growth?

Back to SNL: as if to remind us of psychopathic-style horrors past, they had a sketch about newly-released OJ Simpson going out on an internet date with a gal played by Gal Gadot. A dangerous world we live in.

And "Psycho" looks more and more like the most important thematic movie in history.

PS. Aside from SNL, this recent news was reported: a California parole board has actually granted parole to one of Charlie Manson's psycho kill squad. She's a woman who has been in prison for over forty years for her role in personally stabbing a selected-at-random married couple -- the LoBiancas -- to death in 1969. 14 times. But there's a catch: Governor Jerry Brown has to approve or reject this parole. We shall see.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

playing up the obvious "are they lesbians?" angle on Wonder Woman island

I confess to being a little confused by Wonder Woman's Island. I *thought* that WW herself was the only child on the island a[nd that she was some sort of one-off-deal with WW's mom and Zeus (I forget the deal)] and we sort of gather that everyone else on the island is somehow immortal and ageless and non-reproductive (no natural need to make replacements for anyone, would immediately lead to massive overpopulation if you did, etc.), but maybe they have sex for pleasure? They all seem to have various superpowers.... but then the Germans show up and slaughter Amazons left and right with ordinary old rifles etc.... so much for superpowers, and then they *do* need to be reproductive to cope with attrition (like the elves in Tolkien who are don't age or get sick but can be killed, die in accidents etc. - they have a few kids but not many).

Anyhow, it all felt vague and under-specified what we were supposed to think. WW gets it on later with Chris Pine later but it isn't clear what that means for her either, e.g., is she possibly pregnant at the end of the film (and is that more of a possibility for her than with other Amazons or less?)? I assumed not, but romantic-pregnancies-after-hero-father-dies are commonplace in these sorts of tales so we can't rule it out either.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Anyhow, it all felt vague and under-specified what we were supposed to think. WW gets it on later with Chris Pine later but it isn't clear what that means for her either, e.g., is she possibly pregnant at the end of the film (and is that more of a possibility for her than with other Amazons or less?)? I assumed not, but romantic-pregnancies-after-hero-father-dies are commonplace in these sorts of tales so we can't rule it out either

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"Making up the rules" of any fantasy world can be difficult and evidently requires a "Bible" of mythology history to pull it off.

WW does get it on with Chris Pine, and I'm pretty sure that Superman got it on with Lois Lane -- idea being that the mix of reproductive imperatives and just plain love/lust cross all species. Aside from the love/lust, angle, on the reproductive side, certainly on Star Trek(with ITS mythology), we had Mr. Spock as the child of a Vulcan and a human.

What SNL was confronting head on - for laughs -- was the idea that an island composed of nothing but women (and generally attractive and physically fit women) is a place where either a hetero man or a homosexual woman could go a little crazy with lust. But the Amazons themselves in the sketch seemed confused by that idea; they were simply asexual and a "sisterhood."

And the payoff joke of this sketch is that our two modern day lesbians took off for their namesake island -- Lesbos -- which was evidently more on point with their needs.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Jason Aldean, the country singer whose act was the staging ground for the attack, appeared to open SNL -- I was lightly shocked to see him on the SNL stage six days later, to tell you the truth -- made a good brief speech, and then played Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down,"

Sounds good.

Petty's death has been interesting. He's an important artist but in a different way from Bowie and Prince and Leonard Cohen, etc. of 2016. Petty's music never *changed* anyone's life the way those others did, Petty's music instead always just became *part* of everyone's life, making it better. Nirvana had an atonal bitchy album track called 'Radio-friendly Unit-Shifter' mocking sell-outs who make songs that sound good on the radio... but Petty showed the honor in shaping a career around making tracks that sound great on radio, that a mixed group of different generations listening together in a car might agree on, etc.. Petty's music appeals across generations and in most case sounds about as fresh now as the day it was released: it was never especially on-trend when it came out and it doesn't sound dated now (or sound of any particular era). Petty has 20 or 30 songs that are utterly bulletproof: kids like 'em, grandparents like 'em, and everyone in between likes them too.

I only saw Petty and the Heartbreakers once, when they were supporting Bob Dylan in 1986. Dylan blew that night, just so wildly out of tune it was unbearable. Petty and co., however, crushed it. Every song was great and played immaculately. Petty was hardly anyone's favorite music star - this was an audience of about 30K for *Dylan* - but you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who didn't enjoy Petty's stuff. Hence the sadness that greeted Petty's too early death. People don't agree about anything much these days is how it feels, but we all liked Petty.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

In case somebody hasn't seen it, Petty's 1993/4 hit 'Into The Great Wide Open' had a very entertaining video:
https://youtu.be/xqmFxgEGKH0
It features (i) Johnny Depp playing both an ingenue, Eddie arriving in Hollywood and also his tattoo-artist, thereby affording us a preview of decrepit post-Pirates-overload Depp, (ii) Faye Dunaway as a Fairy-godmother agent, and (iii) Gabrielle Anwar (who'd later have an eye-blink of fame as Al Pacino's cutie dance-partner in Scent of a Woman) as Eddie's babe-girlfriend.

That the not-especially photogenic Petty was able consistently to make genuine video-hits to go with his pretty timeless tunes is pretty remarkable. Very few people of his got-famous-in-the-'70s vintage were able to do this.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It features (i) Johnny Depp playing both an ingenue, Eddie arriving in Hollywood and also his tattoo-artist, thereby affording us a preview of decrepit post-Pirates-overload Depp, (ii) Faye Dunaway as a Fairy-godmother agent, and (iii) Gabrielle Anwar (who'd later have an eye-blink of fame as Al Pacino's cutie dance-partner in Scent of a Woman) as Eddie's babe-girlfriend.

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I think that Depp and Dunaway had appeared with Brando in the surprisingly sweet "Don Juan DeMarco" film around this time; they were pals.

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That the not-especially photogenic Petty was able consistently to make genuine video-hits to go with his pretty timeless tunes is pretty remarkable. Very few people of his got-famous-in-the-'70s vintage were able to do this

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As I recall, Petty often put a pretty girl in his videos -- the one who played Alice in a Wonderland type thing was an example -- and cast himself as a quirky character star(the Mad Hatter in the Alice video.)

I guess it was all part of his longevity -- the ability to make sure that HIS songs were fun, HIS videos were inventive.

I will add that, in the small city where I live now, electronic billboards all over the city lit up with Tom Petty 1950-2017 RIP tributes this week...he MATTERED.

PS. One more thing: Petty's raucous "American Girl" has ended up a key part of a key horror thriller -- "Silence of the Lambs." With music-savvy Jonathan Demme at the helm, our introduction to the kidnap victim American Girl is first seen singing this to Petty's radio version, at the top of her lungs while driving.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Petty's death has been interesting. He's an important artist but in a different way from Bowie and Prince and Leonard Cohen, etc. of 2016. Petty's music never *changed* anyone's life the way those others did, Petty's music instead always just became *part* of everyone's life, making it better. Nirvana had an atonal bitchy album track called 'Radio-friendly Unit-Shifter' mocking sell-outs who make songs that sound good on the radio... but Petty showed the honor in shaping a career around making tracks that sound great on radio, that a mixed group of different generations listening together in a car might agree on, etc..

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I think that's a great summary of the whole thing. The rock/pop music industry doesn't fully "match up" to the movie industry, but you could say that Bowie and Prince were more "influential artists" and Petty more the "mainstream hit maker." I would add that while I've read/heard a lot about Leonard Cohen, he didn't run in the same mass popularity circles as Bowie, Prince, and Petty. These things "subdivide."

I was heartened that Aldean chose "I Won't Back Down" as the Petty song to use. Funny -- that song could have been used for the first SNL after 9/11 all those years ago(no, they had Paul Simon sing "The Boxer" surrounded by NYC firemen and cops.) But "I Won't Back Down" is my favorite Petty song. For what it says, but also for how it plays -- I just like the way it powers up on the refrain, its a great pop rock song.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Its funny...I can't say that I have "favorite songs of a year" as I do with movies. Nor even necessarily a favorite song of a rocker. But I know I have THESE favorites:

Favorite song of Tom Petty: I Won't Back Down
Favorite song of Neil Young: Old Man
Favorite song of Chicago: Feeling Stronger Every Day
Favorite song of Electric Light Orchestra: Don't Bring Me Down
Favorite song of Elton John: Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (currently featured in Kingsman 2)

Look at them: mainstream "fast song" rockers. Mainstream Man strikes again. With the exception of "Old Man," which just seems to have its own emotional power to me. I first heard it as a very YOUNG man (the line "24 and there's so much more" was a year still well ahead of me), and with every year I age, the song feels different.

I think with Tom Petty, for those of us who like I Won't Back Down the best, others like Free Fallin' or Refugee; Petty was a hits maker for the long run, plenty to choose from.

On the Sirius Beatles channel, they've been playing Tom Petty's version of the Beatles "I Need You"(from the Help album). I think Petty pal George Harrision wrote it. Anyway, the Petty version is better than the original, it has more of a "guitar power cushion" under it to make the emotion of the song even more emotional.

Speaking of the Beatles, I don't have a favorite Beatles song, but I know I have a small group of them. Rockers all, and mainly from the early period:

I Saw Her Standing There
Things We Said Today
Eight Days a Week
Paperback Writer

They're fun, they're fast, they're from my childhood(to start) and they've been a warm memory ever since. And few of the songs from AFTER that period have the same youthful fun to them. Not Strawberry Fields Forever. Not Day in the Life. Not Hey Jude. Not Come Together. Not Let it Be.

Back in the USSR, maybe!

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

And few of the songs from AFTER that period have the same youthful fun to them. Not Strawberry Fields Forever. Not Day in the Life. Not Hey Jude. Not Come Together. Not Let it Be.

I've been trying to think of late Beatles rockers...Get Back maybe. Helter Skelter's got the tempo but is pretty dark even without the Manson associations later. An interesting fact I heard recently: Here Comes the Sun wasn't ever an official singe back in the '60s but it's the biggest selling Beatles song as a download. It's not a driving rocker but it *is* very fun and positive so maybe that's almost as good for mainstream success.

'I saw You Standing There' that you mention is a special one. Song 1 Side 1 of the Beatles' first album - it's an amazing opening statement that still sounds completely fantastic roaring out of the speakers. It was played at a wedding (of 30-somethings) I attended recently and the dance floor went crazy. (They didn't play 'American Girl' but if they had that would have made people go nuts too.) The early Beatles certainly worked hard to come up with beats and packed vocal energy 'to make girls dance': She Loves You and Hard Days Night and Help! are all monsters in that mould, often used to lead off or close albums or sets by them.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I've been trying to think of late Beatles rockers...Get Back maybe. Helter Skelter's got the tempo but is pretty dark even without the Manson associations later.

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Yes to both. And I'd say that the White Album had more than a few, not all of them famous: Back in the USSR(with a heavy Beach Boys influence), Birthday(which I have been known to PLAY at kids' birthdays in my family); and the immortal "Everybody's Got Something to Hide 'Cept for Me and My Monkey"(penned by John Lennon in honor of Yoko -- his monkey! -- and him.)

But that early-mid period stuff had a different sound, a different FEEL -- youthful, joyous, full of great harmonies and crackling guitar work. Even the "fast songs" on the White Album seemed from a more dark and druggy time.

The one song that always intrigued me was "One After 909", which came at the very end of the Beatles career(1970?), but was evidently written in their earliest years. I remember thinking at the time: "Hey, they did it! They recreated their first year!" It had a Roll Over Beethoven feel. "Move over once, move over twice, c'mon baby don't be cold as ice!"

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

An interesting fact I heard recently: Here Comes the Sun wasn't ever an official singe back in the '60s but it's the biggest selling Beatles song as a download. It's not a driving rocker but it *is* very fun and positive so maybe that's almost as good for mainstream success.

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Its a very sweet song. Certainly popular and necessary in what seemed to be a "dark time"(Vietnam, assasinations, riots.) But hell, its ALWAYS a dark time. But heck, we ALWAYS fight back with good songs.

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'I saw You Standing There' that you mention is a special one. Song 1 Side 1 of the Beatles' first album - it's an amazing opening statement that still sounds completely fantastic roaring out of the speakers.

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"One...two...three..FOUR!"

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It was played at a wedding (of 30-somethings) I attended recently and the dance floor went crazy.

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I"ve been to some dance clubs in my youth(ha, my 30s) where this came on and the floor just filled right up. Its infectious.

I was always interested that in the US, they led with "I Want to Hold Your Hand"(which I find rather slow and without "drive") and THEN brought in "Standing There." Perhaps with "Love Me Do" before either of them. In any event, while "I Want to Hold Your Hand" seems to stand as the emblem of The Innocent Beatles...its I Saw Here Standing There that brings back the best memories of their launch to me.

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(They didn't play 'American Girl' but if they had that would have made people go nuts too.)

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Ya, sure.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The early Beatles certainly worked hard to come up with beats and packed vocal energy 'to make girls dance': She Loves You and Hard Days Night and Help! are all monsters in that mould, often used to lead off or close albums or sets by them.

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Who can forget the first chords of "A Hard Day's Night"? Or "One two three ...four!" (Which Paul McCartney sang on that CBS special a few years back.)

I have a particular affection for how "Eight Days a Week,"which starts quiet and then literally FADES IN to the hard rocking opening guitar beat.

My family would go to the LA beaches in the sixties and there was this one public pool where that particular song played every hour on the hour. 1965. When Eight Days a Week plays now, I feel the sun and the surf...

Ah, yes...the Beatles. They were something for us Boomers to always remember.

BTW, I've found that the relatively new "Beatles channel" on Sirius radio rather dilutes their power. Solo songs by John, Paul, George and Ringo get equal time with their Beatles classics(which means you gotta listen to sub-par stuff like "Let 'Em In" and "Love") , and it feels like the station doesn't have the rights to ALL the Beatles hits. Its been a bit of a disappointment.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

S43E03 - Kumail Nanjiani (sp?) + Pink
Nanjiani is new to me but was very impressive; sharp, witty monologue and good acting throughout the ep.. I get the impression that the writers were inspired by having such a good actor so plauible as a service worker/colleague of various sorts and an interesting ethnicity to bounce off. Every scene he was in felt lifted beyond what it would ordinarily be. Nanjiani could become a semi-regular host I think, or even a cast member if he wants. At any rate, I'll definitely be seeing his movie, The Big Sick now.

Weinstein watch: main Film Festival panel skit was OK with one good gag from Mackinnon about meeting Harvey and him hanging upside-down, not great. Update gags were just OK.

Mackinnon watch: Great in Grandma sketch near the end of the show and in the IT parody as Kellyanne Pennywise.

Non-host MVP: Cecily Strong. Her best ep. this year - very funny and accurate as Ivana Trump, Marion Cotillard, Halloween Evil Queen colleague, and something else I'm forgetting.

Music watch: Pink showing off her pipes rather than her dance-music nous and general brattiness is not my cup of tea.

Overall: Nanjiani made this ep. near great, 8/10.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

S43E03 - Kumail Nanjiani (sp?) + Pink
Nanjiani is new to me but was very impressive;

The Big Sick is the kind of "insider hit" that creates a star; this was one of the "least known" hosts SNL has ever had.

But that's what I said about Steve Martin. Honest, when he hosted, I said to friends "Who is THIS guy?"

I think SNL was also making a statement: this was a Muslim host? The first -- I dunno.

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sharp, witty monologue and good acting throughout the ep.. I get the impression that the writers were inspired by having such a good actor so plauible as a service worker/colleague of various sorts and an interesting ethnicity to bounce off. Every scene he was in felt lifted beyond what it would ordinarily be. Nanjiani could become a semi-regular host I think, or even a cast member if he wants.

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He was very good. His acting in the game show bit and in the piece with Melania Trump had a real "lived in" humanity to it.

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At any rate, I'll definitely be seeing his movie, The Big Sick now.

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Me, too. I think.

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Weinstein watch: main Film Festival panel skit was OK with one good gag from Mackinnon about meeting Harvey and him hanging upside-down, not great.

And they had MacKinnon's "Hollywood oldie" bring Hitchocck and Tippi Hedren into the gag! I thought her line was funny: "I was doing voiceovers for the birds, in the beginning it was going to be, you know, a comedy." And how Rod Taylor couldn't stop Hitch.

Still...poor Hitchcock. One incident with one actress one movie, and he gets mentioned with Harvey Weinstein? Oh, well, Hitchcock seems to turn up everywhere. SNL and 78/52 in one week.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Update gags were just OK.

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That white bread cutie guy Colin Jost is reportedly dating ScarJo. He's the head writer for SNL; he must be distracted...

I smell a bit of a "rigged deal" with SNL. Last week there were internet articles attacking Lorne Michaels for not doing Harvey Weinstein jokes(what, you're in his pocket?). So this week, he did. But it seemed almost pre-planned. SNL "doesn't do something," they get taken to task in the press...voila, the next week they fix it -- and everybody watches to make sure.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Still...poor Hitchcock. One incident with one actress one movie, and he gets mentioned with Harvey Weinstein?

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that in my round-up! Poor Hitchcock indeed. By the standards of his time, he was a choirboy for a powerful movie exec., and even by contemporary standards he's a 'went through a shameful rough patch/late mid-life crisis' guy not a long-term, systematic (non-sexual and sexual) bully and predator like Weinstein.

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I think so. I realize in "sticking up" for Hitchcock during this time of revolution against the predatory male power structure in Hollywood can be seen as sexist or something. But I think his name being dragged into articles about sexual harassment -- and now an SNL skit -- is really skewing the nature of whatever went on with him and Tippi...an issue I still have doubts about, primarily because of the large number of Hitchcock actresses who refuted Hedren's vision of Hitch, and, frankly, because of the truly bizarre saga of Hedren's years-long involvement in that psycho movie "Roar."(Where Hedren put herself and her family at risk of being hurt or killed on camera by wild animals including lions.) There's something a little "off" about Tippi Hedren.

The funny thing about Hitchcock -- from all my book-learnin' about him -- is that he sounds like the LEAST sexually interested director in Hollywood. When not making movies, he stayed home with Alma, watched TV, and went to bed around 930. There was some international travel, but also with Alma.

He had a coterie of female assistants around him, but as PALS, because, said daughter Pat "he preferred the company of women to men," likely because the macho heterosexual actors intimidated him and he couldn't connect with the gay actors.

You have to hand it to Tippi Hedren. We Hitchcock fans spend our time and affection on his many films -- pick a classic, any classic -- and that would seem to be his inviolate achievement. But thanks to Tippi, to today's public at large, Hitch nowadays comes up mainly in stories like affaire Weinstein...

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It *would* have been much more accurate for Mackinnon's character to reminisce about beating back achetypal movie moguls like Jack Warner or L.B. Mayer - the sorts of guys who really did yell and scream at everyone all the time and who felt entitled to quid pro quo sex with any employee who caught their eye (Weinstein's models?).

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"Weinstein models?" is a good question. To the extent that Hollywood had a history of male predation and bullying, Weinstein may have felt the need to mimic Warner and Mayer(and Zanuck) just as DePalma mimicked Hitchcock.

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But Hitchcock has about 100 times more name-recognition than Mayer, Warner, et al..

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True. One defense that Lorne Michaels gave for not joking about Weinstein is that..milliions of people don't know who he is. He was an "insider celebrity," and trying to get any traction for making fun of him was hard. Hence...bring in Hitchcock and Tippi (and a funny joke about The Birds delivered by the ace MacKinnon.)

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(BTW, I was a bit shocked by the 'Arthur Freed coming on to a 13 year old Shirley Temple story' that Maureen Dowd was retailing the other day. Before this I only knew Freed as a legendary exec who ran the MGM musicals unit in its prime. This brought him down to earth for me with a hell of a bump!)

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And rather connects to the infamous scene in Puzo's novel of The Godfather in which a budding child star is offered up by her mother to voracious mogul "Jack Woltz." Where's Don Vito with a horse head for Weinstein when you need him?

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

There will always be a "split" between the movie world we cineastes WANT to explore in our heads, and what the town is REALLY like. You probably wouldn't want to know most of the people that work there unless you have a taste for the venal and voracious. And yet, the record is replete with professionals who do good work and don't bother anybody. I have been on a few soundstages for movies and TV production, and everybody was hard-working, polite, "just getting the job done." The predation happens elsewhere.

Here's something someone pointed out to me long ago that seems borne by these scandals: Hollywood is replete with "hot it girls" -- young women -- who become stars for...awhile. And then they start losing roles and then they disappear. You could jump back say, 20 years in the movie business and find the movies of 1997 largely cast with women who simply don't work anymore. But most of the men who made names "soldier on."(Clooney, Pitt, the two Toms.) Its like the Hollywood power men strive to dump pretty women who get too powerful...unless they really have fan protection (Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, J-Law -- maybe.) But ladies like Sharon Stone, Debra Winger, Demi Moore, Holly Hunter, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rosanna Arquette....sort of gone.

[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

As I recall, Woltz gets the horse's head the morning after the child molestation incident, right? Some critics thought it was a bit cynical to set WOltz up as a total slimeball so that audiences would be detracted from the hideous crime inflicted on him, well he just got what was coming to him, didn't he?

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Mackinnon watch: Great in Grandma sketch near the end of the show and in the IT parody as Kellyanne Pennywise.

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Kate's still the star of the show for now. Doing her Kellyanne and her Hillary "side by side" (in the sewer) showed how she can be versatile and the same, at the same time.

The bad news: Kate can't catch a break "at the movies." She's only getting supporting roles in raunchy comedies and usually in flops. She needs a little Kirsten Wiig career counseling.

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Non-host MVP: Cecily Strong. Her best ep. this year - very funny and accurate as Ivana Trump, Marion Cotillard, Halloween Evil Queen colleague, and something else I'm forgetting.

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Cecily is coming on, er...strong...as the next funniest lady on the show. I love her Cathy Anne. Who wasn't on this week. C'mon...bring her back.

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Music watch: Pink showing off her pipes rather than her dance-music nous and general brattiness is not my cup of tea.

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I'll take your word for it....

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Overall: Nanjiani made this ep. near great, 8/10.

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I'm impressed that you were impressed. SNL did a good gamble on using this little-known host. They go with Larry David in two weeks. "The Return of Bernie?"...with Trump and Hillary, could be fun.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Nanjiani could become a semi-regular host I think, or even a cast member if he wants. At any rate, I'll definitely be seeing his movie, The Big Sick now.

I have seen The Big Sick now. I found it good not great. The film is evidently based closely on how Nanjiani and his wife got together, and the arrival of the titular Big Sick (at exactly the wrong time) is affecting. It rings true. Prior to that arrival, however, the sketching of the main couple and the obstacles they face and of Nanjiani's milieu (esp. his cluster of comedian friends) felt a little off to me. It feels like they needed to work harder on that whole section of the film. With its Chicago setting and couple-with-obstacles theme, TBS reminds one of High Fidelity (2000), but the comparison is not in TBS's favor. HF just hits its marks better than TBS. (TBS doesn't have a single memorable visual idea for a start, the female lead never convinces as a Uni. of Chicago grad student and her peer group from there is alluded to at one point but, unrealistically, never actually appears...)

And let's remember that fun though HF was, it wasn't in the top 20 films for 2000 (2000 was a pretty good year). Classy comedies and semi-comedies ahead of it that year included things like Wonder Boys, Almost Famous, You Can Count On Me... I don't see TBS as being anywhere near as Nominatable as those.

This is sounding more negative than I really intend. TBS has a good second act and has a prickly sweetness to it. It's a good rental/streamer, but keep expectations in check (I'd let mine grow a bit too much).

Next up: I really enjoyed the (new-to-me) Tiffany Haddish hosting SNL a few weeks ago. She made me laugh and was generally so appealing that, like Nanjiani, she could easily be an SNL regular (but they probably couldn't get her now). She broke out in Girls Trip (2017), which I'll now check out.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It occurs to me that we let this thread languish for a bit.

SNL has run a straight series of "out of the ordinary" hosts of color and foreign lands this fall; the attempts of the show to branch way out from its roots and showcase some great talent is pretty admirable. I see they have that the next have young female actress whose name I can't pronounce, next -- Sairose Ronan or some such.

The "break" in all this breaking through was bringing Larry David back. Curb Your Enthusiasm is back, so here he is. He did a nostalgic Bernie bit and offered a long and lingeringly slow comedy monologue with certain possibly offensive content but...nah, he's Larry David. He gets away with everything.

Meanwhile: I'm sure he will be back, but Alec Baldwin stopped his Trump appearances for a coupla episodes. (The resultant sketch last week with Trump's one-slick, one-dummy son seemed to be straining for laughs, even with MacKinnon doing one of her male impressions as that spy guy. Its Baldwin or bust.)

Baldwin got himself immersed "guilt by association" in the harassment scandal cascade, btw: turns out he's very close friends with accused James Toback(hell, they made a fake documentary together and STARRED together in it); he drew feminist wrath for kinda/sorta defending Weinstein against rapes("I heard about them for years, but there were settlements"); and he has his own history of anger and bullying rather than harassment, that's come up in recent weeks -- just when he was becoming a superstar.

I don't know if Baldwin's been cooled off from the Trump bit to give IT a rest...or HIM a rest.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

They currently play "old" episodes of SNL on Saturdays at ten on NBC. I checked my DVR and found a 1979 episode with Buck Henry as the host and Tom Petty as the musical guest(which is why they showed it.) The 1979-1980 season was "mini-historic": Belushi and Ackroyd had left(Animal House had hit) and Bill Murray moved up into the lead male position. This also SUPPOSED TO BE Lorne Michaels last season. He finished off 79/80 and the cast was released -- with Murray off to movie stardom quite soon. Came 1980 through 1985, two other producers did the show. Eddie Murphy rather saved the show in those years. Lorne came back in 1985 and has been at the helm ever since.

Anyway, that 1979 episode proved that the "old" SNL wasn't always a laugh riot; it was very crude in the video-taped execution and rather did "banal sketch humor with a little edge." The biggest deal was Murray and Gilda Radner doing their "Todd and Lisa" nerd sketch with the goofy voices. Pretty funny, still.

Of some interest: with the "old" SNLS at 10:00 pm, they rarely dive deep back to the seventies or 80's. Recent "old" shows have been from 2012 and 2011 -- hardly old at all for this young coot.

PS. Word comes that somebody, somewhere, has deemed Steve Martin's old King Tut song...offensive. What are we going to do about where this world is going? Uh, nothing. We will be very, very polite.