This review was originally posted on News Cult in January 2018.
NewsCult Entertainment Editor Jeffrey Malone watches every new episode of Saturday Night Live and then organizes the sketches into the following categories: “Love It” (potentially Best of the Season-worthy), “Keep It” (perfectly adequate), or “Leave It” (in need of a rewrite, to say the least). Then he concludes with assessments of the host and musical guest.
Love It
The Science Room – The theme of reckoning with inappropriateness is heavy throughout this episode, even in this seemingly innocuous educational show. But mostly “The Science Room” is about the intellectual lapses borne out by nervousness and the frustration they cause. This is no mold-breaker, but it is so well-timed and the details are bizarrely unique (“The oil is…” “False?”). Also, Sam Rockwell drops an F-bomb … whoops!
The Look represents sensitivity run amok, but in a charmingly confused fashion instead of worrisome backlash…Michael and Colin are at the top of their games, with the hottest of their burning asides and the swerving of expected topics into unexpected directions…Okay, so the “dog person” concept at the Next Gene Labs is obviously very silly, but the commitment is just so delightful. Somehow hearing that this good boy is ready to start wearing shoes is the greatest news ever.
This post was originally published on News Cult in December 2017.
Love It
The Race – Office culture really does turn on the most insignificant of dimes that look completely nonsensical from the outside. So why not ramp that up to 11? An eighties-by-way-of-algorithm aesthetic, confident jerkoffs running off together in unison, traumatic holes in pants – it’s all just so left of pastiche that it hits that surreal sweet spot that is Beck and Kyle’s forte so sweetly. A few touches that could be going overboard with the weird – Lindsay (Ronan) being a ghost (and its matter-of-fact acknowledgement), Mac from Mac and Me, a cameoing Greta Gerwig doing the old elevator gag – somehow work when in unison.
This post was originally published on News Cult in November 2017.
News Cult Entertainment Editor Jeffrey Malone watches every new episode of Saturday Night Live and then organizes the sketches into the following categories: “Love It” (potentially Best of the Season-worthy), “Keep It” (perfectly adequate), or “Leave It” (in need of a rewrite, to say the least). Then he concludes with assessments of the host and musical guest.
Love It
The Mueller Files – You can take the Update guests out from behind the desk, but you can’t take the desk out of the Update guests. But sometimes that transition is a good thing. A new context can be enlightening. And so we have the Trump sons off on their own adventure, free from the confines of the middle of the show. And the result might be just be SNL’s most confident political satire of this era.
Pete Davidson mercilessly skewers his native Staten Island and the borough’s golden boy Colin Jost in one of his best Update appearances.
This review was originally posted on News Cult in November 2017.
Love It
Get Woke with Tamika – There tend to be a few SNL sketches per season that could manage to be classics if they could just get rid of the messiness. But that is not always a viable solution, as the chaos is what leads to both the problems and the hilarious weirdness. But “Get Woke with Tamika” solves that issue by making the messiness part of the premise. Leslie Jones has a history of flubbing lines? Well, just have her play the host of a talk show who claims to be a lot more knowledgeable than she is and watch her show disintegrate right before her and our eyes.
Beck and Kyle – It’s good to know that Beck and Kyle are still friends, and that scheming does not drive them apart, but instead brings them back even closer, with Kyle and Leslie remaining together, too. And Baby Lorne’s already off to college! Watching Colin getting punched relentlessly is a little rough, considering how sweet this saga has been thus far, but I do enjoy Tiffany and Lorne’s reasons for joining in on the pummeling.
This review was originally posted on News Cult in November 2017.
Love It
Ad Council Awards – Anybody can be offensive, but it takes talent to be truly creative with your offensiveness. At first, Larry David’s legendary adman seems like just your run-of-the-mill “things were different back then!” dude with his deployment of “No way. That’s gay” as his version of “Just say no.” But then he flips the script with his take on the disabled and also pulls a most disturbing rabbit out of his hat of tricks when dramatizing alcohol-fueled bad decisions.Tres magnfique.
Beers – Kyle and Beck are profoundly astute when they ramp up the surrealism in their takedowns of ’80s/’90s sitcoms. I worry, though, that they might hit diminishing returns at some point, but that concern may be absolutely unnecessary, as Larry David adds a very different supporting voice than Andrew Garfield, Chris Pratt, and Ryan Gosling. Plus, the dog licking ice cream and dinosaur on the White House lawn interstitials make it clear that this material is endless. But then the coup de grâce of that stabbing – hoo boy, let’s not sleep on these talents.
Heidi Gardner has her first big breakthrough as Angel, Every Boxer’s Girlfriend From Every Boxing Movie Ever. This at first seems like it is going to be a classic case of an Update guest ignoring her prompt, but then she ingeniously incorporates the news into the typical cinematic pugilist framework (“Snoopy, you’re 60 years old!”)…Maybe you need to be a frequenter of New York’s LGBTQ scene (or at least watch RuPaul’s Drag Race) to understand Larry David’s New Wife, but I firmly believe that Cecily Strong’s nonsense-spouting 18-or-55-year-old socialite (?) has wormed her way into all our hearts.
This review was originally posted on News Cult in October 2017.
Love It
Call Center – This tale of the long-distance friendship between the first lady and a Gucci customer service representative is a little reminiscent of SNL’s initial take on Kellyanne Conway, wherein she was portrayed as aghast at her boss’s behavior when the truth was that she was much more complicit. And yet, there is something beautifully human about this short film. It is hard to get an accurate read on just exactly what the real Melania Trump thinks about what is going on with her husband and the country, as her public appearances and comments are relatively few and far between. Thus, this speculative piece of storytelling is a bit of a risk, but I appreciate its empathetic message, however true to life it may or may not be.
Kumail advocates for less ignorant racism in his Monologue, and I advocate for comedians always being this hilarious…Bank Breakers features some ace comic heightening, but it also begs the question, why doesn’t the conflicted tobacco advertiser just pledge to give his winnings to his plenty-of-sob-stories opponent?
This review was originally posted on News Cult in October 2017.
Love It
Pete Davidson – Pete Davidson’s Update segments were one of those recurring bits that I resigned myself to accepting that they would be good enough but also pretty much the same thing each time. But then wouldn’t you know it, he comes out with a new energy while discussing a condition known for sapping the energy of those it affects. This discussion about depression is far from depressing itself. Instead it is quite agreeably loopy. The doctor’s note to put Pete in more sketches is plainly inspired. Now I actually want to see the sketch that’s about a chicken who ate eggs AND Black Lives Matter!
This review was originally posted on News Cult in October 2017.
Love It
Levi’s Wokes – In a season premiere that was no more than perfectly cromulent, the sketch that sticks with me the most is not one that had me non-stop laughing out loud, but the one with the most fully realized ideas. You know, sometimes “labels” are practical and only offensive if you are insane. It may be hilarious to denote a color as “#GREB,” but actual colors work better in most situations. But fashion is about making statements, and Levi’s Wokes do state themselves clearly.
Michael and Colin make it to the Love It section thanks to “White Fudge Ding Dongs.”
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