Gerard Butler is kind of a weird celebrity. I mean, I know why he is famous: he is famous because he is in Hollywood movies. But the biggest thing that he's made so far was 300, and that was three years ago, and it was awful. Oh, excuse me, I almost forgot about the number one movie in America for a record-setting 1,000 weeks: Gamer. I'm not making fun of Gerard Butler's career. We should all be so lucky as to star in Hollywood movies about dystopian futures (and dystopian pasts). I'm just saying that he seems more famous than he should, kind of. I guess he's basically the male Megan Fox. The point is: Gerard Butler hosting Saturday Night Live is a little bit like Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize: an embarrassment he might not have done anything to actually deserve it yet, but here he is, so let's make the most of it.
There were definitely a few questions raised by this week's episode. Like, Regina Spektor? That's one of the questions. And also, who did Charlene Yi fuck over on the writing staff that they had to throw her under the bus on national television for the benefit of as many as 12 people who actually knew who Charlyne Yi is? Yikes. You have to admit that that was odd! "This week we're going after Barack Obama and Charlene Yi." Then there is this question: how is it that the funniest thing on the whole episode was Bill Hader's James Carville expression on Weekend Update considering the fact that James Carville stopped being a serious political figure in the late 90s, or at the very least in 2004 after John Kerry's loss to George W. Bush (not to mention Carville's terrible and poorly received HBO show K Street in 2003, which turned him into even more of a parody of himself) and even in that case it's been five years, and yet here we are? Huh? But oh man, wasn't Bill Hader's James Carville expression on Weekend Update hilarious? Y/Y?
Watching Saturday Night Live on the West Coast is ridiculous. It's like watching THE PAST. Is everything like that out here? Living your life three hours behind THE ACTUAL WORLD. Just kidding, I know that time is a relative human construct. But you know what else is a relative human construct? The Internet. And you could basically know all of the wonderful surprises (hah) of Saturday Night Live ahead of time if you wanted, just by logging in (we all still "log in" to the Internet, right? Hello? Mr. AOL?). Not that you need a SPOILER ALERT to figure out that Ryan Reynolds is a weirdo! What a weird dude. He's the epitome of a Plastic Face. "But he was a good sport." Sure, if the sport is Not Moving Your Face Very Much And Being Too Smugball. Not that it matters, since apparently Lady Gaga actually hosted the show? She was in so many sketches! She wrestled Madonna for some reason, in a sketch that has to have been the seven least funny minutes in SNL history (and there have been literally hundreds of unfunny minutes!). And apparently http://twitter.com/sethmeyers21/status/4596539780 is talking about her musical performances as well. Sure.
Michael and Michael Have Issues premiered on Comedy Central last night, and it had some laffs in it! We could all use some laffs. Especially after 9/11*. Now that was a SUMMER BUMMER. Anyway, sketch comedy shows are hard because you've got to string the different sketches together with some kind of over-arching framework, and that is never really very good. Like, I'm a huge fan of Chappelle Show (who isn't? Your stepdad thinks Chappelle Show is "da bomb") but his interstitial on-stage stuff was just filler. Same thing here. That's OK, though. That is how it works. And besides, the use of a behind-the-scenes-production-staff plot to string things together was smart and pretty funny. And if the sketches are good, who cares?
And thus concludes Videogum's The Problem With Sketch Comedy Shows University.
In this well-done UCB Comedy video (they're killing it lately!), a happy couple learns that a forgotten "Love Coupon" can turn into a curse. Not totally completely safe for work, but not porn or anything:
I love the "preparation" scene, and the way everyone treats the coupon like it's legally binding.
Andy Rooney's always-entertaining commentary on last night's 60 Minutes was about shoes. Why don't they design better ones, why don't they fit, why does everyone have so many, and then a weird nostalgic story at the end just to make sure it didn't make too much sense. Anyway, I'm not suggesting that this is the first or even fourth time Andy Rooney has used his complaining column to talk about shoes, but a google search just now turned up an interesting SNL transcript.
In a segment last night called "Let Us Play With Your Look" that was more vintage SNL than late night, Jimmy Fallon and Will Ferrell gave an audience volunteer a makeover she'll never forget. Ferrell seems to be channeling his Mugatu character from Zoolander, and Fallon seems to be doing something he should do more of on his show: playing a weird character unlike himself and going really far for the joke, like he did on SNL:
I know this is old, because it has the 2005-2008 cast, and I know it didn't air exactly like this because it's too dirty for Comedy Central, but someone sent this Reno 911! clip the other day and I've watched it five times and sent it to nine people, so that probably means I should put it here. I won't ruin it with a description, but let's call it "Lotto." NSFW language:
As my co-editor might say, that clip just took us all to sketch-writing school. Total situation comedy perfection. (Thanks to Matt for the tip!)
The Terminator trudged along the wooded path towards the lake, his gun dangling by his side, the taunts still ringing in his hypersensitive bionic ears. He stared at the ground as he walked, and didn't even bother scanning anything with...
After watching Death Sentence, a terrible movie starring Kevin Bacon as a father in search of vigilante justice directed by Saw's James Wan, Gabe embarked on The Hunt For The Worst Movie of All Time. This is his sad journey.
Do you ever eat foods that you know you don't like, just to remind yourself why you don't like them? I think that's a good thing to do sometimes! The worst case scenario is that you might momentarily have a...
Last weekend, something strange happened. Some of the Videogum Monsters created their own secret, password-protected chat room. In 2009! Incredible! I suppose every monster has his cave, or whatever. As it turned out, though, we already had a Videogum Chat...
Blogging about TV and movies isn't all fun and videogames. Every week, Lindsay or Gabe will be presented with a physical or mental challenge that tests their bravery,patience, and taste.
The Challenge: I had to go on a 3.5 hour bus tour of totally random TV and film locations in New York City. Alone, and wearing a specific ridiculous tshirt. And I had to find someone to take my picture...
I went to see Where the Wild Things Are on Saturday, but it was sold out. Ay-ay-ay. That was a surprise! I mean, anticipation for this movie seemed pretty high, but anticipation for lots of movies seems high, especially when...
