Showing posts with label Bryan Cranston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bryan Cranston. Show all posts

Sunday, January 1, 2017

SNL 42.9 Review - John Cena, Maren Morris

Original Airdate - 12/10/2016

I think it is safe to say that John Cena has followed in the career path of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.  He has successfully turned a WWE wrestling career into a pop culture phenomenon.  Earlier this year, he hosted the ESPY's, and now he is hosting Saturday Night Live.  He actually has a pretty decent talent for comedy too.

Cold Opening
Once again, the Cold Opening is reserved for attacking our soon-to-be president.  Many people have been very critical of Trump's strange cabinet selections, so SNL has decided to try and make the ridiculous even more ridiculous.  The setting is an episode of The Lead With Jake Tapper.  The guests are Kellyanne Conway, tragically played by Kate McKinnon, and Trump's new head of the DEA, the one and only Walter White.  If he wasn't fictional, Mr. White might actually be in the running...

Monologue
You have a wrestler hosting SNL.  So, of course, the cast is going to try and challenge him to a fight.  Each castmember is trying to come up with a great wrestling persona, but nothing beats the last one.  Nothing is scarier than Leslie Jones.  It was silly, but still entertaining.

Best Sketch
When you have a physical specimen like John Cena hosting, you take advantage of it by talking sports.  I really enjoyed one sketch where they had Cena portraying the larger than life Rob Gronkowski, however the best sketch took a shot at the Alabama football program.  In the presentation of final projects in a science class, two science majors get disappointing grades on very solid projects.  However, Cena, portraying a Bama football player, aces his project on bananas nailed to a board.  It's a beautiful sketch, especially since it is Alabama they are making fun of.

Weekend Update
I have never been a huge fan of Kate McKinnon's portrayal of Angela Merkel, Germany's Prime Minister.  With that said, they keep going back to it as it is continually relevant with our political climate.  She is the first guest to the Update desk in this episode.  The other guest is another I have not been fond of in the past.  Cecily Strong's Cathy Anne character I have found more annoying than anything in the past.  However, she is hilarious in this appearance as she discusses everything going on in our country.

Worst Sketch
There were several sketches that weren't necessarily great.  The worst of these was this strange sketch about a TV talent show, a pair of brothers, and an owl.  It was just weird and strange and not worth the payoff.

Dark Horse Sketch
There were also several sketches that could have qualified for the Dark Horse Sketch.  This was my favorite, as John Cena portrays a Fabio-type character in a romance bookstore.  It is completely ridiculous but pretty funny at the same time.

Grade

I had fun watching John Cena in this episode.  Coming from his WWE background, he is used to live theater and it shows as he really was a natural in most of his sketches.  It wasn't a great episode by any measure, but I do hope I see John Cena again on Saturday Night Live soon.

***B-***

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Year in Review: Adams Top Ten Worst Films of 2014

                                    Worst 2014 Movies!!!
A year of stink.



   The year is finally over and new one is starting.  2014 we will miss you.  The year provided some great films but also a lot of really hard to watch stinkfest caught on film.  So before I write my Top 10 best I wanted to write about the crap we tried to forget we watched.  As I look back on what I watched this year I realized I saw a lot more bad films then I could even remember.  Now my top ten list might have stuff in it that I rated higher then I should have.

  So lets get this over with.

Top Five Good Actors in Bad Movies:
1. Bryan Cranston (Godzilla)
2. Shailene Woodley (Divergent)
3. Paul Bettany (Transcendence)
4. Elizabeth Banks (Walk of Shame)
5. TIE Mark Duplass (Tammy) and Paul Giamatti (Amazing Spider-man 2)

Dis-Honorable Mentions:
Draft Day, Filth, Walk of Shame, Divergent, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, See No Evil 2, A Million Ways to Die in the West, That Awkward Moment, Noah, Tusk, Godzilla and Deliver us from Evil

10. Blended
Another pairing of Adam Sandler and Drew Berrymore.  This movie doesn't even come close to the magic they shared in the The Wedding Singer or even 50 First Dates.  If it wasn't clear watching this movie Adam Sandler has lost the gift to make us laugh like the good ole Happy Madison days of old.  Hey, but he got some of his friends in this movie, so they could work this year.  I totally felt like the picture above, not that I had high hopes to begin with.

9. Rage
So, I got to watch this gem streaming on Netflix.  As I clicked on the watch button, my only thought was it cant be any worse then The Wicker Man.  So I gave this movie a shot, I really did.  Then I hit the twenty minute mark and I lost hope.  Nic Cage goes around playing Nic Cage playing Nic Cage.  The only reason its not higher is that his overacting freak outs are funny.  Might of laughed more at his freak outs then I did a comedy further up on this list.


8. The Amazing Spider-man 2

When they first announced that they were rebooting the Spider-man franchise, I was one of the few hopeful fans.  The first Amazing Spider-man movie was good, so I became hopeful for a second one.  Ill admit as well this made my Top 10 anticipated movies of 2014 list.  This movie has a lot going for it.  It has an all star cast (Jamie Foxx, Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Paul Giamatti, Dane DeHaan, Felicity Jones, and Sally Field) a new villain, and its not Spider-man 3 (or is it).  The movie is just to long and boring.  


7. The Legend of Hercules

We were given two Hercules movies this year, and only one was enjoyable.  To tell the story of Hercules you need two things, a way better actor then Kellan Lutz and you must be larger than life.  This movie had neither.  I had no idea who this actor was until my wife told me he was in the Twilight movies.  He is so forgettable in this role,  The Dwayne Johnson movie is the far better film.  There were some really laughable scenes, horrible acting as well as c.g.i     


6. Transformers 4: Age of Extinction

Now here is a movie I wanted to be good.  I'm a Mark Wahlberg fan.  But as I was sitting through this movie, which was way to long, I was bored and tired.  I felt like I've already seen this before.  They also hyped up the Dino-bots so much too.  Spoiler alert, they were only in the movie like the last ten minutes or so.  The movie is 2 hrs and 45 minutes of unnecessary explosions, bad dialogue, and characters you just don't care about.  Best part of the movie, other than Stanley Tucci, the credits.


5. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

Is it just me, or is the found footage film getting old.  I enjoyed it in the Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Chronicle, and the original Paranormal Activity.  But here we are on the fifth one in this series, and there was a reason it wasn't released near Halloween.  It has no scares and nothing really to offer the series or cinema either.  Nothing new or original.  Congrats Paranormal Activity, you are the new SAW series.


4. Transcendence
Another movie I was hopeful for that let me down.  I was really wanting to see what first time director Wally Pfister could do behind the camera.  He however bit off a little more than he could chew.  This A.I. film could of been really good but it was totally unbelievable, that I could only laugh and shake my head.  The acting wasn't even good but sub par at best.  I believe it could be that the actors either didn't understand what was happening in the movie or they didn't believe that they agreed to this movie.  How could a computer regenerate plants??? Scratches head....


3. Tammy
How many times have I said that I feel bad for the actors involved in these movies?  Well heres another crap-fest.  It made me want to put a bag over my head too.  Lets just say that the marketing campaign for this movie sucks.  They put the one maybe funny scene in the trailer, so when they finally show that scene, you don't even laugh.  I was literally like why is she doing that.  It makes no sense.  Melissa McCarthy, I'm sorry but I'm tired of your same old stick.  Your trying to be funny and its not working anymore.  I couldnt believe they got Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Mark Duplass, Toni Collette, and Sandra Oh in this crap.  Least funny comedy this year, hands down.

2. Oculus
Another movie that could of been good.  Only problem is that dumb.  They never explained why or even how this so called evil mirror was doing what it was doing.  It has an interesting concept, that I just couldn't get around.  Maybe I just didn't understand what this movie wanted me to believe or not to.  The only reason that this isn't number one is that there is one really cool scene with a light bulb and that their was a worse film then this. 

1. Leprechaun: Origins

 With a name like that, it was a pretty easy choice for the number one spot.  This movie was made by WWE studios.  The only reason I even watched it was that they had a wrestler in that I thought we would be cool to see in the movie.  I was wrong.  The leprechaun looked horrible, and it had none of what made the original film a cult favorite.  Filled with trying to scare instead of actually doing anything else.  The characters were stupid and generic horror film cliques.  Okay, I know it was a straight to video movie but still its my worst!  Im glad its over!!!  I also want to apologize to my wife for making her sit through this crap!


Wow, that was incredibly painful!  Im glad I got it out the way so I could be uplifted to write the best of 2014 very soon.  I plan on having that out by mid-January.  Got a couple movies I need to see first (Foxcatcher, Selma).

    Heres hoping 2015 will be a good year at the movie!!!  Thank you reading and check out our other articles at almostsideways.com

Adam Daly