SNL 42.3 Review - Emily Blunt, Bruno Mars

Original Airdate - 10/15/16

Two things shocked me about this episode.  First, how is this the first time Emily Blunt has hosted Saturday Night Live?  Second, how is Emily Blunt the first member of her family to host Saturday Night Live (she is married to John Krasinski)?  Krasinski is perfect for SNL!  Make this happen!  Anyways, here's the episode for his better half.

Cold Opening

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/donald-trump-vs-hillary-clinton-town-hall-debate-cold-open/3116438

Once again, the focus of the Cold Open is a debate.  This time, we are back to the presidential candidates.  They really try to take shots at both sides, but when Trump makes it so easy for a comedy show to attack him, it begins to look a little heavy on one side.  The biggest challenge is finding comedy beyond just reporting the actual Trump stories.

Monologue

https://youtu.be/2_NdQnFcP2Q

With all the negative news reports spreading around with the presidential election, Emily Blunt tried to cheer up everyone with a rendition of "Get Happy."  It wasn't anything special, but it got the show kicked off.

Best Sketch

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/honda-robotics/3116451

There were many sketches in this episode that were pretty funny, however this may be the best.  This sketch showed that Emily Blunt actually has a talent for physical comedy.  She and Mikey Day play robot prototypes that start to malfunction while handing out snacks.  This one really gets a good laugh.

Weekend Update

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/weekend-update-on-donald-trumps-sexual-misconduct-allegations/3116445

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/weekend-update-on-russian-hacking/3116446

Weekend Update is always funnier when Kate McKinnon brings a character to the desk.  This time, it is her stereotypical Russian woman Olya.  The other guest is another of my favorite, the hilarious and slightly disturbing child reporter Laura Parsons.  Both were as funny as always.

Dark Horse Sketch

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/short-film/3116442

There were several sketches I found pretty funny for a Dark Horse Sketch, including the one and only appearance by musical guest and former host Bruno Mars (disappointing he wasn't used more).  However, the definition of a Dark Horse Sketch is one that is funny because it is a little bizarre.  This sketch about a short film and how seriously the filmmakers take their art form really fits the bill.  Anyone who follows film closely will appreciate the satire this sketch provides on how silly this art sometimes appears.

Grade

Emily Blunt, while maybe being the second funniest person in her own home, turned out to be a pretty successful host.  She seamlessly slid in to the sketches as if she was just another member of the cast.  I don't think there was anything that will be remembered for seasons to come in this episode, but for the most part, all the sketches were effective and funny in their own way.  I would consider that a pretty successful broadcast.

***B***

January 2015 Movie Preview!!

January 2015

New Year, New Films, and New Journeys to take!

Happy New Year folks!  Hope everyone had a safe and festive New Year celebration.  With the start of 2015, it brings a whole new year of films.  Films that will win Oscars, make us laugh, cry, and also disappoint us.  The anticipation is brewing to finally go back to a galaxy far, far away.  But that's for another time.  Lets do a quick look back at the best movies of each month from last year.

January

Big Bad Wolves and Jack Ryan:Shadow Recruit

February:

The Lego Movie and Robocop

March:

Enemy and The Grand Budapest Hotel

April:

Captain America: The Winter Solider and Locke

May:

X-Men Days of Futures Past and Chef

June:

Snowpiercer and The Fault in Our Stars

July:

Boyhood and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

August:

Guardians of the Galaxy and Calvary

September:

The Equalizer and The Skeleton Twins   

October:

Birdman and Whiplash

November:

Big Hero 6 and The Theory of Everything

December:

Top Five and The Hobbit:Battle of the Five Armies

The best month of last year has to go to October.  Four of my favorite films came out that month.  It was a lot of fun.

Alright, lets get this started!

(W.R.)-mean Wide Release

January 2nd:

The Woman in Black 2: Angels of Death, and [REC] 4: Apocalypse

January 9th:

Taken 3, Selma (W.R.), Inherent Vise (W.R.), Preservation, and Predestination

Excitement: 1.5

Reason:  I never seen the second one of these movies.  This one looks like it should be called The Fugitive 2

Excitement: 2.5

Reason:  Well from the first trailer, I didn't like the look of this film.  Slowly overtime it has grown on me.  I'm looking forward to seeing Tim Roth, that guys is always so good in everything.

Excitement: 3

Reason:  So, I'm still on media black out for this movie.  I will be going in blind to see this.  

January 16th:

The Wedding Ringer, Paddington, Blackhat, American Sniper (W.R.), Still Alice (W.R.), Son of a Gun, and Spare Parts

Excitement: 2

Reason:  Mr. January, Kevin Hart, is back with a new comedy.  Josh Gad plays a guy who is getting married and has no friends.  So he hires Kevin Hart to be his best man.

Excitement: 2

Reason:  This movie was pushed back from Christmas to now.  I remember reading these books as a kid.  So who knows how this will turn out.

Excitement: 2.5

Reason: Bradley Cooper has totally transformed into this role.  Looks like it could be intense.  

January 23rd:

Strange Magic, The Boy Next Door, Mortdecai, Black Sea, Black or White, Red Army, and Against the Sun

Excitement: 3

Reason:  I really enjoy movies that play with the things in the news.  This movie is about a teacher who decides to sleep with the next door neighbor.  After she comes to her senses he stalks her and looks like it could be a good suspense movie as well.

January 30th:

The Loft, Project Almanac, Alien: Outpost, Coming Home

Excitement: 3

Reason: Karl Urban and James Marsden start in a suspense thriller.  A group of guys share a loft and when they return to it they find a dead women inside.  But who did it and why???

Top Five Movies Im looking forward to:

1. Inherent Vice

2. Selma

3. The Boy Next Door

4. The Loft

5. American Sniper

Top Five Performances I'm looking forward to:

1. Joaquin Phoenix- Inherent Vice

2. Tim Roth- Selma

3. Bradley Cooper- American Sniper

4. Jennifer Lopez- The Boy Next Door

5. Karl Urban- The Loft

Summary of the Previous Month:

  I was really busy last month so I couldn't see a whole lot of films.  

1. Top Five

2. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

3. Into the Woods

4. Exodus: Gods and Kings

And my favorite performances...

1. Rosario Dawson- Top Five

2. Martin Freeman- The Hobbit: TBOTFA

3. Emily Blunt- Into the Woods

4. Issac Andrews- Exodus:Gods and Kings

5. Chris Rock- Top Five

   Well I'm looking forward to this year!!!  Hopefully its as good as last year was.

Thank you for reading 

-Adam

Looper (2012) Review

Looper is not your typical sci-fi movie. It is not your typical action-thriller. It is not your typical Bruce Willis movie. What Looper is cannot easily be defined. I know for sure that it was the most thoroughly entertaining and stimulating movie I have seen since Drive. It features Bruce Willis’s best performance in almost two decades. It is the most intelligent sci-fi screenplay in several years. It is a movie-goer’s dream, and an experience that will stick with you for a while.

The movie is written and directed by Rian Johnson, the filmmaker who brought us the indie film filled with potential Brick, as well as the moderately entertaining comedy The Brothers Bloom. It didn’t take long for Looper to surpass both of his previous features. Looper is just so much different, really showing what a great indie filmmaker can do when he keeps his screenwriting roots while embellishing in a nice budget. While Johnson is certainly a director to watch, it is his screenplays that have marveled me. Brick is very rich and interesting. The Brothers Bloom has its moments of brilliance, even if it is inconsistent and a bit indulgent. Looper is a whole new animal, though. The story, characters, drama, and action are all blended into a fascinating motion picture.

The story of Looper is difficult to discuss without giving too much away. The thing that makes this different from so many other sci-fi or action flicks is that it does not rely on twists to leave its impact. There are surprises for sure, but they are all within the context of the story, not game-changing cliché twists that these types of movies frequent. The story is about Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an assassin in the present year of 2044. Time travel has not yet been invented, but it will be in 30 years. In 2074, criminal organizations are the only ones using the outlawed sci-fi vehicle. Because they cannot dispose of bodies in that year due to tracking mechanisms, they send the bodies with a sack over their heads back to 2044, where Joe and the other “loopers” shoot them immediately and get rid of the bodies. They are rewarded with blocks of silver strapped to the back of each “loop”. When it is decided that their contract will be terminated, their future self is sent to be terminated with gold in place of the silver, a sort of “enjoy the last 30 years of your life” type of parting gift.

When Joe makes the mistake of helping a friend (Paul Dano) who failed to kill his future self, he is forced to either give up his friend or his future. Eventually he is face-to-face with his own future self (Bruce Willis), who has his own motives that young Joe cannot understand yet. Joe must catch up to and kill Old Joe before the mob catches up to him. Should Old Joe accomplish his goals, the ramifications would be catastrophic. If he kills Old Joe, he will be back on track with his gold bars to live the next 30 years of his life with no light at the end of the tunnel, which is really all he wants, not even comprehending how he could eventually turn into the cold-blooded older version of himself that he is trying to outsmart and outmaneuver.

What makes the screenplay so interesting is how Johnson creates his own rules for time travel movies. He does not resort to any sort of standard, which ultimately makes his movie feel more realistic. He opens the movie with a monologue explaining the setting, and despite instances where you will need to take a few moments to put the pieces together or figure out the ramifications of the paradoxes the screenplay creates, everything makes sense. If the audience is familiar with the time travel elements and time continuum vortex, then this will not overly-confuse. Every bit of detail or plot-hole that you feel like you find will come up at some point. Johnson fully immerses the audience in his world, and we come to accept the supernatural elements of the story. There is so much more going on in this film than simply a cat-and-mouse game and time travel gimmicks, though. There is romance, a bit of hard-hitting drama, a few very compelling moral questions, and Emily Blunt hacking repeatedly at a block of wood with an ax. Every bit of the story works, and its flaws are few and far between.

The cast is excellent. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is terrific in his leading role. With all that makeup he does look eerily like a young Bruce Willis. He even gets his mannerisms and voice inflections down. Bruce Willis is awesome. He kicks some serious ass in this movie, but he also is playing the older version of a somewhat emotional character. He wears the scars well while maintaining his brute exterior. Emily Blunt does the best work in the movie, even though it might be her third-best performance this year. Jeff Daniels is great as the mob boss sent back to 2044 to control the loopers. Paul Dano does his thing with limited screentime. Piper Perabo is good as the stripper who interacts with both versions of Joe at certain points. Usually in movies such as these, the cast could phone it in because of the other-worldly nature of the film. These actors truly believe the story they are telling, though. The world Johnson created is not too different from our reality, and because he pays so much attention to the detail of the characters and the rules that he creates and follows, the actors are able to really breathe into their characters, and we actually care about them.

 As far as movies that play around with the time travel and paradoxes go, this might be the most intelligent. Even though I may prefer Terminator 2: Judgment Day, this movie is more directly reliant on the time travel elements for the narrative to work. This film is better than Minority Report, Back to the Future, even Twelve Monkeys. Those were always my gold-standard when it came to time travel, but Looper is just that good, that compelling, and that engrossing. I was hooked from the opening frame until the credits began to roll, credits that were met by applause during a weekday matinee. This movie, coming out in a month that is usually more reserved for the beginning crop of awards-aspiring films, completely stole the show. It is the best movie I have seen this year, and with another viewing, it could easily make a case for being a 4-star film and a year-end top 5-10 film. Yes, it is that good.

Rating: 3.5 stars