The Weekend: Quick Recap

 

MOVIE:

It’s official. I broke my “not going to the movie theater” streak this weekend and saw Project X. I had mixed feelings about it and may still be recovering from the hangover I received while watching. Overall I didn’t mind it, I knew what I was getting myself into – A found footage exaggerated drinking comedy in high school. At least, I think it was exaggerated… Coming from the crazy suburban streets of Wisconsin I think it’s safe to say my parties were a tad more contained than that of Project X.

It’s a fun movie and if you’re going to see it don’t expect to see an incarnation of a John Hughes film - It’s more topical to the time we live in. I wonder how many teens got completely hammered after watching the movie and then tried to recreate the premise of the film but only had 8 kids show up at their house… TV:

Lindsay Lohan on SNL: Is it just me or has SNL hit its stride in the last year? Last week’s Maya Rudolph show essentially was one of the best shows I’ve seen as a stand-alone in a long time, and I find myself seeking out skits. Buuuuuut then the stride hit a roadblock named Lindsay Lohan.

Does anyone remember Lohan the actor? Not really, right? She’s just a girl we feel sorry for because of her (seemingly) really bad upbringing and continuous horrible choices. I think that everyone felt like this SNL was an opportunity for her to clean up her image a bit and say, “I’m good, I can still act, and I still have a career!” But the reality is, it didn’t, and she’s not that good anymore… I feel kind of bad for her.

The episode took the easy route of poking fun at Lohan’s past issues, which was funny, but to obvious. Aside from her stumbling over lines she looked uncomfortable. I may be looking to far into this but don’t you think when she was presented with an opportunity to redeem herself on the SNL stage she’d REALLLY go for it like she’s in the final acting role of her life. I think her phoning it in on SNL says a lot about her. Having said that… It was the second highest rated show all season and THIS skit was pretty fucking funny.

Awake: Maybe the coolest show on TV that I hope doesn’t get cancelled. It was created by Kyle Killen aka “The Guy who created The Beaver but then Mel Gibson went Mel Gibson on everyone so the movie bombed” aka “The Guy who created Lone Star but nobody watched it and you don’t know what the hell Lone Star is” aka “This guy is really talented” (Fairly certain I misused “aka’s” and my “quotation marks” “””). Check out Awake.

Celebrity Apprentice: This show is a mess! Shark Tank: This show isn’t a mess and it’s insanely underrated. I think I love Shark Tank. If you don’t know the premise - it’s essentially Mark Cuban and 6 other successful business minds hearing pitches from people and then they bid on it or tell them it’s a horrible idea. The NBA:

I watched The Lakers VS Heat on Sunday and aside from how awesome the game was the other thing people were talking about was D. Wade’s smedium shirt. I think it’s time we have a “best dressed” competition in the NBA.

SNL: The Recap

Did anyone happen to catch Saturday Night Live this past Saturday? If you didn’t then you missed maybe one of the consistently funny episodes in a long time. I feel that there is this general understanding that SNL is funny for about 65 percent of it’s episode and the lackluster skits get pushed towards the backend – this past Saturday wasn’t the case.

Maya Rudolph was the host and apparently that meant to bring on everyone and anyone. Random surprise guests were: Justin Timberlake, Amy Poehler, Bill O’ Reilly, and Kate Upton (The Sports Illustrated Model).

Random side note: I honestly had watched “In Time” earlier in the night and wrote off Timberlake, then watched this episode and felt some minor redemption.

I first wrote this post with the intention of embedding each clip in this blog but for whatever reason HULU is stubborn and won’t let me. To try and make up for it I’ve included the link…

We have to start with the cold opening, this basically set the tone for me. Typically this is a political themed skit but this time it was a racially charged take on the Jeremy Lin scenario in NY:

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

Jay-Z and Beyonce’s Baby: My God this was funny. Jay Pharoah is great, and I hope he continues to be more prominent on the show:

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

Cosby Obama: This was a skit that was pushed towards the latter half of the show and I couldn’t believe it. I think this would have killed in the first 30 minutes. Basic premise…errr… The Obama’s as the Cosby Show.

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

What’s Up With That - Presidents Day Edition: Remember Keenan from Keenan and Kel on Nickelodeon? I’m happy he’s still working in the comedy world, and this character is his stand out on the show. My initial reaction when seeing this –“What the hell is Bill O’ Reilly doing on SNL!?” and I loved every minute of it. Jason Sudeikis in his red jumpsuit is the stand out in these:

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

Bronx Beat: Poehler was back and a special surprise from Timberlake. I typically don’t like women ranting back and forth by Rudolph and Poehler were great:

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

Maya Angelou Prank Show: This was amazing:

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

The Weekend Update: Poehler was back with Seth Meyers, and once again very funny. I kind of miss Poehler on SNL:

LINK THAT I WISH WAS THE EMBEDDED VIDEO!

There are still a few skits out there that almost made the cut, but I couldn’t put the entire episode on here… although I almost did. I think it’s great that various cast members are really starting to hit their stride and it’s amazing how SNL can continue to evolve. Rudolph brought it, this was a great episode, and sometimes I forget how funny SNL is.

Tower Heist ... You Almost Had Us At $60.

If you didn’t know, last week Universal announced that their film, Tower Heist, which opens in theaters on November 4th would be released to VOD (Video On Demand aka Pay tv) 3 weeks later for the measly price of $59.99. For the sake of things lets just say $60 dollars… they’re not fooling anyone.

When this was first reported a few things happened:

First – People were confused that anyone would pay $60 for a movie 3 weeks later.

Second – People started to wonder how this would change things down the road with releases post-theater run. It’s interesting because there isn’t nor has there ever been some magical number that says when a movie comes out after it’s theater run. It seems to always change. For instance, I want to know why X-Men: First Class is on DVD but Super 8 is nowhere to be found. Weren’t they in the theater at the same time? Give me my F’n JJ / Spielberg film.

Third – This started the inevitable process of people never having to leave their living rooms and drastically altering the movie going experience. This is a whole other can of worms… we’ll just stick to Tower Heist.

Earlier this week exhibitors (theater owners) went bat shit crazy and strong-armed Universal by saying “You release this 3 weeks later, then we’ll boycott this film.” Universal took note and pulled the 3 weeks later release date, which probably felt awfully gratifying for a lot of theater owners but we all know they’ll lose this war in the long term.

When this all went down nobody seemed to care, in fact I think people were happy because when you put the words MOVIE and 60 DOLLARS together we black out due to not being able to comprehend the concept. With nobody getting behind the VOD release Universal basically lost early on. All the talk was “Who the fuck would pay $60?” as opposed to “Hmmm, I might pay that.”

This is what Universal did wrong in their little experiment… And how they could have made this work, and like always – it’s a money thing:

First off $60 is insane for this movie… Or is it? The argument is – “If you and your wife take your kids to the movie it can come to just as much” which is actually kind of true. Quick financial breakdown:

Husband and Wife with 2 kids at $10 a ticket on a Friday night: $40.

Popcorn: $6

Drinks: $8

Candy: $4

Grand Total: $58

Not to mention any variables of paying for parking… extra candy for the bitching kid… more drinks. You may actually top $60 dollars going to see a 2 hour movie.

What they should have done was start much lower… say… $39.99, ahem, $40. Sure, lower is better when it comes to spending but Tower Heist is sort of a perfect storm in a few ways from the outside looking in. It has early positive reviews, an apparent resurgence from Eddie Murphy (for the 18th time), and Ben Stiller.

The marquee stars are interesting because they appeal to such a wide audience. People can choose to remember Eddie Murphy as the guy who did kick ass stand up, Coming to America, SNL, and The Nutty Professor… And then happily forget about Pluto Nash and Bowfinger. Then you have Stiller who’s still appealing to the crowd who remembers him from Something about Mary and the younger generation who knows him from A Night at The Museum. OHHH not to mention one is black and the other is white which equals… BIG AUDIENCE! For the sake of talking about cast lets not forget that Ferris Bueller is in this movie and so is Michael Pena. Man, this movie is covering all it’s race angles.

If you start low with your initial price when dealing with this movie people will want it and it starts to look like a good deal, I’m not totally sure people have accepted they’re blowing so much money at the movies quite yet. Once people start to want it then you get people on your side with every social media outlet known to mankind. Suddenly we want to watch Tower Heist and every other movie in 3 weeks… or else.

Universal dropped the ball here by about 20 bucks. They could have seriously started to alter things if not by a lot then juuust a little. A little nudge if you would. It seems like all Universal did was let the public side with the exhibitors.

If nothing else the door has been cracked opened. This was the first major studio film to really test these waters like it did. If Tower Heist doesn’t manage to CPR Eddie Murphy’s career then we can look back at it as the movie that attempted the inevitable paradigm shift that’s slowly taking place.

…And it made us realize that it’s fucking expensive for a night at the movies.