Tag Archives: Jason Sudeikis

WOMP: The Best ‘SNL’ Sketch of the Season

This is that time of the year when blogs across the countryweb sit down and decide on the top five or ten or seventeen sketches from the recently concluded season of Saturday Night Live (and we’ve done this too).  But, for us, there was one sketch from the 2011-2012 season that stood head and shoulders above the rest.*  It was simultaneously the best political satire and pop culture parody and was damn near perfect.  And it made us so happy.

*Obviously any Stefon segment is exempt because he’s already been granted emeritus status.

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Filed under Checks & Balances, Good Humor, Saturday Night Live

Must Flee TV: ’30 Rock’ Season Six – The Penultimate Warrior

This is the penultimate entry in our series of posts looking back at the NBC’s Thursday Night comedies.  Still to come is a brief review of the ‘Community’ finale (not to be confused with our already published thoughts on the show’s move to Friday nights and the exiling of Dan Harmon), but today we check-in on ’30 Rock.’ 

30 Rock is a curious case.  We’ve contended for years that it often is the funniest show on NBC Thursday nights.  That is to say that it contains the most laughs per minute ratio (lpms) of the four programs.  However, that has never necessarily been a compliment.  In fact – and you might be smelling a “but” coming – that proclamation has frequently preceded our criticism of the show, or, more often, been the central tenet of our negative remarks.  For much of the show’s six seasons it’s felt as if Tina Fey’s creation valued the laugh above all else, and sometimes praying at the altar of the almighty chuckle does not pay the dividends one expects.

More: Does ’30 Rock’ use Idea Balls?

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Filed under Analysis, Bob Loblaw, Brilliance, Good Humor, Local Flavor, Must Flee TV, Must See TV

Must Flee TV: ‘SNL’ Says Goodbye to Kristen Wiig – We Know What We Got When It’s Gone

For the last week we’ve been taking a look at NBC’s Thursday night comedies, but with Kristen Wiig’s sendoff on ‘SNL’ this past weekend we decided to add her departure to the conversation. 

It’s not worth going into detail about how the season finale of SNL – and the season as a whole – was middling.  The Mick Jagger-hosted episode was a hit-or-miss mixed bag which typifies nearly every episode and every season.  As we’ve learned from several seasons of recaps and now over a decade-and-a-half of religious viewing, that’s the show.  It will never be too far up or too far down, so just try to enjoy it.  What is worth discussing, as all of the internet has been doing for the past two days, is the exit of Kristen Wiig after seven stellar seasons, leaving behind a body of work that positions her as arguably the strongest female cast member of all-time.

More: Kristen’s gone and we feel fine…

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Filed under Analysis, Be careful what you wish for, Good Humor, Mancrush, Must Flee TV, Saturday Night Live, Yvonne Hudson

Five Unlikely Reasons to Optimistic About the 2012 Mets

Occasionally we like to stray from our usual posts about TGIF and Jason Sudeikis and talk sports.  As much as we love pop culture and television and Internet nonsense, a lot of our time is also taken up by watching, reading up on, and listening to sports (which, unfortunately, leaves us little time for much else).  And with the 2012 Major League Baseball season nearly upon us, we thought we’d take a few minutes to explain why things may not be so bleak for our beloved NY Mets, even if these reasons seem completely counterintuitive.

1. Jose Reyes is No Longer a Met

Yep, the same Jose Reyes that won the NL Batting Title last season, and who was the best player in baseball for stretches in the first half.  That guy.  The same Jose Reyes who is the Mets all-time leader in triples, runs and steals, who can excite a ballpark like no other player we’ve ever seen.  When he’s on his game, there may be no more dynamic, electric player in the sport.  Yep, that’s the guy we’re happy to have off our roster.

Read on for 4 more!

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Filed under Analysis, Local Flavor, Matt Christopher Books

Lindsay Lohan on ‘SNL’: Sobering Saturday

Four days have passed since Lindsay Lohan returned to host Saturday Night Live, and the benefit of time does nothing to portray her performance in any more of a positive light.  Yes, in spite of her wooden, stumbling, at times helpless appearance, the show delivered some of its strongest moments of the season (including Bill Hader reaching new levels of brilliance as both Shephard Smith and James Carville, and an inspired, if somewhat haphazardly placed, “Music of the 70s” commercial parody with a retro-coiffed Jason Sudeikis), but those sketches  don’t negate Lohan’s awkward struggle, her 90-minute death march, and nor has almost a week of reflection.

It wasn’t always this way.  And that’s why this is so sad, so tragic.  There was a time when Lindsay Lohan was a bona fide star, white-hot and electric.  The next big thing while simultaneously being the “it” the girl.  And, yes, she had curves, but she also had talent.  Was she a young Jodie Foster?  Outside of the freckles, no.  But she had something that a young Jodie Foster did not.  Sizzle.  Sparkle.  That special something.

But where does that special something go when it dies?

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Filed under Analysis, Be careful what you wish for, Makes You Think, Saturday Night Live, Yasmine Bleeth

Suds in Your Buds

Jumped the Snark favorite Jason Sudeikis was the guest on today’s WTF Podcast with Marc Maron, and he proved once again that he’s clever, humble, grounded, genuine and, more than anything, gracious.  He still might be our next movie star (even with Hall Passmiddling reception), but he shows no indication that fame and fortune will go to his head.  As you will learn, Gallagher he is not.

[audio http://hw.libsyn.com/p/8/4/d/84d0182f8c7631c2/WTF_-_EPISODE_205_JASON_SUDEIKIS.mp3?sid=67fa63fd23827d47851b40cfddf54376&l_sid=18938&l_eid=&l_mid=2698371]

Favorite tidbit from the interview: when Suds found out he was promoted to the SNL cast  he got day drunk with friends and hit golf balls at Chelsea Piers.  We always knew this was the kinda guy we’d like to hang out with.  He just went ahead and showed it once again.

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Filed under Good Humor, Mancrush, Marconi & Cheese, Saturday Night Live

Recap: The MTV Movie Awards

Jason Sudeikis proved himself a songsmith and a piano man, and, perhaps more importantly, showed with his subtle but unmistakable bite and subversion that he’s maybe not ready to join the Hollywood Elite that this awards show falls all over itself to celebrate.  It wasn’t Gervais territory, but it seemed that Suds wasn’t afraid to bite the hand that feeds.

Best part:

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The rest of the show featured Twilight winning pretty much every award, save for the insipid “Best Line From a Movie” statue, which at least went to a seven-year-old, hopefully shaming the award from ever appearing again.

But we have to admit, despite our seething disdain for Twilight (admittedly having never seen the movies or read the books), we can’t help but really, really admire Kristen Stewart, if only because she seems to be straining ever fiber of her being not to say “fuck you” to everyone in the audience, including her fans.  She’s always genuinely awkward amongst a sea of people who feign awkwardness, and she seems to grasp just how ridiculous this show is, and by extension the whole Hollywood machine.  Kristen, you’re okay by us!

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Filed under Mancrush, TV Killed the Music Video Star, Yasmine Bleeth

Jason Sudeikis About to Become the Sort of Celebrity He’s Currently Creeping Out

In three days Jason Sudeikis will host the 2011 MTV Movie Awards and he’ll officially have achieved a new level of fame, joining the esteemed ranks of such past hosts as Will Smith, Ben Stiller, and Mike Myers (and for some reason Lisa Kudrow).  And with Horrible Bosses coming out this July, in which Sudeikis shares top billing with Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jennifer Aniston (2nd Friends actress in as many sentences!), Sudooks is poised to claim a spot on the A-List.  That’s still a few weeks away, but soon we’ll look back with fondness at moments like this, when Suds was still (barely) small-time enough to believably irritate some of Hollywood’s best, prettiest young actresses.  Although, even now, it’s a big stretch.

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And one more.

And, for good measure, one classic MTV Movie Awards clip.

Via Splitsider

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Filed under Mancrush, TV Killed the Music Video Star, Yasmine Bleeth

This Is What a Teenage Starlet on ‘SNL’ Looks Like

Miley Cyrus came by SNL this week and, despite generally positive reviews, we still found it pretty average.  Nothing egregious about it, nothing particularly horrible, but really nothing to write home about.  And the feedback for Cyrus was mostly polite, praiseworthy even, commending her for at the very least not embarrassing herself, at the best acquitting herself remarkably well.  But we really weren’t surprised by that.  It’s no fluke that she was a star of a hit cable show and a pop music phenomenon.  She’s got talent.  Sure, she might have headlined a terrible, cloying cable show  for Tweens, and she might perform grating, insipid kidz bop, but she’s been tremendously successful at it, and there’s really no denying that she has some kind of talent.  So by all rites she should have been fine on SNL.  And she was.  And she parodied her image, parodied Justin Bieber, parodied Fergie, all to perfectly okay results.  But nothing transcendent.  Nothing special.  Nothing that resonated like a sketch from a few years ago that featured an at the time teenage superstar.  Lindsay, show Miley how it’s done:

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Sure, Miley had fun.  She sang and danced.  She even impersonated Lohan.  But, unlike Lohan, none of Cyrus’ sketches will be remembered in five years.

Oh, and Jason Sudeikis reprised his Satan on “Weekend Update” and it was pretty cool.  The dude can do no wrong (Sudeikis, not the Devil).

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Filed under Analysis, Saturday Night Live

Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Next Movie Star Part 2 (Cup Checking Higgins)

Just when we thought we couldn’t like Jason Sudeikis anymore – the guy loves wings AND beer – he goes ahead and tops himself.  We figured he’d peaked last week with his Buffalo Wild Wings and Natty Light fueled appearance on Conan; how could be possibly endear himself to us anymore than that?  But then he flew back east and just flat-out dominated last Friday’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, sprinkling his infectious charm over the whole show, culminating with a spontaneous attack on Higgins (aka Higgbones) while the two sample some  gourmet grilled cheese.  Just watch and delight.

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Earlier in the show Sudeikis joined Fallon for a round of “Long Pour,” further establishing Sudeikis as today’s foremost beer-drenched comedian.  Jason, you like beer, we like beer, what’s say we get together and like beer together?

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AND THERE’S MORE!

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Filed under Brilliance, Good Humor, Mancrush, Saturday Night Live, What? Too fabulous?