Byrne opened his SNL musical guest spot — his first since 1989 — with the American Utopia rendition of Talking Heads’ classic “Once in a Lifetime,” with the singer and his barefoot troupe delivered a joyous take on the Remain in Light single.
For his second performance, Byrne and company once again drew from their now-completed-but-returning Broadway musical with “Toe Jam,” a Byrne-penned track that was originally released in 2008 via Fatboy Slim’s Brighton Port Authority project.
“Once in a Lifetime” wasn’t the only Talking Heads classic to get the SNL treatment: In the “Airport Sushi” sketch, Byrne — playing “Baggage Handler Who Tosses Everyone’s Suitcase Into Long Island Sound” — reunited with host Mulaney for a Laguardi Airport-inspired rendition of “Road to Nowhere,” here dubbed “Plane to Nowhere”:
Byrne’s American Utopia Broadway residency wrapped February 16th, but the show will return for 17 more weeks of performances at New York’s Hudson Theatre in September. Spike Lee will also helm a film version of the acclaimed stage show.
Overseas, the horror pic took in $20.2 million from its first 47 markets.
In a major boost for the horror genre, Universal and Blumhouse's The Invisible Manscared up a stellar $29 million in its North American box office debut and $20.2 million overseas for a $49.2 million global start.
Fueled by a 92 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, TheInvisible Man had the best domestic opening for a horror pic since last September's It: Chapter Two, and one of the best ever for Jason Blum's prolific production company. The pic, costing just $7 million to produce before marketing, is also a win for Universal's retooled monster universe.
The latest adaptation of the classic H.G. Wells novel — written and directed by Leigh Whanell — stars Elisabeth Moss as Cecilia Kass, who escapes an abusive relationship with a wealthy and brilliant scientist (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). When her ex commits suicide, Cecilia begins to suspect his death was a hoax and believes he has found a way to become invisible after a series of eerie coincidences and encounters that turn lethal. Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid and Harriet Dyer also star.
While horror movies traditionally skew female, the audience for The Invisible Man was 53 percent male. Invisible Man is playing in 3,620 cinemas in North America.
Over the past several years, many horror pics have struggled domestically but The Invisible Man bucks that trend. The film has already earned more domestically than Blumhouse and Sony's Fantasy Island, which finished its third weekend with $24.2 million. STXfilms' Brahms: The Boy II has also struggled, earning a total of $9.8 million in its first 10 days.
The genre also faces different challenges internationally in that horror films often fail to scare up significant business. Whannell's movie turned in a solid start in its first set of markets, including the U.K. ($2.9 million), France ($2.2 million) and Mexico ($1.8 million). In Asia, it placed No. 1 in South Korea with $1.1 million despite a significant downturn at the box office there because of the coronavirus.
Elsewhere, Paramount's Sonic the Hedgehog fell to No. 2 in North America with a pleasing $16 million in its third weekend for a domestic total of $128.2 million. Overseas, the family pic won the weekend with another $26.8 million for a foreign tally of $137.2 million and $265.4 million overseas,
20th Century and Disney's Call of the Wild tumbled 47 percent in its second weekend with $13.2 million for a domestic cume of $45.9 million, and $11 million internationally from 50 markets for a foreign total of $33.4 million and $79.3 million globally. Because of its hefty $150 million budget, the pic appears destined to land in the black.
While The Invisible Man was the weekend's sole new release from a Hollywood studio, it wasn't the only fresh offering. Anime pic My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, based on the popular Japanese manga franchise, placed No. 4 with $6.3 million from 1,260 theaters for a five day debut of $9.6 million.
Sony's breakout hit Bad Boys for Life achieved a major milestone as it cleared the $400 million globally. In North America, it rounded out the top five with $4.3 million for a domestic cume of $197.4 million and $405.4 million worldwide.
Elsewhere, Impractical Jokers: The Movie, a big-screen adaptation of the reality TV show, continued to impress in its second weekend with $3.5 million for a cume of $6.6 million. It placed No. 7.
At the specialty box office, Parasite continued to feast on its Oscar wins, earning $1.5 million for a domestic total of $51.6 million. Only three other non-English-language films have crossed the $50 million mark in U.S. ticket sales.
Among new specialty pics, Searchlight's Wendy — a different spin on Peter Pan — faltered with a location average of $7,500 from four theaters in New York and Los Angeles. Sony Pictures Classics' Greed also struggled with a location average of $7,124 from four cinemas in N.Y. and L.A.
5th Update Sunday AM: Moviegoers didn’t have a problem finding Blumhouse’s The Invisible Manon Saturday with the Leigh Whannell movie racking up $11.1M, a 12% surge over Friday’s $9.9M for a weekend that Universal is calling at $29M (some rival estimates have it in the low $28M range). Even more commendable: if you back out those $1.65M previews from Friday’s number (which is $8.25M), business for Invisible Man actually shot up +35% on Saturday.
No, Invisible Man did not play like a front-loaded horror movie, rather a thriller (i.e. Universal/Amblin’s Girl on the Train saw a Friday-to-Saturday uptick of +3% on its way to a $24.5M opening weekend). The Saturday bounce for Invisible Man isn’t that far from Split‘s +13% and is in the same teen orbit as Get Out (+17%). Another big indicator that buzz caught on for Invisible Man is in the PostTrak stat that 79% of ticket buyers bought their tickets on Saturday vs. 7% in the last week. Fifty-eight percent of Invisible Man‘s moviegoers bought tickets at the theater versus 38% online. Of those who watched Invisible Man, 52% said they’ll definitely recommend the movie to their friends, while 41% said they’ll probably recommend it. Strong exits. Overall, Invisible Man wound up being slightly more male at 53% to 47% women. PostTrak shows an uptick in the under female demo to 23% (from 18%), females over 25 averaging out to 26%, guys over 25 still leading with 31% and more males under 25 (going from 17% on Friday night to 20% yesterday). The male leaning Invisible Man was on par with the guy pull of Glass, A Quiet Place and 10 Cloverfield Lane. Split was more female with a draw of 44% (next to Invisible Man‘s 47%).
Those going out in packs (2-4 friends) to see Invisible Man included males under 25 (30%) and females under 25 (23%). Those males and females under 25 taking boyfriends/girlfriends to the R-rated thriller were around 25%-26%.
Invisible Man reps the second best debut for Elisabeth Moss (who remarkably carries this movie all on her own) at the domestic box office behind last year’s Us from Jordan Peele, Uni and Blumhouse ($71.1M), which still holds the record for the best opening by an original horror movie. Global for Invisible Man is at $49.2M, making it the No. 1 movie around the globe this weekend with $20.2M from offshore territories.
Imax and PLF accounted for a third of Invisible Man‘s domestic business. While Uni had Invisible Man booked on PLF screens, some exhibitors opted to play My Hero Academia: Hero Rising and Call of the Wild, and thus, didn’t reap the upside of the overperformance of the Elisabeth Moss film on certain showtimes.
Elsewhere, the weekend’s other wide entry, Sony Pictures TV/Funimation’s My Hero Academia: Hero Risingin early AM estimates clocked an estimated $2.6M Saturday, +44% over Friday on its way to a $6.2M 3-day in 4th place, 5-day opening of $9.5M.
Updates: NEON is calling the 21st weekend of 4x Oscar winnerParasite at $1.5M, -50% at 1,324 with a running total of $51.5M in 12th place.
Refresh for more analysis and a chart.
4TH Writethru, Saturday AM after overnight post: Horror films in the wake of New Line’s It Chapter Two ($91M opening) have been in a frightening free fall at the domestic box office, and for various reasons.
They were either too long or based off of a non-mass appealing piece of source material (i.e. Warner Bros.’ truly sublime Doctor Sleep, which went into a coma with $31.6M domestic final), so cheap that their distributors believed that there was no reason to spend any more money than what was necessary (hence lower grosses, i.e. Brahms: Boy II, Countdown), or just flat out awful (the F-graded Grudge and The Turning, plus the D+ Cinemascore pic Black Christmas). After seeing broad comedies get swallowed up whole by streaming and minimized at the box office, the last thing major studio executives need is for another crowd-appealing genre, in which moviegoers have a great shared experience, gets diminished entirely on mobile phones.
And so, this weekend’s opening for Universal-Blumhouse’s The Invisible Man, now between $26M-$27M off its $7M production cost (before P&A), is a wonderful reminder that low budget genre fare continues to work. Grosses for the Leigh Whannell-directed and written film have improved from Friday afternoon to a current $9.9M (including Thursday night’s $1.65M). Universal’s hope is that Invisible Man continues to play like a thriller, with Saturday being even with Friday’s box office (or even better) and not like a horror movie, which is typically front-loaded.
While arthouse-mixed-with-genre can often divide horror fans (i.e. Midsommar, Crimson Peak), socially conscious genre fare clicks, resonates, and wins all around with critics and audiences, and that’s what we’re seeing here again with Invisible Man in the wake of Universal/Blumhouse’s Oscar-winning blockbuster Get Out and Jordan Peele’s second directorial, Us. Universal knows that in a cookie cutter brand major motion picture event world, it pays to be truly unique. They learned that the hard way when they executed that old fashioned formula of star (Tom Cruise)+ franchise (The Mummy). It didn’t necessarily yield a box office result like it would in the 1980s, 1990s, or the early aughts (and there were other things that were wrong with that 2017 movie). When turning a noted property, like Invisible Man, on its head, you have to keep it cheap, and trust in a visionary. Australian Insidious Chapter 3 and Upgrade filmmaker Whannellwalked onto the Uni lot and pitched his own twist on H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man (it’s not about the man, rather the woman, specifically the invisible man’s girlfriend), rather than being shackled with some pre-conceived tropes of a dusty property.
Moviegoers want to organically discover their franchises, and not be told they have to commit themselves to a “Dark Universe,” which is what Universal did so ambitiously back with its 2017 reboot of The Mummy. Uni will say that with this weekend’s success of Invisible Man, it’s a great step in putting their whole monster-verse back on the rails. And while that is true, what’s amazing here is how they built another crowd-appealing, critically acclaimed (90% certified fresh), socially conscious movie that is so much about now and #MeToo with Invisible Man. It’s not just senseless pulp, blood and guts. In the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s guilty verdict this week, which reinvigorated the #MeToo movement, Universal and Blumhouse couldn’t have hoped for a better time to release Invisible Man. Time‘s film critic Stephanie Zacharek hits the nail on the head when describing how Invisible Man speaks to bigger issues: “The movie’s violence opens up a larger question, keyed to the way the world reacts when a woman steps forward to call out abuse. What is it that makes us believe a woman’s story? If a woman is struck by an unseen hand, as Cecilia is, has it really happened? Where’s the proof? In The Invisible Man, it’s her word against his silence—and he doesn’t even have the guts to show his face.”
Even though guys over 25 remained the majority for Invisible Man, with 37%, females grew on Friday night over Thursday, with females 25+ repping 29% of the audience (up from 28%) and females under 25 at 18% (up from last night’s 13%). The latter loved Invisible Man the most at 80%, while females overall (46%) enjoyed Invisible Man a bit more than guys, 78% to 75%. Those 18-34 made up 61% of the crowd, with updated diversity demos being 45% Caucasian, 20% African American, 19% Hispanic, 16% Asian. PostTrak remained solid at 4 Stars, while CinemaScore was a B+, on par with Split, and just under Get Out‘s A-. Invisible Man played best on the coasts and the South. Imax and PLF screens rep 31% of the gross so far.
Late improv maestro and Second City pioneer Del Close famously said that when it comes to art and the audience, “treat your audiences like poets and geniuses, and they’ll have the chance to become them,” and it’s clear that Universal continues to have that philosophy in mind in developing their slates (i.e. pics like Yesterday, 1917, etc), shepherding their filmmakers and taking big swings in a franchise-laden event cinema atmosphere. While Disney plows forward with Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel, and live-action reboots of their classic toons, Uni is meeting the challenge to think outside the box.
Yes, yes, of course, let’s not forget that this is the same studio that made the disastrous feature adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats. The IP was historically always risky (that’s why it wasn’t made decades ago). But given Uni’s flair for blockbuster jukebox musicals like their Mamma Mia movies, they believed Cats to be a worthy gamble, given the fact that the stage musical made over $4 billion, the movie was casted up for the young with stars like Taylor Swift, and for sophisticated adults with award winning actors like Judi Dench and Ian McKellen, and the pic was in the hands of Uni’s Les Miserables hitmaker director Tom Hooper.
However, the stage musical’s unusual premise of singing cats (sans plot) coupled with uncanny valley designed felines, did not speak to today’s moviegoers, with millennials exclaiming WTF. At the same time over the holiday season, Uni teamed with Amblin to distribute a British WWI movie, 1917. Talk about risky. That’s certainly not a four-quad movie, and the subject matter is largely for old dudes. And who wants to see another British war film so soon after Dunkirk? But there was a huge hook, one that was big enough to get people to leave their couches and spend over $350M WW and see something that they’ve never seen before in a war movie, and that was that the cinematography was the starin its one continuous, jarring, awesome shot.
Sony Pictures TV/Funimation’s My Hero Academia: Heroes Risingalso played well on the coasts and the South. Overall, audiences in updated PostTrak gave it 5 stars, Parents 4 stars, and kids 3 stars. Families only repped 13% last night, with the general audience at 87% making up most of the crowd. Those who showed were 61% male and 80% under 35, with 64% falling between 18-34 years old. Among kids under 12, boys repped 44% of the crowd. Rivals are impressed by the anime pic’s near $9M five days at 1,260 given Funimation’s limited P&A spend.
NEON’s Oscar-winning Best Picture darlingParasite, which is still wide at 1,324 sans Imax, is poised to earn around $1.46M, -52%, for a total by EOD tomorrow of $51.5M in weekend 21. What is amazing many rival distribs is that the movie is still putting up big numbers while still being made available on VOD and DVD. Who says the big screen is dead? It can be argued that Parasite‘s tale this past awards season could have been Roma‘s, had that pic had the prestige of a full-on, theatrical release, box office grosses and all. Distribution folk continue to argue that at least $20M in box office grosses were left on the table with that Alfonso Cuaron 3x Oscar winner. Final domestic looks like $55M for sure, with some saying more.
Searchlight’s revisionist Peter Pan movie Wendyfrom Beasts of the Southern Wild filmmaker Benh Zeitlin posted $10,5K last night at NY’s Landmark 57th St and Angelika and LA’s Landmark, and Arclight Hollywood drawing from soft numbers. Overall, weekend looks like $31,3K for a per theater of $7,8K, which is awful. It stands to reason when the critics have blasted it at 40% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Sony Pictures Classics’ Michael Winterbottom comedy Greedstarring Steve Coogan and Isla Fisher also suffered from bad reviews at 59%, seeing soft numbers at NY’s Lincoln Square, Angelika and LA’s Landmark, and Arclight. Pic earned around $7K yesterday on its way to a bad $21K or $5,2K per theater.
Updated with Saturday AM industry figures:
thumb
rank
film
dis.
screens (chg)
friday(vs. pv fri)
3-day
tl
wk
1
Invisible Man
Uni/Blum
3,610
$9.9M
$26M-$27M
$26M-$27M
1
2
Sonic
Par
4,177 (-21)
$3.5M (-44%)
$15.2M (-42%)
$127.5M
3
3
Call of the Wild
Dis/20th
3,865 (+113)
$3.3M (-58%)
$12.8M (-48%)
$45.4M
2
4
My Hero Academia…
FUN
1,260
$1.8M
$5.5M
$8.8M
1
5
Bad Boys for Life
Sony
2,708 (-264)
$1.1M (-31%)
$4.1M (-29%)
$197.1M
7
6
Birds of Prey
WB
3,124 (-441)
$1.1M (-40%)
$3.9M (-43%)
$78.5M
4
7
Impractical Jokers
TruTV
1,705 (+1,348)
$893K (-6%)
$2.8M (+8%)
$5.9M
2
7
Brahms: Boy 2
STX
2,151
$730K (-67%)
$2.5M (-56%)
$9.7M
2
8
1917
Uni/Amb/NR
2,232 (-493)
$690K (-42%)
$2.5M (-41%)
$155.7M
10
10
Fantasy Island
Sony/Blum
2,724 (-60)
$639K (-50%)
$2.2M (-47%)
$23.9M
3
2nd Update, Friday Midday: The Invisible Man is on his way to a $9.1M first day, including last night’s $1.65M, for a 3-day between $23M-$25M at 3,610 theaters. I’ve heard from various exhibitors that advance ticket sales are far ahead of Universal/Blumhouse’s Ma which posted at first day of $7.2M and opening of $18.1M last June. As of this minute, ticket sales are surging so by tonight we may see a higher result. At this range, it’s a very good start for the $7M Univeral-Blumhouse production. Get Out posted a first day of $10.8M, which included $1.8M previews, on its way to a $33.3M start.
Paramount’s 3rd weekend of Sonic the Hedgehogis taking 2nd with an estimated $13.85M at 4,177 off a Friday of $3.2M (-50%), -47%, and running total by Sunday of $126.1M
Disney/20th Century Studios’ TheCall of the Wild in its second weekend is seeing $12.875M at 3,865 off a Friday of $3.5M (-56%), overall -48% for the weekend. That puts its 10-day at $45.5M.
In 4th is Sony Pictures TV/Funimation’sMy Hero Academia: Heroes Risingwhich is looking at $5M-$6M at 1,260 after a $2M-$2.2M Friday. 10-day could hit $9.3M on the high end.
Warner Bros.’ Birds of Preycould file 5th with $3.9M at 3,124, -43% for a running total in weekend 4 of $77.7M. Sony’s Bad Boys for Life is now in 6th in weekend 7 with $3.6M at 2,708, -38% for a running total of $196.6M.
STX’s Brahms: The Boy 2is looking at $2.6M in weekend 2 in 7th place, -55%, for a 10-day of $9.7M.
WarnerMedia’s TruTV’sImpractical Jokerswhich expanded from 357 theaters to 1,820 is seeing $725K today, -24%, for a 3-day of $2.2M, -16%, and a 10-day of $5.3M.
1st Update, Friday 7:34AM: Universal-Blumhouse’s The Invisible Manmade its first appearance Thursday night at 7 PM shows nationwide with $1.65 million at 2,850 theaters, an amount of cash that’s near both studios’ previous collaborations, Get Out ($1.8M Thursday) and Split ($2M). Invisible Man expands to 3,610 today.
Both 2017 titles overperformed their $20M-predicted tracking at the time, with Split posting a $40M start, and Get Out taking $33.3M. Invisible Man, directed and written by Leigh Whannell, is forecasted to be in the mid- to high-$20M range, a solid start for the $7M net production shot with Australian tax credits However, like Split and Get Out, it’s expected to go higher potentially in the $30M+ zone.
Exits and reviews indicate that milepost is possible, with Invisible Man‘s Rotten Tomatoes score at 92% Certified Fresh being just under Get Out‘s 98% certified fresh, but much higher than Split‘s 77% certified fresh and Halloween‘s 79% certified fresh. The RT score is key because that’s the catalyst that will persuade non-genre die-hards to buy tickets.
PostTrak last night for the R-rated Invisible Man showed 4 stars with a 53% definite recommend. Guys over 25 dominated at 47% last night, with 28% females over 25, 13% females under 25 and 12% men under 25. The biggest quad was the 25-34 folks at 39%, with a diversity read of 49% Caucasian, 22% Hispanic, 13% Asian and 12% African American.
Among those films in regular release Thursday, Disney/20th Century Studios’ Call of the Wildled with an estimated $1.45M, off 3% from Wednesday, for a first-week cume of $32.6M. Weekend 2 is estimated to be down 45% for a second-frame take of $13.6M for the Harrison Ford movie.
Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog ends Weekend 2 with a running total of $112.2M after a $1.17M Thursday, +2% from Wednesday, in second place for the day. Sonic should see a third weekend that’s around $17M, -35%.
Third place according to early AM estimates goes to Sony Pictures TV-Funimation’s anime feature My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising. Last night we heard that not all the pic’s theaters were accounted for on Wednesday and instead of a $1.7M opening day it was actually $2.5M at 1,275 locations. Right now Thursday looks like $793K (updated), -68%, per estimates, for a two-day take of $3.3M. 3-day outlook is around $6M.
PostTrak shows that fans are out in bulk with the pic scoring 5 stars and a 73% definite recommend and an 86% general audience, 15% families. Both parents and kids under 12 gave the movie 4 stars. Boys 10-12 made up half the kid crowd, while girls 10-12 showed up at 28%. Overall combined audience stats were 34% guys under 25, 24% men over 25, 23% females under 25 and 19% females over 25.
Kim Kardashian and daughter North WestGetty Images
Kim Kardashian showed up to husband Kanye West’s Sunday Service this morning in Paris wearing a sexy latex outfit straight off the French runways.
The liquidy look – a cinched tan blazer (complete with attached gloves) and matching leggings – debuted on Balmain’s runway just this past Friday morning in Paris. She finished the look with a sleek ponytail and strappy sandals.
It’s no surprise that Kardashian West got first dibs: The French house’s designer Olivier Rousteing has been longtime friends with the couple, and was seated next to Kardashian West during the surprise service.
The service was invite-only, with select recipients receiving invitations just yesterday afternoon.
West will follow-up on Monday night with a presentation of Yeezy Season 8 in the City of Lights.
If your third SNLhostinggig is your weakest yet and is still consistently funny, well, you’re probably John Mulaney. The former SNL writer turned award-winning stand-up and almost apologetic actor is just funny. That’s perhaps not an enlightening way to describe the guy, but there’s a certain kind of comedian who just is. That’s Mulaney, taking the mic for his third opening monologue since he left the writers room and slaying with habitual, deceptively effortless ease. Joking about his eccentric career path to date, Mulaney explained that he is the host who’d done the least between his second and third hosting stints, his self-effacing shtick both cheeky and spot-on. (A set-ender about a Make-A-Wish girl confessing that her second choice Mulaney introducing her to that week’s guest Lin Manuel Miranda actually made her wish come true struck exactly the Mulaney sweet spot of potentially edgy and hilariously apt.) Mulaney’s always going to be Mulaney (even as a cartoon pig) his specific, knowingly oversized delivery marking him out as the funniest voice in any room. That doesn’t necessarily make for the most versatile Saturday Night Live host, but, with Mulaney’s intimacy with the show to guide things, tonight’s episode made typically fine use of one of its funniest, if most unlikely, superstar alums.
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But back to funny. With a sketch veteran like Mulaney in house, jokes just work better. He knows the rhythm of a sketch inside out, and slots himself into a role with the confidence of a guy who simply knows how the machine operates. (A little cue card hesitancy notwithstanding.) Which is a good thing, as the sketches tonight weren’t themselves stellar. The big news any time John Mulaney hosts these days is just whichever aspect of New York culinary-mercantile sketchiness will be the subject of a lavishly produced musical number, and, while tonight’s Broadway ode to LaGuardia Airport sushi is third in line behind (in order of undeniable delightfulness) “Diner Lobster” and “Bodega Bathroom,” it follows the overall theme of the night that third-best Mulaney on SNL is still thoroughly enjoyable SNL.
Look, nothing’s ever going to capture the surprise victory of that first sketch—just like any recurring bit, there’s an element of giving the audience what they’re there to expect that saps some of the initial live-wire weirdness from the enterprise. But, apart from the central players in the set-up (Chris Redd and Mulaney as the New Yorkers horrified at Pete Davidson’s unwise choice of NYC convenience amenity), there’s a no-doubt inexhaustible well of petty New York gripes and vomit-worthy eccentricities for Mulaney and his fellow Big Apple veterans to plumb for extravagantly silly numbers whose disproportionate response is part of the gag. Here, we get Kenan as a plane-downing goose Phantom, Cecily Strong as an operatically remorseful, long-ago sushi chef (that spicy tuna is from 2018), Kate McKinnon as pretzel-hawking Auntie Orphan Annie blaming everything on de Blasio, Beck Bennett as the somehow unaccompanied baby on your flight, and—capping things off with a double dose of Mulaney’s Sack Lunch Bunch shenanigans—musical guest David Byrne as a “Road To Nowhere”-singing “baggage handler who throws your luggage into Long Island Sound,” and Jake Gyllenhaal, rigged up to fly as the traveler in pajamas who’s creepily enthusiastic about the TSA pat-down. (“You don’t have to use the backs of your hands!”) Taking the whole show into the audience to end the sketch amidst a shower of loose-wire sparks with Byrne singing the way, the whole thing was delightfully, goofily unnecessary.
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Best/Worst Sketch Of The Night
So, apart from that one, I thought Mulaney’s stand-up persona found its truest home in the Sound Of Music sketch, a musical dissection of just how creepy that whole “I am 16, going on 17" romance subplot is. With Cecily’s Liesl (in ridiculously fine voice as ever) beginning to question her beloved sort-of Nazi suitor Kurt’s blond, Aryan suitability, Mulaney keeps slipping in the sort of wise-ass asides his comedy is built around, as Kurt keeps confessing to being more like “17, going on 47" as the song goes on. (Oh, and he’s planning to move them into an apartment with a lot of suspiciously Aryan roommates, including one named Goebbels.) With Mulaney’s Kurt alternating between snarking about his beloved’s growing number of reservations (“Wow, she’s got a list.”), and smoothly crooning away her reservations about the whole Nazi thing (“Focus on the age stuff.”), the piece was a perfect use of Mulaney. Him assuring Liesl, “This is Austria, nineteen-thirty-bad: In a few weeks this will be the least of your worries,” was the ideal synthesis of host, delivery, and premise.
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Any sketch matching Kate and Aidy at its center is an automatic contender, and the return of their melodramatically feuding 1950s sisters in the classic Say, These Two Don’t Seem To Like Each Other gave the ever-delightful duo a chance to outdo each other with bitchy period skullduggery in advance of their shared suitor’s arrival. The joke is, once again, that their Davis-Crawford (pretty much literal) back-stabbing proves helpless against the unwitting charms of a much more conventionally attractive family member (here, Mulaney’s returning sailor and “pass-around party bottom”). Having the joke that Beck Bennett’s Admiral (somehow being promoted from Corporal last time) is in a closeted frenzy at Mulaney’s oblivious nautical sexiness (shades of Kimmy Schmidt’s “Daddy’s Boy” and Hail, Caesar!’s “No Dames”) is hacky but funny, with Beck, Kate, and Aidy all doing absurdly over-the-top mugging (including a straight-up “Ha-ga-goo-ga-goo-ga-gaaa!”) while maintaining their 1950s film noir demeanor, and I laughed at pretty much all of it.
Mulaney’s gift for straight-manning (as opposed to party-bottoming) was used to fine effect again in the meme sketch, where his suburban uncle angrily whips up a slide show of college-age nephew Pete Davidson’s reddit jokes at his expense. Mulaney makes the uncle’s outrage at being the internet’s #whitecollarvirgin simultaneously righteous and comically out-of-touch, as the memes keep coming. (His awkwardly grinning Facebook profile picture overlaid with “When ya’ll kissing and she say, ‘That’ll be $200'” is introduced with Mulaney’s hilariously perplexed, “This next one was tweeted by rapper Ice-T!”) There’s not much more to the sketch but watching Mulaney flesh out a portrait of out-of-touch suburban dudgeon, but’s just so great at it. Like more than a few sketches tonight, there were some pacing/timing issues, here mainly at the expense of an ending.
Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney got to do their behind-the-scenes thing with a filmed sketch about Mooney—tired of all the “geek” roles coming his way—deciding to turn their shared office into a gym in order to get cast in Mulaney’s proposed male stripper sketch. The pair’s signature self-parody here clanks alongside the admirable monstrousness of Mooney’s post-transformation prosthetics, as he immediately becomes a smugly buff, absurdly pumped-up dudebro (thanks to, among other things, the absurdist delight that is guest trainer Justin Theroux as himself), scooping a muscles-smitten Chloe Fineman into an offhand sex-date and allowing a bashful Lorne Michaels to pet his newfound bulges. Good Neighbor pals Mooney and Bennett’s humor traffics in such light cringe comedy, as clueless strivers inevitably find their lowest level, as, here, the horrifying, gravel-voiced, ’roid-gremlin version of Kyle, having made himself “less interesting” for glory, is summarily fired from the show by an unimpressed Mulaney. Lurking at the heart of most of these sketches is a mingled affection/contempt for the bottom-dwellers of the entertainment industry, pitiable losers whose lifelong consumption of TV and movies has left them convinced that they are just one big break (or Tupperware full of lean, broiled chicken breasts and a 5 p.m. bedtime) away from the stardom they just know is their birthright, and Mooney, especially, is most comfortable playing around there. (Also, filming schedules being what they are, it’s unlikely this sketch is in response to Pete Davidson’s off-weeks’ interview about being typecast on the show, but there’s a harsh but essential truth about living or dying on SNL that’s resonant throughout the bit.)
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Weekend Update update
Che continues to successfully play around with his role on Update, here breaking from a joke about the growing coronavirus threat to muse about his fears that they’ll play an Update clip of him mocking the typically lame and self-serving Trump administration response to the crisis at his funeral. In what former SNL-er Al Franken would call “kidding on the square,” Che confessed to “sitting here pretending to care about politics,” before whipping off his clip-on tie, whipping out a tumbler of something brown (“Why am I hiding my drinking problem?”), and, finally, donning a crooked baseball cap as he essayed the role of a Michael Che who’s finally been broken by all the world’s unrelenting horseshit. It’s a blessedly funny move, carried out through the rest of Update (“You know, I just found out I might have a kid?,” he’s heard mumbling after the camera cuts back to the straight-faced Colin Jost), and it adds a frisson of reckless abandon to his side of the proceedings that’s sloppily energizing. “I feel free,” he exclaims at one point, and his story about his beloved grandma telling him, “We are living in our last days,” lands satisfyingly, before Che rambles on to rebut granny’s “no white girls” rule. (“I work in show business, that’s unrealistic.”) Joining in on the cold open’s queasy mockery of the prospect of noted fundamentalist and science skeptic Mike Pence leading the uninspiring cadre of sycophants, yes-men, and non-doctors Trump put in charge of fighting a potentially deadly outbreak of disease, Che did resort to yet another SNL “Mike Pence is secretly gay” joke. And I could have done without the “Chinese people eating dogs” joke when supposedly defending the virus hotspot, too, although, for Che, loosening up seems to come yoked to being sort of an asshole.
Otherwise, Update’s cracks at the news of the day went as usual. Jost let Trump hang himself with his own slurred nonsense (Thank god we have “different elements of medical” on the coronavirus front), and—echoing Trump’s rhetorical gambit of using supposedly overheard chatter to disseminate patently absurd nonsense to the world—deftly managed to get the hashtag #TrumpSlump trending during the show when talking about what he’s definitely heard people calling the precipitous stock market losses since Trump started babbling incoherently about the “hoax” outbreak of a rapidly accelerating infectious disease outbreak. Hey, if that’s the world of public discourse we live in at this point, then fighting hashtag with hashtag is fair game, so good on you, Jost.
Chris Redd, taking the well-known SNL path of making yourself a showcase on Update when you’re being underused elsewhere, put together a solid few minutes as himself, commenting on the just-concluding Black History Month. As with most such pieces, the jokes sprayed all over the place, although nominally anchored to the central premise that, as Redd put it, black people “took too many Ls” for Black History Month this year. Straying into politics while keeping his eyes on the joke, he ably described SC primary winner Joe Biden as Joe “I have a black friend” Biden, and noted how watching the garrulously long-winded Biden give a speech is like “watching an old man parallel park his thoughts for 20 minutes.” On Trump’s hastily disseminated photo of himself surrounded by the handful of black Trump supporters he could get to pray over him, Redd, in his best turn of phrase, described the gathered worshipful as “White House negroes,” and ran down some of the more egregiously misguided corporate appropriations of Black History Month, including that credit card that makes it look like Harriet Tubman is either saluting Wakanda or “she got recaptured.” Weekend Update has long been a place for cast members to present their own, individualized versions of the newsreader gig, and, should Jost follow through on his suggested post-election departure, this is about as good a tryout as Redd could give.
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“What do you call that act?” “The Californians!”—Recurring sketch report
The John Mulaney “I hate New York” Musical Showcase; the Kate-and-Aidy 1940s Femmes Fatale Extravaganza.
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“It was my understanding there would be no math”—Political comedy report
Hey, everyone’s going to get super-sick! So that’s funny. Or it could be, I suppose, if the cold open didn’t shy away from the aforementioned flop-sweat generator that is Mike (“condoms don’t work, pray away AIDS, smoking doesn’t kill, climate change is a myth, intelligent design”) Pence is in charge of mustering the nation’s medical defenses to wheeze into another underwhelming Democratic slate sketch. Again, the joke that noted frothing gay-basher Pence is in the closet is (whatever the truth may be) beyond played out at this point, although at least Beck Bennett’s strident Pence nodding toward his willful disregard of scientific truth by calling the coronavirus a test of his faith “like dinosaur bones, or Timothée Chalamet” was half-smart. And Kenan Thompson coming out as Ben Carson (“the brain surgeon that they put in charge of house development”) was the usual hoot, with Kenan’s approximation of Carson’s singsong cadence making his dire predictions about the toll of the virus extra alarming, especially to Pence, who hurriedly shoves Carson aside for straying from the administration’s sweaty “All is well!” public stance on the topic.
That things veered suddenly into a another stealth Dem candidate sketch could have served to hammer on the theme, I suppose (although simply following through on the premise might have been an idea, too.) But things quickly turned into the same unsatisfying quick-hit impressions and internecine sniping among the candidates, an exercise that’s seeming more and more like a slightly unimpressive audition process for who’s going to be the eventual nominee. (Sort of like the much of the actual remaining Democratic field, but I digress.) Honestly, only the (increasingly unlikely looking) prospect of a four-year Elizabeth Warren-Kate McKinnon reign holds any interest for me at this point, McKinnon’s spot-on impression the only one to go much beyond the surface into something more substantive. (You know, like the actual Warren, but I digress.)
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As for the rest, we have ringers like Larry David’s Bernie Sanders and Fred Armisen’s Mike Bloomberg. And while who doesn’t like David’s gabbling, kvetchy Sanders, there are some issues. Namely that SNL can’t think of much to do besides grumpy old candidate jokes with the surging potential nominee (although a passing reference to Bernie’s “Castro wasn’t all bad” remarks this week at least nodded toward actual engagement). Also, as much fun as Larry seems to be having coming back to 30 Rock every other week, it’s unclear if he’s on board for a theoretical Alec Baldwin-style regular gig should Sanders win. As for Bloomberg—meh. He’s not going anywhere politically, and, as primly humorous as is Armisen’s shrugging rich guy approach to this whole “let the poor people decide” thing is, it’s yet another role whose farming out to a higher profile outsider continues to signal the show’s lack of confidence in its in-house talent. Same goes for Rachel Dratch’s Amy Klobuchar, whose best hope at this point is a Vice Presidential gig (on both fronts). There’s nothing wrong with any of these funny people or what they’re doing per se. It’s more that there’s no reason for them to be there, and that these sketches remain irritatingly shallow.
On the in-house side, that seeming lack of confidence appears not so much borne out in these openers as untested. Sure, Colin Jost barely tries to conceal how unsuited he is to play college chum Pete Buttigieg, and the absence of other ringer (and other Dem impersonation I could stand to see more of) Jason Sudeikis saw the Joe Biden spot going to Mulaney (who would likely be the first to admit that celebrity impressions aren’t in his wheelhouse). But, what with SNL’s proven disregard for gender-appropriate political casting of late, the fact that able mimics Melissa Villaseñor and Chloe Fineman and nimble actresses Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim remain on the bench is increasingly vexing. As for the actual sketch, it was the same too-glib drive-by, with only Warren’s gloating over her debate trouncing of Bloomberg registering, in McKinnon’s lived-in performance, with any juice. Meh.
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I am hip to the musics of today
Goddamn, that was great, as David Byrne (late of the aforementioned Sack Lunch Bunch), joined Mulaney and delivered a pair of electric live performances. He did “One In A Lifetime” first, and it’s striking just how Byrne keeps that well-trod Talking Heads song from receding into classic hits predictability in performance. That song is as weird and satirically biting as ever, as much as its ubiquity threatens to turn it into just another toothless oldie, and, with his identically grey-suited backup musicians all channeling that old Stop Making Sense spirit with their non-stop individualized choreography and musicianship, the song—with the 67-year-old Byrne holding center stage, as deceptively limber as ever—was a showstopper. So, too, the rousing second number, the Byrne-penned “Toe Jam,” where Byrne ceded even more time for each member of his expansive musical team to shake their stuff in the individual spotlight. Easily one of the most enjoyable musical guests in years, Byrne remains a one-man show unafraid to let others steal the show. Just bottomless fun.
Most/Least Valuable Not Ready For Prime Time Player
Not building sketches around the proven talents of performers like Nwodim, Fineman, Villaseñor, and Gardner just seems perverse at this point. SNL’s second line looks thin in the talent department because nobody’s making use of them.
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The LaGuardia extravaganza gave Cecily, Kenan, Kate, and Beck plenty to sink their teeth into, but Cecily’s second singing showcase of the night puts her on top.
“What the hell is that thing?”—The Ten-To-Oneland Report
Well, at least we got Chris Redd’s welcome and funny comic tribute to Black History Month on Update, so the muddled mush of the Jackie Robinson sketch can stay the ten-to-one oddity it is. Kenan is delightful, don’t get me wrong. As the lone black man to boo color-line-busting legend Robinson, his Dodgers fan Terrence “The Enlarged Heart” Washington was a funny construction, his petty jealousies trumping any sense of racial pride or loyalty. As the 1940s white fans around him look on puzzled at Washington’s animosity toward the first black MLB player, Kenan makes his frustrated non-ballplayer’s grudge almost but never quite hilarious, although the way his bewildering heckling keeps igniting pockets of revealing racism beneath the white fans’ sporting loyalties is fairly pointed. Beck Bennett’s loudmouth fan immediately starts an “Oh, so it’s all right to boo white guys?!” side-argument that ultimately and inevitably sees him getting carried away by telling Robinson to go back to the Negro Leagues where he belongs. Still, the funniest joke is when Kenan, berated by bleacher-mate Mulaney for talking that way in front of his kid, notices the young black child sitting next to him and exclaims, “I don’t know this kid!”
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Stray observations
Kate, as The Sound Of Music’s Maria, sings her own reassurance concerning her relationship with the Captain, “I’m old enough, but it’s still kind of dicey.”
Jost, on Joe Biden’s resurgent Democratic primary win in South Carolina: “But, in keeping with South Carolina tradition, the losers will get the statues.” (In front of photo of a Confederate monument.)
Mulaney’s monologue has me scanning the internet to see if he’s scored another Netflix special yet. (Not yet, apparently.) From going as close to the edge as he gets with jokes about Jesus forgetting to do magic on the one occasion he could really have used it, to that Make-A-Wish anecdote, to a great run about how crappy the Founding Fathers really were, to a straight-up joke about Trump being stabbed to death Caesar-style by some senators, it was tight and focused and very, very funny.
On that assassination joke, Mulaney reassured everyone, “I asked my lawyer if I could make that joke, and he said, ‘Let me call another lawyer,’ and that lawyer said yes.”
Mulaney’s Kurt, to Liesl: “Oh, age is just a number that the government keeps track of.”
Redd kids on the square that the withdrawal of all black candidates for president has meant less airtime for him.
After Che—still in booze-swilling carefree mode—jokes that Ash Wednesday is the one day a year when Catholics can indulge in “a little bit of blackface,” Jost signs off, laughing, “For Weekend Update, I’m Catholic . . .”
All welcome Che’s proposed new Houston Astros mascot, Cheatie the Camera.
Before Davidson’s customer makes his ill-gated sushi purchase, he and Redd buy “a Chobani yogurt with no spoon to eat it with” and “a $15 dollar Dasani, extra plastic.”
Once more the show ended awfully abruptly, so here are the full goodnights again. Good night! Daniel Craig and The Weeknd next week!
Jennifer Lopez has been experiencing many high-profile moments in her career lately. The Bronx-diva performed during the Super Bowl half-time alongside Shakira and killed it on the stage. However, there was a gloomy cloud over her head which had to do with per performance on Hustlers. Despite getting rave reviews for her acting skills as Ramona, she didn’t manage to get an Oscar nomination for her stripper role.
Jennifer Lopez | Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
Since the debut of the film in movie festivals, there was buzz that Lopez would get recognized by the Academy Awards. She managed to snag several nods which included the Golden Globes and the Spirit Awards, but the Oscars snubbed her.
Lopez had been silent about her feelings at the time. It would take Oprah Winfrey for J.Lo to finally address what went through her mind after being left out from Hollywood’s biggest night.
“I was sad, I was a little sad because there was a lot of buildup to it,” Lopez told Winfrey during Oprah’s 2020 Vision Tour which was shared by The Hollywood Reporter. “There were so many articles, I got so many good notices — more than ever in my career — and there was a lot of ‘She’s going to get nominated for an Oscar, it’s going to happen, if it doesn’t you’re crazy.’ I’m reading all the articles going, ‘Oh my god, could this happen?’ And then it didn’t and I was like ‘Ouch,’ it was a little bit of a letdown. Also, I felt like my whole team — most of my team has been with me for years, 20, 25 years — and I think they had a lot of hopes on that and they wanted it too, so I felt like I let everyone down a little bit.”
Jennifer Lopez struggled
Lopez was not shy about sharing she was sad for not scoring the nomination for her role on Hustlers. For the “I’m Real” hitmaker, the snub made her think of all the good things in her life. Lopez decided to see the glass half-full and examine all the positive things in her career instead of focusing on the negatives.
“I had to re-examine like ‘Why do you do this, what are you so sad about right now?” Lopez added. “You just had the most amazing year of your life — you just had the biggest opening of a movie in your career, you just walked the runway in Milan and had a fashion moment [in her iconic Versace dress], you’re doing the Super Bowl in a couple of weeks, what is it?'”
“And you want people’s validation,” Lopez continued. “You want people to say you did a good job, and I realized, ‘No you don’t need that, you do this because you love it,” eventually realizing that “I don’t need this award right here to tell me that I am enough.”
Lopez’s thought process served as an example of how to bring oneself back up when faced with a challenge. Her talent is endless and she is successful all-around and will continue to surprise fans in the process.
