Can Someone Get Those Damn Pipers To Stop Piping?

SNL Recap

This one was a little better. Still not a great episode by any stretch of the imagination, but since too many of the recent shows were quite poor, any improvement in quality is welcome. Oddly enough, that improvement had little to do with host Chris Rock. As major of a comedy player as he is, he is not a particularly strong sketch comic and it showed this week. He fumbled way too many lines. Even his monologue was shaky; there were a few zingers but it lacked focus. To be fair his chief strength is in building an hour long set that ties everything together in the end; he’s not served as well by a tight 5.

I was wrong about two of my predictions for the episode. I presumed that we would have another alumni heavy episode, but there was only one special guest star, and even that one was saved until after Update. I also made a big assumption. SNL has made a point to exploit Marcello’s looks, and since Luigi Mangione has become an Internet boyfriend I put 2 & 2 together and figured on a Marcello as Luigi sketch. What I failed to take into account is that Emil looks a lot more like Mangione, so he instead was cast as a guy who resembles Luigi in the cold open.

This was one of the season’s better cold opens. Sarah portrayed Nancy Grace - who is somehow still a thing in 2024 - discussing the Luigi discourse on her YouTube show, complete with the random ad breaks that one finds on YouTube.

My choice for Top Sketch Of the Week is the first post monologue piece. Rock portrayed Santa’s helper at a department store, informing the families that they had a choice of 2 Santas, played by Devon and JAJ. The white families uncomfortably attempted to tiptoe around the reasons why they preferred the white Santa. Chloe eventually stepped up as a self-righteous woman affirming her preference for Devon’s Santa, or Blanta as she called him. She flew too close to the sun as she asserted that if she could, she would go with a female lesbian Santa only to be shown that this was an option, leading her to sheepishly go back to Blanta. (Devon did NOT care for that name.)

Both pre-taped pieces this week were strong. I liked the film in which Mikey’s friends were helping him clear out his recently deceased grandfather’s garage. They discover a magical car, which soon reveals itself as racist when it locks Rock, Ego, and Devon out. And I am always a sucker for a commercial parody that uses a wrestling announcer voiceover, this one for an office Christmas party held in the office. I suspect many of us have attended holiday parties held in the office as well as ones offsite. The vibe between the two locales is vastly different.

Also good was the secret Santa sketch, which could have been served better had Rock’s performance been stronger. He received a piece of novelty artwork which depicted him as a Simpsons character. He went on to speculate on a backstory for that character which turned wonderfully dark.

As for the guest star, that appearance was spoiled by a technical foul up. Rock portrayed a surgeon who was informed at the completion of the procedure that they had removed the wrong body part. That was the fault of Sarah’s nurse who had filled out the intake form incorrectly, one of several mistakes she had made. Then, the patient woke up and it was Adam Sandler! Now, the sketch was supposed to have climaxed with Sandler shooting blood all over the OR and the surgical team, but it took a moment for the mechanism to work properly, which threw the timing completely off. It was a promising premise spoiled.

Despite that technical botch, I will give Sarah the coveted Employee Of the Week award. She made for a good Nancy Grace, and it sure looks like they are intending to turn that nurse into a catch phrase spewing recurring character. If nothing else, it’s good to see that she is versatile enough that she can be a strong asset to the show outside of her signature Sarah Squirm oddness.

Next week it’s time for the annual Christmas episode. Martin Short will host and he will receive his Five Timers jacket. Hozier is the musical guest.

The Ballot Countdown

Newcomer #7 Dustin Pedroia - I have Pedroia ranked lower than most other people do, and I suppose I could be very easily underestimating him. He won Rookie of the Year & MVP awards, and he was the heart & soul of 2 separate World Series winning teams. His career was ultimately cut short by a serious knee injury, but there were already signs that he was starting to decline so I’m not sure how differently his career arc would have looked even if Manny Machado had cleanly slid into second base on that fateful day.

Pedroia was the kind of player whom you would love to have on your team but whom you also haaaaaated if he played on your chief rival. Earlier generations of sportswriters would have called him pesky, or scrappy. He was the type who would do whatever he could to find a way to win, and he didn’t give a s*** if you liked him or not. Every winning team needs at least one guy like that.

As I look a little deeper into his career, I probably should move him up higher on this list. So far he has received 2 votes among the 29 voters that have publicly revealed their ballots. It’s too early to say for sure that he will have enough support to survive onto the ballot for another year, but I like his chances. But I feel his career was a bit too short to warrant induction.

Holdover #7 Jimmy Rollins - It’s interesting that the 2 most recent players (Rollins and Curtis Granderson) to have hit at least 20 doubles, triples, and home runs in one season both did it in the same year (2007) and are both on this year’s ballot. OK, maybe interesting is a stretch, but it does serve to show what a force Rollins was. I find it strange that his advanced stats are underwhelming. He finished with an OPS+ above 100 only 6 times in a 17 year career, and even most of those were barely above 100. Because he played most of his career in the NL East, I saw a lot of him. My eyes tell me he was a better player than those stats indicate.

He won the MVP in that 2007 season, as well as a World Series ring in 2008. He also made for a great villain; he famously called his Phillies the team to beat in 2007 spring training, and he backed up those big words. I wouldn’t go so far to say that he was a Pedroia-esque Guy You Love To Hate; Rollins’s long time double play partner filled that role.

Rollins was good enough and durable enough to receive regular playing time into his mid-thirties. That helped him accumulate almost 2500 career hits. As a vital cog on some winning teams he was a significant figure in the game. That does not add up to a Hall of Fame career in my eyes, however.

Preserve, Baby, Preserve

The National Film Registry released its annual list of the 25 films that are to be set aside for preservation. This is always a fun list to peruse; not only do the films honored span the entire history of motion pictures - this year’s honorees go back as far as 1895 - but it is not overly highbrow either. There are certainly artsy movies, documentaries, etc. but there is a fair share of mainstream movies on the annual list as well. As long as the board considers a movie to be significant, it could wind up on the list.

I remember going to see Up In Smoke at the old UA Astoria Theater back in 1978. As the lights dimmed a guy in the back of the theater yelled “light up, everyone!” If you had told me back then that THIS movie would have been deemed worthy of preservation, I would have said “you are daft, my good man! Daft, I say!” TCM will air a handful of these movies tonight beginning at 8.

Remember Greatest Hits Albums?

I’m not exactly going out on a limb when I say that the streaming era has brought seismic changes to the recording industry. Now that people rarely purchase physical product, it’s rare to see what the RIAA once branded as The Gift Of Music wrapped up underneath Christmas trees. Lost as part of the collateral damage is the simple greatest hits album, as well as the box set.

I miss both of those, for different reasons. The greatest hits collection served as a perfect introduction to an artist. You might not like that artist enough to buy an album, but a sampling of their best work is ideal. Even if you already have albums by that artist, the anthologies often included a brand new song that you just had to have to complete your collection. Better yet, it makes for a great gift.

It’s understandable why best of albums have fallen out of favor. If you have the power to create your own mix of your favorite tunes by The Wonders, then there is no need for a record company to put together their own Wonders collection. Even though a professional could likely curate a better Wonders anthology, the average fan still prefers to create their own mix. Some faceless producer is choosing what they believe to be the 12 best Wonders songs, but IT’S NOT THE SONGS WHICH I WOULD CHOOSE!

Similarly, the classic boxed set collection has also fallen out of favor. We do still see these types of collections released, but they are usually in the form of a deluxe new reissue of a classic album. 1 disc of the original release, another of an alternate mix, a third of demos and B-sides, a fourth of a live set from that era. What I’m thinking of is the career-spanning collection. All the hits, along with deep album cuts & the aforementioned demos and B-sides, as well as booklets filled with rare photos and incisive essays. These collections were a good way of showing which artists really mattered. An artist who could merit a 5-disc set is clearly more significant than one who could merit a 3-disc set. And once again, perfect gift idea.

The death of the box set is also unfortunate because even though the vast majority of major artists got their box sets, there are a few that did not, and of course there are newer worthy acts that missed out on the fun. Things sometimes have a way of coming back - the vinyl revival for example - so perhaps anthologies and boxes as a concept are only partially dead. Maybe next Christmas.

The Oscar Mulligan - 1999

Best Picture - American Beauty

Other Nominees - The Cider House Rules, The Green Mile, The Insider, The Sixth Sense

American Beauty has become one of those Best Picture winners that film buffs complain about, and not entirely due to the presence of Kevin Spacey. It’s true that his inherent creepiness has seeped into the perception of his character; the obsession with his teen daughter’s friend has not aged well. There is also the fact that there are better examples of the “idyllic looking suburbia looks a lot darker upon further examination” plot, such as The Ice Storm.

I will still generally defend it, even if there were better choices in this batch of nominees. The performances were all top notch across the board. And one of the lines in Lester’s narration sticks with me. He talks about sitting on a car roof with his childhood friends imagining his future, a future which did not match reality. That’s a relatable idea.

The “correct“ winner from this year comes down to 2 strong candidates, and it is pretty much of a coin flip. Do I go with the more important film, or the more entertaining crowd pleaser? Let’s dig in.

The Insider was a great throwback film; it contained elements of the paranoid thriller as well as the type of movie that shows someone meticulously working on their craft. Two of our finest actors provided outstanding work. Russell Crowe carried himself as a man who has been utterly defeated by life; it was so effective because it contradicts everything we know about the real life Crowe. And it’s such a pleasure to see that latter day Al Pacino was still capable of acting and not uncontrollably chewing scenery. IMHO this is Michael Mann’s finest movie.

The Sixth Sense was a thriller of a different type; an impeccably crafted, immensely smart movie. I suppose I’m not spoiling things too much when I say that it has a surprise ending, but it holds up well with a second viewing. Even if you know the twist, everything checks. The drawback is that M. Night Shyamalan’s later films too often were more concerned with leading to a shock ending rather than telling a coherent story. (I was one of the few who liked The Village.) That’s not the point, the point is to evaluate The Sixth Sense and it is a modern day classic.

Among the chief guidelines I use are such things as rewatchability, the size of the cultural footprints, and the number of memorable scenes/quotes. The Sixth Sense clearly leads in those categories. Still, I would award the prize to The Insider. It could have seamlessly fit into a film festival of the great movies of the 1970’s, and that is high praise. If you ask me the same question next week I could very well change my mind and go with The Sixth Sense instead, but for now I will judge The Insider as the deserving Best Picture winner from 1999.

Closing Laughs

What We Do In the Shadows aired its series finale Monday night. I am currently in the denial stage of grief. Please respect my privacy during this difficult time. Have a great day everyone and I will see you on Tuesday.