Tag Archives: Woody Harrelson

02.17.25
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SNL Supersized

If you were ever a fan of Saturday Night Live – and let’s face it, many of us were for at least a handful of years – NBC’s more than three-hour Sunday night special SNL50: An Anniversary Celebration was both an original and nostalgic super-sized treat.

And no, I’m not just saying that because of the book I co-authored with my husband, Stephen Tropiano — The SNL Companion: An Unofficial Guide to The Seasons, Sketches and Stars of Saturday Night Live.

Oh this? ::wink::

The book that is available on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle.  

Nor is it because the two of us coincidentally spent part of the end of our first “date” watching the SNL episode hosted by Sean Penn 37 years ago, never realizing that both we (and the series) would still be a thing.  

It’s not even due to the nostalgic fact that we each happened to go to an SNL taping (Note: Me during season one; him in season three) in its first five seminal seasons. 

We didn’t!

It’s that somehow – after so many hits and misses – this particular episode got it exactly right.  Or, well, as right as it could ever be.

There are many secrets to SNL but chief among them is its ability to regenerate itself with a revolving cast of comedy performers every few X number of years, some of whom even start as writers.  Just when the series isn’t working, suddenly someone or something (Note:  Like some ripe-for-parody personality or news event) comes in that makes it work again.  Its most popular sketches endure but are seldom done too many times, always leaving room for the newest hot take to cross into the zeitgeist and create some seemingly necessary, key cultural moment. 

… and sometimes it’s just Dooneese!

Rather than rest on its laurels and rely solely on its past, it constantly tweaks its content while remaining true to the tradition and structure of its unique brand of sketch comedy and musical guests.  Weekend Update, the host monologue and the singer/band performances may endure and so do the way they are presented and who presents them.  Yet what is contained inside and who is offering what is always different. Not to mention the commercial parodies, the music videos, the short films, guest hosts and guest star cameos.

All of this and more were there in abundance on #SNL50. Yet unlike the prototypical evening of clip reels peppered with celebrity or cast member intro and outros, this was instead like watching a gigantic new episode of the series that incorporated reinvented, new versions of a lot of our favorite sketches and characters from each decade, sometimes with new ones, and in others surprise moments with an SNL performer from an entirely different season showing up in their own signature character from an entirely different bit.

Linda was ready for Sweata Weatha

Among the best was an unexpected spot by a very game Meryl Streep (Note: Her first ever in the entire 50 years) playing the mother of Kate McKinnon’s alien-abducted Colleen.  As it turns out, Colleen Sr. was also abducted by those little men with the big eyes and watching her have her comic way with fellow abductees (Note: Pedro Pascal and Woody Harrelson, each former hosts) was every bit as bizarrely funny as it sounds.

But there was also:

  • Black Jeopardy featuring with contestants Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan joined by Eddie Murphy playing a fiction version of Tracy Morgan as the third contestant while standing right next to him.
  • Original SNL cast member Laraine Newman in a short film doing a nostalgic walk through of Studio 8H memories only to be met by Pete Davidson’s dim bulb Chad persona as an incompetent 30 Rock stagehand.
  • A Q&A of little known SNL facts and cutaways hosted by Tina Fey and Poehler, which gave us a chance to see any number of other former cast members and guest stars.  
  • A tribute to SNL digital shorts with a new one on SNL-performance anxiety led by Andy Samberg and Bowen Yang (Note: Though good as it was it couldn’t outweigh the special version of Samberg and Lady Gaga reworking his and Justin Timberlake’s Emmy-winning “Dick in the Box” two nights before in an SNL musical anniversary special).
  • And Adam Sandler center stage with his guitar (Note: Introduced by little-seen these days Jack Nicholson!) singing a new tune he wrote in the tradition of his Chanukah song, but this time in tribute to various SNL performers and crew people (Note: Many behind-the-scenes personnel were given shout outs and brought in front of the camera during the episode), some of which were quite touching without overdoing it.

Instead of allowing a heavy hitter group of live musical acts to take over, they were judiciously spread over the three hours, much like they would be over the course of a single episode.  There was Paul Simon, Sabrina Carpenter, Lil Wayne and Paul McCartney (all former guests) but by far stealing the show was a blues rock version of Nothing Compares To U by Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard.  A cleverly reinvented but fitting version of the signature Sinead O’Connor tune, written by Prince, both of whom left us with their own classic SNL performances before their untimely deaths.

Remember when you were in the Beatles?

It’s tricky to write about 50 years of SNL without leaving so many out from the past, on the special and even in the audience attending the special.  But what’s even harder is not devoting some time to its creator, and producer of 45 of those years, Lorne Michaels.  He’s been an omnipresent part of everything, referenced frequently and every so often making brief (and very often even silent) onscreen appearances.  The latter was exactly the case over this three hours, which at first seemed strange but, by the end, felt only fitting.  Mr. Michaels clearly enjoys steering the ship but wisely picks and chooses when and where he appears on camera.

Thank you Lorne

It’s not that he doesn’t know his way around an audience and a teleprompter. Or shy away from taking credit for steering the ship for most of its journey.  It’s that on nights where it’s all going the way it should be, it’s best to simply let the work speak for itself.

“Nothing Compares 2 U” – Miley Cyrus & Brittany Howard

07.01.18
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What Price?

It’s been said many times that everyone has a price.

What this means is that people will do anything if they are paid enough money or given what they want.

So the question we all need to seriously ask ourselves during these very turbulent times is:

What is YOUR price?

Is it safety from real or imagined enemies, foreign or domestic?

That is to say, doing whatever it takes to bar morally unknowable immigrants (Note: nee…all of them?) from entering our country? Or is it prohibiting any morally questionable person in support of such a policy from dining in your restaurant, not to mention, continuing as president?

Perspective

What is YOUR price?

Is it about ensuring our country thrives financially, as well as ethically?

That is to say, making sure you have a president whose first priority is cutting taxes, creating old-fashioned jobs for the long ignored and appointing Supreme Court justices who will once it again make it difficult or illegal for women to get an abortion? Or is it ceasing communication with family and now former friends who believe in all of the above, while screaming at the top of your lungs in their faces, or from the rooftops or on our airwaves, to counter their selling out our most precious American ideals of freedom, equality and democracy for all?

What is YOUR price?

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

You see where this is going. I had planned on continuing but the list and the metaphors could be – and are – endless as we approach July 4, 2018 – the 242nd anniversary of American independence.

Several days ago I watched What Price Hollywood a 1932 film directed by George Cukor about a spunky waitress who serves drinks to a charming, drunken Hollywood director that gives her a bit part in his movie, guides her to stardom and then dissipates into a state of alcoholic disrepair as her life blossoms.

The plot has since been appropriated by numerous movies, including the many versions of A Star Is Born (Note: The new Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga one opens Oct. 5, and yes, I’m counting the days). Still, this does not mean it is any less ironic or timely.

Click for the OFFICIAL countdown (to the minute) #really #REALLY

There is no reality where you can get everything you want without it costing you something. It wasn’t the waitress’ fault the director became a hopeless alcoholic and ruined his life but because he was such a great mentor and friend it breaks her heart. That is the way the drama works because that is the way the world is – we achieve things and the norms and/or people we counted on and loved quite suddenly, at least to us, fall by the wayside.

A more contemporary comparison might be Indecent Proposal, a 1993 film where billionaire Robert Redford offers happily married Demi Moore a flat $1,000,000 to spend the night with him, no strings attached. After discussing it with her high school sweetheart husband, the financially strapped Woody Harrelson, and reassuring him of their forever love, the couple agrees to the Faustian bargain and… well… it goes as Faustian bargains go if not for test marketing and a somewhat tacked on Hollywood ending.

Girl how did you think this was going to pan out? #dowagergetsreal

Meaning, if someone is going to pay you $1,000,000 suffice it to say it IS going to cost YOU – a lot – and it may not be measurable by mere currency.

It certainly seems like US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, 81, has the right to retire from the bench anytime he wants. Yet when I read this week that he was not so subtly reassured of his legacy beforehand by the White House, and that his eldest son worked for years with Trump on real estate deals at Deutsche Bank, the institution that loaned Trump a BILLION dollars, I couldn’t help but cynically and rhetorically ask the justice, and myself, – what price?

Me… all week

Of course I will never know if a price was exacted or if this justice – the Republican who was actually the swing vote in making gay marriage the law of the land – was swayed by any of it, or by them.

So it’s instead easier for me to stew over the millions of Americans (Note: And perhaps a handful of Russian bots) who voted for and still support a president who consistently calls the press the enemy of the American people or very bad people on the very day that five journalists were gunned down in their Maryland newsroom by a crazed shooter with a vendetta against their paper. Did Trump’s words contribute to egging the guy on in that particular moment? Again, we’ll never know. But for any of his supporters who still get joy from and continue to revel in how he’s characterized one of the foundations of our democracy – the free press – again I ask – what price?

And then – well, there are the immigrant kids in those cages. Mostly brown. Many fleeing violence in their home country – the way my grandparents and friends’ relatives did when they escaped the Nazis and came here in the 1930s and early forties. Or the way my internist’s family did when he was smuggled out of war torn southeast Asia in the 1970s. Or how my dental hygienist managed it when her family ran for their lives from Iran in the 1980s.

Today in America

None of them were forcibly separated from their parents by the US government when they arrived at our borders seeking asylum (Note: The latter a legal right of ANYONE arriving at our shores. Asylum, that is).

So for those currently chuckling with satisfaction at or apoplectically angered by those of us marching in the streets who are outraged that non-English speaking three year olds are being forced to appear ALONE in court at a hearing where they are responsible for telling their own immigration story THEMSELVES before an adult in a big BLACK ROBE who towers above them, I ask – to every last one – again – what price?

And to consider if what they’re losing is worth what they’re getting in return. Financially, morally or, really, even in practical terms.

Broadway United – “We Are The World”