Every year Late Night counts down the days 'til Christmas with its very own Advent Calendar: "12 Days of Christmas Sweaters". Every day they give away a different ornate Christmas sweater.
In this last installment they take a look back at what a long, strange trip it's been.
There's a secondary reason I'm posting this. Wait for it.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Who's On First #2
Jimmy Fallon revives the classic "Who's on First" routine with some special guests. What can I say, it's an instant classic.
You can tell I Don't Know isn't happy with his ovation. He's thinking how important timing is in comedy.
You can tell I Don't Know isn't happy with his ovation. He's thinking how important timing is in comedy.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
TGYWYHSACWAAP #2
The Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation With At a Party is back for another "commentary". Obviously Seth still has some growing up to do.
Monday, December 17, 2012
True Facts of Truth
Yesterday Jimmy Fallon unveiled a new segment with Ewan McGregor called "True Facts of Truth".
It appears to be a British service to compete with the Japanese in general weirdness while disseminating fascinating bits of trivia.
It appears to be a British service to compete with the Japanese in general weirdness while disseminating fascinating bits of trivia.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
IMDB 250 8.5 - The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Of course everyone's already seen this movie so this is all a bit pointless. Everyone agrees it's a good movie so I'll be focusing more on the negative to make it more interesting.
Bi-Villainy
I've always felt that the "Dark Knight" tradition of having two villains per movie is a bad thing. In the first one, the Scarecrow added nothing to the movie - they should have focused completely on Ja Rule.
The second one is much worse. You've got Keith Ledger as the Joker. Every second devoted to Harvey Dent is a waste of everyone's time. He's half good, he's half bad, he's all I don't care. Of course, Ledger's performance is so great, even the scenes focusing on Batman suffer by comparison.
In the Dark Knight Rises, the extra villain is Anne Hathaway's Catwoman. Even though this is the most acceptable instance of the three, at almost 3 hours long, it could have easily been omitted.
Bane
I don't know anything about comic books but it seems to me that in the great pantheon of Batman villains, Bane is quite far down the list. Ok, maybe the Riddler doesn't fit the tone. And, hey, maybe the Penguin is on vacation. But how many rungs down the baddy ladder do you have to go down before you reach Bane.
That aside, does it work in the movie? Kinda. I mean, Bane is a good villain in theory but the voice is ridiculous. Every time he opens his exhaust vent it's like a Batman villain parody. I was trying to nail down what his voice reminds me of and the closest I could come is it's something like Dr. Evil meets Yoda. But then when he's making his sweeping pronouncements to the citizens of Gotham I kept having flashbacks of Theodore Roosevelt. You can't expect me to root against Teddy!
Speaking of speeches. There's one scene where Bane addresses a stadium of people over the PA system. I can't imagine they strived for accuracy in this scene. If you truly combined Bane's own distortion with that of a public address system in a stadium, it would sound like he was taking your McDonald's drive-thru order (McBane?). It wouldn't work. He'd have control of a nuclear bomb but no one to tell it to. In all the years I've watched the Peanuts specials, I never assumed Charlie Brown's mom was threatening nuclear holocaust.
Conclusion
Obviously, "The Dark Knight Rises" is a good movie. Its special effects are phenomenal, great acting, great direction, great writing. Michael Caine gives a particularly strong performance as Alfred. From an IMDB 250 perspective it seems pretty overrated, but it is well worth seeing.
7/10.
Total Top "250" Movies Seen: 366.
Of course everyone's already seen this movie so this is all a bit pointless. Everyone agrees it's a good movie so I'll be focusing more on the negative to make it more interesting.
Bi-Villainy
I've always felt that the "Dark Knight" tradition of having two villains per movie is a bad thing. In the first one, the Scarecrow added nothing to the movie - they should have focused completely on Ja Rule.
The second one is much worse. You've got Keith Ledger as the Joker. Every second devoted to Harvey Dent is a waste of everyone's time. He's half good, he's half bad, he's all I don't care. Of course, Ledger's performance is so great, even the scenes focusing on Batman suffer by comparison.
In the Dark Knight Rises, the extra villain is Anne Hathaway's Catwoman. Even though this is the most acceptable instance of the three, at almost 3 hours long, it could have easily been omitted.
Bane
I don't know anything about comic books but it seems to me that in the great pantheon of Batman villains, Bane is quite far down the list. Ok, maybe the Riddler doesn't fit the tone. And, hey, maybe the Penguin is on vacation. But how many rungs down the baddy ladder do you have to go down before you reach Bane.
That aside, does it work in the movie? Kinda. I mean, Bane is a good villain in theory but the voice is ridiculous. Every time he opens his exhaust vent it's like a Batman villain parody. I was trying to nail down what his voice reminds me of and the closest I could come is it's something like Dr. Evil meets Yoda. But then when he's making his sweeping pronouncements to the citizens of Gotham I kept having flashbacks of Theodore Roosevelt. You can't expect me to root against Teddy!
Speaking of speeches. There's one scene where Bane addresses a stadium of people over the PA system. I can't imagine they strived for accuracy in this scene. If you truly combined Bane's own distortion with that of a public address system in a stadium, it would sound like he was taking your McDonald's drive-thru order (McBane?). It wouldn't work. He'd have control of a nuclear bomb but no one to tell it to. In all the years I've watched the Peanuts specials, I never assumed Charlie Brown's mom was threatening nuclear holocaust.
Conclusion
Obviously, "The Dark Knight Rises" is a good movie. Its special effects are phenomenal, great acting, great direction, great writing. Michael Caine gives a particularly strong performance as Alfred. From an IMDB 250 perspective it seems pretty overrated, but it is well worth seeing.
7/10.
Total Top "250" Movies Seen: 366.
Monday-To-Friday Saturday Night Live!
The BET show "What Up With That?" is back with a whole new episode.
-- Spoilers --
The big thing, for me, was the appearance of Jackie Rogers Jr. I'm sure the audience doesn't know who that is, but "Jackie Rogers Jr's $100,000 Jackpot Wad" is an overlooked classic sketch. When Martin Short appeared on Late Night this week, The Roots played the "Jackie Rogers Jr." theme as his walk-on music.
But the big thing, for everyone else, is the fact that Samuel L. Jackson cursed on network television. It's muted on the internet clip, but you can see him say the F word. Then, off-camera he says "Some bull----!" causing Keenan Thompson to reply, "Come on now. That costs money". And, yes, in the live broadcast those words definitely did go out.
I gotta wonder what he's thinking. There's a script and he only would have one line so it's obviously blatant (as opposed to just a flub). And he has to know it's being broadcast live because that's right there IN the title of the show... I'd be surprised if he's not banned from the show because... well... that's going to cost money.
-- Spoilers --
The big thing, for me, was the appearance of Jackie Rogers Jr. I'm sure the audience doesn't know who that is, but "Jackie Rogers Jr's $100,000 Jackpot Wad" is an overlooked classic sketch. When Martin Short appeared on Late Night this week, The Roots played the "Jackie Rogers Jr." theme as his walk-on music.
But the big thing, for everyone else, is the fact that Samuel L. Jackson cursed on network television. It's muted on the internet clip, but you can see him say the F word. Then, off-camera he says "Some bull----!" causing Keenan Thompson to reply, "Come on now. That costs money". And, yes, in the live broadcast those words definitely did go out.
I gotta wonder what he's thinking. There's a script and he only would have one line so it's obviously blatant (as opposed to just a flub). And he has to know it's being broadcast live because that's right there IN the title of the show... I'd be surprised if he's not banned from the show because... well... that's going to cost money.
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