Continue reading “The Oscars returned to form, and left everyone an emotional wreck”
Month: March 2023
‘Ted Lasso,’ ‘Lucky Hank,’ ‘Swarm’ and everything else you don’t want to miss on TV this week
SHADOW AND BONE (L to R) BEN BARNES as THE DARKLING / GENERAL KIRIGAN and JESSIE MEI LI as ALINA STARKOV in SHADOW AND BONE Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2021
Jenna Ortega brings her dark charms to ‘Saturday Night Live’
Saturday Night Live
Jenna Ortega & The 1975
March 11, 2023
By now you know who Jenna Ortega is. Or … maybe you don’t. My own husband came into the bathroom this morning to complain to me that his Twitter feed had been taken over by “someone named Jennie Ortega” and he didn’t understand why. For my husband, and those of you like him, Jenna Ortega is the star of Netflix’s big hit Wednesday; she is starring in Scream 6 which just came out; and before that she had roles in everything from You to Jane the Virgin to Elena of Avalor. As your Twitter feed might demonstrate, Ortega is kinda having a moment with her Aubrey Plaza-esque goth vibes.
But Ortega wants people to know that she does have a sense of humor despite all the darkness, and she demonstrated as much in a middle-of-the-road episode of Saturday Night Live. The episode wasn’t bad, per se, it just wasn’t particularly memorable or outstanding — with the exception of one brilliant sketch that stole the night, and maybe the season.
Continue reading “Jenna Ortega brings her dark charms to ‘Saturday Night Live’”
‘The Last of Us’ is about to leave for a while. So what should you watch next?
‘The Last of Us’ is about to diverge from the game again in the season finale
Travis Kelce is a goddamned delight on ‘Saturday Night Live’
Saturday Night Live
Travis Kelce & Kelsea Ballerini
March 5, 2023
Every so often, Saturday Night Live feels compelled to invite an athlete to host the show, and most of the time, it’s a disaster. Athletes are not comedians — they aren’t even actors (well, I mean aside from European soccer players but that’s a whole other story) — and as such, performing on a live comedy television show is a huge ask. It’s a huge ask for anyone, but it’s a particularly huge ask for people who are not usually expected to speak in public that often. In fact, there have only been a handful of athletes who have managed to pull it off; notably, Peyton Manning, Charles Barkley, John Cena, The Rock, and Houston’s beloved J.J. Watt. And two of those five were professional wrestlers, who might as well have been soap opera actors.
To the disappointment of all Eagles fans out there, it looks like we’re going to have to add two-time Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce to the list of successes. Despite being a football player by trade, Kelce is a natural comedian: he is charming, has good comic timing, and is willing to mock the concept of himself as some sort of masculine ideal. He turns out to be the perfect foil for jokes about toxic masculinity because he so openly challenges those stereotypes. I never would have guessed that an athlete would have delivered one of the best SNL‘s this season, but dammit, here we are.
Continue reading “Travis Kelce is a goddamned delight on ‘Saturday Night Live’”
Oh, you want more dragons? ‘House of the Dragon’ is gonna give you more dragons.
Can ‘The Last of Us’ beat The Oscars on Sunday? MAYBE! (Probably not.)
Chris Rock’s not over it.
The Oscars, ‘The Last of Us’ finale, ‘Top Chef,’ ‘Luther’ returns and everything else you don’t want to miss on TV this week
Luther. Idris Elba as John Luther in Luther. Cr. John Wilson/Netflix © 2023
