Category: News

Timothée Chalamet is no stranger to Saturday Night Live, though until recently it was simply the cast playing versions of Chalamet for themselves. But as it turns out, the NBC sketch comedy is actually a bit of a family affair. The Little Women actor and New York native hosted for the first time on Saturday, and he used his monologue to play a song about New York with Pete Davidson. He also told a story about his mom, who actually is no stranger to Studio 8H.

As Chalamet explained, his mother was the reason he got into acting in the first place. And she was actually an extra on SNL in the past, back when

“Before I was born my mom was a dance teacher, but occasionally she would do background work on Saturday Night Live,” Chalamet said. They then rolled a clip from a Dana Carvey and Chris Farley sketch from November of 1991 called “Massive Head Wound Harry.”

“Yup, that’s my mom,” Chalamet said. “She almost got spit on by Chris Farley.”

As it turns out, Chalamet brought his mom to the show on Saturday, and they showed her wearing a mask in the crowd and she got a nice ovation. The monologue continued to a classic bit: letting the host pretend to play piano and riff about something. And it was New York he chose to talk about, though it was a bit of an absurdist take on Christmas in the city, including getting his first “New Year’s Eve kiss” from Mr Met’s daughter, Stacey Met.

“I know all the boroughs,” Chalamet said, managing to name one. “Brooklyn, Querns and Boca Raton.”

It helped that Pete Davidson came out to also play along, though his version of Staten Island is likely to make some folks living there as upset as the last time he talked about it on the show. The two New Yorkers actually teamed up on the show several times on Saturday, showing some chemistry in later in a sketch about something Davidson also knows a lot about: white rappers.

The presidential election has been over for more than a month at this point, and SNL’s Weekend Update is still making fun of Donald Trump for losing the election. But at this point it’s his fault the show is still on that horse, as Trump has refused to accept the results and embarked on an embarrassing legal battle across several states to overturn the results by throwing out millions of legally cast ballots.

Last week, however, brought a pair of swift judgements against Trump in the Supreme Court, and with the Electoral College set to vote against Trump on Monday and end the election for good, SNL was ready to roast Trump once more.

“Guys, I gotta be honest,” co-host Colin Jost said to start the show. “I’m beginning to think Donald Trump didn’t win this election.”

Jost joked that the two Supreme Court losses Trump took were dismissed with an “eye roll emoji” by the court, but noted that despite what the media has said about the election and these endless election challenges, Trump will never let it go.

“Nothing is ever over as long as Donald Trump can make money off it,” Jost said. “Even when he dies, his tombstone is just going to have his Venmo info.”
It wasn’t just Trump who was targeted by the program. Later in the segment, Jost described Mike Pence as “a polar bear who went to work,” which was particularly good.

There were also plenty of other jokes about things not in the Trump administration, but as has often been the case the last four years it’s often hard to get away from such an easy target.

“This is the best job I’ve ever had. I would’ve done it for free. Don’t tell my agent,” Ed O’Neill used to say to Christopher Lloyd, the co-creator of Modern Family, the long-running sitcom upon which O’Neill played Jay Pritchett. The role, which lasted for 11 seasons, was a cap on the illustrious career of O’Neill, previously best known for playing Al Bundy in another sitcom that ran for 11 years, Fox’s Married … with Children. The role, however, only landed in O’Neill’s lap because another actor known for a long-running sitcom blew his chance.

As the story is told in Marc Freeman’s book, Modern Family: The Untold Oral History of One of Television’s Groundbreaking Sitcoms, the original offer for the 60-year-old character went out to Craig T. Nelson, the star of the ’90s sitcom Coach. Nelson wasn’t exactly their first choice. When they were doing their casting, they also met with O’Neill, but he had insisted that he didn’t want to do another sitcom. After they sent him the script, anyway, O’Neill had a change of heart after reading it and asked his agent to say yes to the role.

Unfortunately, at the time, there was nothing to say “yes” to. Despite getting on well with Modern Family’s creators, Steve Levitan and Lloyd, O’Neill had not actually been offered the role. In fact, the creators were so torn between O’Neill and Nelson that the casting director eventually flipped a coin and Nelson was offered the role. “Craig T. liked and seemed to understand the character,” Lloyd told Freeman.

However, during negotiations with Craig T. Nelson, he “countered rather aggressively,” according to Levitan.

“He wanted star money, but it wasn’t a star show. It was an ensemble show,” the show’s casting director, Jeff Greenberg added. “I understand from his agent that he regretted his decision. I’m not surprised.”

It wasn’t just the money, however, according to co-creator Steve Levitan. “We had started to hear some rumblings that maybe he was a little bit difficult on set. And then he made this quote bashing people on food stamps and welfare for taking from the government, and it scared us, frankly. There was a lack of self-awareness and compassion that worried us. Meanwhile, all we kept hearing was that Ed O’Neill was the nicest person on the planet, so we pulled the offer and gave it to Ed.”

And that’s how Craig T. Nelson blew his chance to play Jay Pritchett, a well-paid gig on a well-respected, long-running sitcom that — based on the rest of Freeman’s book — sounded like one of the cushiest jobs in the industry. According to Lloyd, however, it wasn’t entirely Nelson’s negatives that led to O’Neill’s casting. “What we had was a first-hand indication that Ed was going to be a blast to work with,” and that proved to be true.

(Via Modern Family: The Untold Oral History of One of Television’s Groundbreaking Sitcoms)

Saturday’s cold open on the latest episode of Saturday Night Live saw Kate McKinnon swap her Rudy Giuliani impression for one of a much more trustworthy member of Donald Trump’s orbit: Dr. Anthony Fauci. The sketch detailed the country’s forthcoming vaccine rollout and reflected on the way two administration scientists have been portrayed publicly in a year where the very health of the nation has been severely politicized.

“We’re doing this vaccine World War II style. We made England go in first, see what’s what. Then we swoop in there at the end and steal the spotlight,” Fauci said. “Tom Hanks will make 10 movies about it, and when it’s all over you can kiss any nurse you want.”
The sketch is framed as Fauci and Deborah Birx addressing the public on Wolf Blitzer’s CNN program. Blitzer, describing himself as “an inside man with an outside name,” threw it to the doctors to go through who will get the vaccine based on priority. First would be frontline workers, of course, followed by anyone named “Mildred, Horace, Blanche, Mabel or Walter” according to Birx.

Fauci also had to deal with the adoration of his adoring fans, much to the contrast of Birx, who never quite seemed to live down the press conference earlier in the year where Trump suggested people inject themselves with bleach to cure coronavirus.

“Remember when Trump said to inject bleach and I did a stanky little face?” Birx, played by Heidi Gardner, said. “And I almost whispered ‘no.’”

Fauci, meanwhile, explained that simply being an adult and stating basic medical information clearly has made 2020 a very interesting year for him to say the least.

“Any other year I’m a two,” Fauci said between catching bras apparently thrown by lustful women. “This year, I’m a 10. I don’t know.”

Perhaps the most fitting joke of the sketch is that once the vaccine gets to the majority of Americans, Fauci hopes to go back to being much less of a household name. In a year where many Americans have had to learn plenty about disease and healthcare and preventative hygiene, getting all of this behind us and not having to think about Fauci and Birx as notable figures worth parody is as good a pitch as any for a vaccine rollout.

Zach Braff has been in the public eye for nearly twenty years now, since the debut of Scrubs in 2001. To his credit, in all of that time, Braff hasn’t stirred that much controversy, save for three times: (1) His Punk’d appearance, in which he understandably reamed out an 11-year-old he thought had spray-painted his new car; (2) The backlash to the initial wave of adoration for his directorial debut, Garden State; (3) The backlash to Braff’s decision to crowdfund half the budget for the spiritual follow-up to Garden State, 2014’s Wish I Was Here.

At the time, Kickstarter was a relatively new phenomenon, mostly used by those who could not otherwise afford to fund dream projects. Braff — a relatively wealthy actor coming off a nine-season run on a popular sitcom — endeavored to use Kickstarter to fund half the budget for his film. The thing is, it worked. Within three days, Braff had blown past his Kickstarter goal and eventually raised $3 million. Soon thereafter, however, the wave of backlash had completely destroyed the goodwill of the original campaign. Twitter users, bloggers, and entertainment writers (including myself) took the entire idea of crowdfunding millions of dollars for producing studio movies to task as something that felt like multimillionaires asking people on the Internet to give them their lunch money.

In any respect, Wish I Was Here was a solid movie for those who love Garden State (and I include myself in that demo), but it was poorly received at the box office, earning only $5.5 million (like Garden State, however, it also had a very good soundtrack). This week on Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast, Braff — who took a break from his own podcast Fake Doctors, Real Friends to appear elsewhere — spoke to that controversy.

“I think I was the first known actor/director to [crowdfund] a movie, and it was so successful, and we funded beyond what we asked for in 24 hours” Braff told Maron. “That there was instant backlash saying that you as a known entity should not be using this. This should be for people who have no other means. I, unfortunately, or fortunately became the face of the debate: Should people who have fanbases be allowed to participate in crowdfunding campaigns?”

Asked by Maron where folks landed on that debate, Braff said, “Well, no one really does it … and not many people have done it since because of the amount of antagonism there was for the very idea.” In other words, Braff was the first (and last) major figure to crowdfund a multimillion movie.

Braff believes (I think rightly) that the backlash also hurt the film, and that fans dismissed it because it was that crowdfunded movie. “It was a bit of a bummer, because I was really proud of the film, and not a lot of people saw it,” Braff said.

It is a bummer, and though I was critical of the idea at the time, I do commend Braff for taking it on the chin as well as he did.

(Via WTF with Marc Maron)

Deiveson Figueiredo (20-1-1) retained the flyweight championship after a majority draw against Brandon Moreno (18-5-2) in an instant classic in the main event of UFC 256 from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.

Figueiredo and Moreno traded stiff shots to open the bout before the champ locked up the challenger for a takedown. Moreno fought him off, opting to stand and trade blows. For every heavy-handed body shot Figueiredo landed, Moreno countered with a swift hook followed by a head kick attempt. The two kept a blistering pace as Figueiredo consistently walked down the challenger through the end of the first round.

Figueiredo opened the second with a spinning heel kick to the body, but Moreno kept coming forward with shot after shot. Moreno caught Figueiredo with a body lock, slamming him to the ground. Figueiredo countered and as they returned to their feet, traded a slew of punches before continuing their chess game. Figueiredo hurt Moreno with a flurry of shots, but the challenger went right back to the body lock and took Figueiredo to the ground. Moreno’s right eye was a source of interest between rounds, as he was in clear pain stemming from a huge shot toward the end of the round.

Moreno and Figueiredo threw some bombs to open the third as the pair flew around the Octagon trading massive blows. Moreno locked up the champ again, pushing him against the cage, but was unable to take him to the ground. Figueiredo found his range, consistently connecting on massive left body punchs, but Moreno kept coming forward. Figueiredo dropped Moreno with a nasty low blow that Joe Rogan called “one of the worst ones ever.” The referee took a point from Figueiredo before they started the action again. Back on their feet, Moreno landed a big overhand right to close the round.

Moreno and Figueiredo traded shots again to open the championship round, with the champ connecting on a jaw-smacking hook before the challenger put together a big body-head combo. Moreno stunned Figueiredo with a head kick, then took the champ to the ground. Exhausted, Figueiredo threw everything he had in the middle of the fourth before Moreno hurt him with another big right hook. Figueiredo walked down Moreno as the challenger continued to pour jabs to his head.

Figueiredo traded shots with Moreno, finding his spots in the final round and stunning the challenger with a big overhand right. Moreno developed a massive bump on his left forearm after blocking a handful of gigantic kicks from the champ. Figueiredo took Moreno to the ground late, dropping heavy hands before the end of the round.

After Figueiredo (20-1) dispatched Alex Perez within two minutes at UFC 255, UFC president Dana White announced his intentions to turn the champ around just 21 days later at UFC 256.

Moreno was 4-0-1 in his last five bouts with the knockout at UFC 255, three decisions and a draw. Figueiredo has been dominant since losing the only fight of his career in March of last year to Jussier Formiga. After missing weight in his initial bout with Joseph Benavidez in February, Figueiredo submitted Benavidez to win the division crown in July. Figueiredo has to be upset with himself as that low blow cost him an outright win, but given this was a fight of the year contender, we’ll see if we get a rematch in 2021 to settle the score after the majority draw decision — something some prominent UFC fighters watching from home voiced support for.

https://twitter.com/MikeChandlerMMA/status/1338004983988559874

Charles Oliveira (30-8) earned a decision victory over Tony Ferguson (26-5) in the co-main event at UFC 256 from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, likely earning a future lightweight title shot.

Oliveira was aggressive in the first round, opening up shots at Ferguson before picking him up and slamming him to the ground. Oliveria dominated the former interim champ, hyperextending his arm, but somehow not earning the tap before the round ended.

In the second, Ferguson clearly favored his left arm and found his way to the ground yet again. This time, Ferguson was much more composed, keeping Oliveira in check and simply biding his time to get to the third round and final round. The third was much of the same for Oliveira, who picked up Ferguson, slammed him and worked with ease on the ground en route to a decision victory.

Oliveira won last seven bouts dating back to 2018, with his last victory coming in a submission win over Kevin Lee in March. With Khabib Nurmagomedov apparently stepping away from the sport after his last victory, the lightweight division is wide open, with Conor McGregor fighting Dustin Poirier in January, former Bellator champion Michael Chandler signing with the promotion and Justin Gaethje certainly looking for another shot at gold.

Ferguson returned to the Octagon after suffering the first TKO loss of his career in May against Justin Gaethje. Previously, he rode a 12-fight win streak, with his last loss coming in 2012. A former interim lightweight champion, Ferguson was forced to relinquish the belt after suffering a torn LCL in a freak injury on a television set in 2018.

The top young knockout artist in all of boxing is at it again. Edgar Berlanga, a 23-year-old Brooklyn native, fought Ulises Sierra on Saturday night in Las Vegas in the undercard of the Shakur Stevenson-Toka Kahn Clary bill. Berlanga stepped into the ring looking to pick up a Round 1 knockout for the 16th time in his career. The thing that makes this so impressive is that this was the 16th professional fight Berlanga’s ever faced.

The past isn’t always a good indicator of the future, but in the case of Berlanga-Sierra, it was. The super middleweight fight did not get out of the first round, as Berlanga dropped Sierra three times to earn a first round TKO. Berlanga threw bomb after bomb during the bout, with the finishing sequence coming via a left hook to the side of Sierra’s head and a right that caught Sierra right between the eyes.

At 2:41, this was nearly the longest fight of Berlanga’s professional career — he needed 2:45 to knock out Cesar Nunez at the end of 2019. The longest Round 1 KO streak to start a career is 21 by Ali Raymi, so while he’s climbing the ladder, he still has a bit of a way to go. Still, if The Chosen One keeps it up, he just might be able to break that record.

LSU and Florida met on Saturday night in a makeup of a game postponed from earlier in the season due to COVID-19, and with the Gators locked into the SEC Championship game and the Tigers backing up a title run with one of the worst seasons in recent memory in Baton Rouge, few expected this game to get too weird.

However, in the fog in Gainesville, that was exactly what happened as the two teams were tied at 34-34 with just over two minutes to play following a Florida field goal drive. Overtime or a Florida walkoff win looked like the most likely possibilities as with 1:51 to play, the Tigers were stopped on third down and seemed in need of a punt. However, defensive back Marco Wilson decided it’d be a good idea to pick up the LSU player’s shoe and huck it downfield, which was not subtle at all and drew a flag for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

That resulted in one of the funniest penalty calls from a referee that you’ll ever see.

Naturally, following the penalty, LSU, suddenly blessed with new life, pushed the ball into Florida territory and set Cade York up with a 57-yard field goal attempt. LSU was without timeouts and was going to need to run a scramble drill to get the kick team onto the field and get the field goal attempt off before the clock went off, but the Gators called timeout with 21 seconds left to give them a chance to answer a make — or have great field position on a miss. York came out and banged it through with no trouble.

Florida would drive it to the LSU 34 and set up their own game-tying attempt, but Evan McPherson just pulled the 51-yard kick wide left by inches, giving the Tigers a rather stunning upset win and taking the Gators out of playoff contention.

To add to the insult of losing at home just before the SEC Championship game, the Gators got to see LSU’s kicker taunt them on their home field with a Gator Chomp.

The long, weird road LaMelo Ball took to becoming an NBA player came to an end on Saturday night. Ball and the Charlotte Hornets took the floor for a preseason game against the Toronto Raptors, and the No. 3 pick came off the bench in what was certainly an up-and-down performance. The down stemmed from his scoring — Ball had zero points in 16 minutes on 0-for-5 shooting.
His scoring was always going to be something that took some time. The stuff that Ball can do, though, that got him drafted so high was also on display. The 6’8 guard ripped down 10 rebounds, the most among everyone who appeared in the game. And like his older brother Lonzo, LaMelo’s got unreal feel for the game, which meant that he was able to produce a handful of highlight-reel passes that sometimes led to assists.

Ball only had four assists on the night, but as you can see in the above video, some of the passes he busted out speak to the basketball IQ that you just do not see out of 19 year olds. There are going to be plenty of growing pains for both Ball and the Hornets throughout this season, but the highs are going to be quite high, and at the very least, Twitter will end up being abuzz with their highlights on a near-nightly basis.

As for the game, Charlotte was unable to kick off its preseason with a win. Toronto came out on top, 111-100, behind 16 points off the bench by Matt Thomas.