Chris Rock’s new movie Top Five is a breakthrough for him partly because in it, he finally manages to capture his stand-up comedy persona in a fully-fledged character.  It was too much to hope that SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, where Rock had a more troubled time as a regular cast member than is generally remembered, […]

  The return of Tracy Morgan to SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE after his long convalescence from a devastating auto accident was an event, and the show treated it as such, with guest appearances from Morgan’s 30 Rock co-stars Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Jane Krakowski and Jack McBreyer, not to mention Larry David as Bernie Sanders in […]

  Louis CK’s last visit to host SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE in 2012 was one of the show’s best recent episodes, and now that his signature Louie is resuming (finally!) on FX in May, he came back tonight for a return engagement.  Expectations were high, and there were definitely some inspired moments, although the night ended […]

  SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE went musical in a big way for its host, Anna Kendrick, and that mostly wasn’t a bad thing.  Kendrick is a genuine musical-comedy performer, with not just the novelty hit “Cups” from Pitch Perfect to her credit but a lead in the upcoming film of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods on […]

  SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE had one of the quietest off-seasons in its recent history, with the addition of featured player Jon Rudnitsky as its only major change, so for better and worse, tonight’s Season 41 premiere felt as though it could easily have aired last season. There were a few indications that time has passed.  […]

  50 Shades of Grey has only been playing in theatres for 2 weeks, but it’s plunged so quickly from its opening weekend that Dakota Johnson already seems a bit like the answer to a pop culture trivia question.  Nevertheless, the star of the presumed franchise (produced by Universal, which also owns NBC, which also […]

  Two weeks is too soon to be a trend, but it’s been heartening to see the 40th season of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE rely more on original sketch ideas than franchise characters.  Of course, when building a weekly 90 minutes from original concepts, unevenness is very much a given, and that was certainly true of […]

  Often the SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE cast needs to prop up its weekly hosts, who are frequently performers unversed in live comedy (or comedy at all, or even performing at all), but that was hardly the case tonight, as Taraji P. Henson all but blew most of the regulars away, playing even the most routine […]