SNL: Justin Timberlake & Jimmy Fallon

Timberlake and Fallon bring the expected laughs in the best episode of SNL this season.

As anticipated Fallon and Timberlake live up to the hype around the Christmas special SNL episode.
Honestly, it goes to show how funny Jimmy Fallon is. As it is the host that actually selects the sketches the like. Although, I haven't been finding Jimmy Fallon that funny lately, I think I am over the shtick of him being the sweet guy trying hard. idk its old. The thing I like most on Late Night is the hashtags and thank you notes. Other than that I'm good.

Justin Timberlake did a spot on Fallon impression in the Family Fued sketch, that as expected caused Fallon and other cast in the scene to break. It was a solid impression and I literally laughed out loud at some parts.

The Barry Gibb Talk Show sketch has always been hit or miss for me. Some bits are funny and some are oh so very not. The episode was a miss for with. With Madonna being so blah and Barry Gibb blah as well, definitely not my cup of tea.

The standout sketch/video of the night was the "Do it in my twin bed" which showcased the female cast members. I absolutely loved the throwback photos, and I later watched the clip twice on Youtube. Surprisingly or not, with the absence of Andy Samberg, the digital shorts have still maintained a strong presence and accuracy on the vein of cultural comedy of say Tumblr, Reddit and Youtube. Solid viral potentials with "E-meth" and "What Does my Girl Say." Jay Pharaoh also had a Youtube video out mocking Kanye West called "I Am A Dog," although it may be off the mark for a few, I enjoyed it to the degree that I was capable. " Twin Bed" is by far the best in the digit short/ad category.

The "Christmas Album" sketch was always quite good with near perfect impressions from all the cast.

But the "Kimye Talk Show" was a bit stale, but it seemed as though the cast was having trouble with the lines, who knows, it was not as good as the last episode.

Finally, the "Baby Its Cold Outside" was so sweet and defintely brought the needed holiday feel. Overall, one of the best episodes of this season!

Ender is Coming

So in one week my favorite book will become a movie.
For die harders of any book/comic/written work, seeing the movie adaptation can be quite the debacle. Most often it sucks, save for a majority of the Harry Potter installations.

Ender's game will be coming out November 1st.
And there is no doubt I will see it, but it is mildly bittersweet, because regardless of what you tell yourself, you always hope it will be what you imagine but most often it is not. And perhaps you feel that others are telling you how to interpret or imagine the story.
With that vane in mind, I have deliberately avoided inquiry into the specifics of Ender anything.
But seeing as the date is approaching, I looked into the casting of the characters and some trailers. I guess most of my concerns were resolved in terms of casting but the trailers, somewhat upset me as to the themes of the movie. See I guess here are some comments I would like to make.

1. The age of the actors.
In book the characters are around 7-8 years old, but since those age kids probably won't be able to act that well, I will let that pass.

2. I like the casting

I saw who is playing Peter Wiggin (Jimmy Pinchak) and for the most part he is okay, but Peter is very charismatic and I hope he can pull that off. Also he is blonde, he better have dark brown hair in the movie.

 Bonzo played by Moises Arias is good, but he should be slightly more bulky, as Bonzo is the antagonist.

3. Ender is not a killer
In the movie, based on the trailers, Ender comes off as an intelligent killer of sorts. But that is not the case at all. Ender is the complete opposite. He kills because of the school's manipulation of him from the start. He doesn't want to be a killer and that is his number one fear, in fact in spite of himself, he is good at killing others.
In the trailer they show Valentine on the lake with him and she seems to urge him to fight the war. Valentine does indeed tell him that if he doesn't win they will all die, but she never gives him a brash ultimatum like in the trailer.

Before Border's closed they had an Ender's Game Marvel Comic, that at the time I couldn't afford. Wish I had it.

4. Anti-bullying
Apparently the screen adapter wants to make a stand against bullying, this is not the book to do that with. Bullying in Ender's game plays a vital role in the psychology of Ender and encourages him to be creative in Battle School and actually enables him to become the intelligent leader and fighter that he becomes. Without bullying Ender would not by Ender. He was bullied by his brother, his classmates and his battle schoolmates. They all in a way forced him to directly deal with problems and gave him the decisive critical thinking skills to survive in that universe.

5. No sign of the video game.
Ender plays a type of psychology video game in the book that depicts the vivid internal turmoil that goes on within him. He struggles to not be a pawn of the battle school or become Peter/a killer. In some ways Ender is propelled to succeed by his own sense of worthlessness, that he should not be alive, that his existence is in some way an inconvenience. He struggles with finding his balance between loving others and other's actions making him react in ways he does not want to, but he is forced to in order to survive. The video game is crucial in understanding Ender and his confrontational attitude to adversity.

Good depiction of the video game in the Marvel comic

That brings me to the apex of my criticism.

6. The themes of the movies seem off
 Of course I haven't seen the movie yet, but from the trailers, (which I recognize don't always properly depict a movie accurately) it seems that everyone knows he is a killer and is training him. This is not the case at all. Ender is indeed a killer, but if they acknowledge that, it will break him, because he doesn't want to kill. The battle school changes the rules forcing Ender to be constantly thinking, training him for the real battle where there are no rules. Somewhere Ender knows this but he doesn't bother to uncover the truth, because the truth would only hold him back. Mazer Rackham is a brutal mentor who shows no sign if kindness to Ender, because they all know it is for the best. In fact every teacher in the movie holds back information because they believe it is for the best for the world and for Ender. Ender feels that he must succeed because everyone is depending on him. He doesn't know how he will actually fight and kill the buggers when the real battle comes.
In the climax, when he blows up the bugger planet, Ender is not attacking, rather, he believes it is a game, so he pulls the trigger to blow it up because in way he wants to quit the game, so this decision is fairly reckless rather than a decision made in fervor.
So you see, I feel like the movie makers need to refine the edges of how the battle teachers treat Ender and how he responds to them.

7. Finally the rating of the movies
This movie should not be rated PG-13 based on the book. From the writing of Orson Scott Card himself, the book was never written for young people despite is characters being children. The dialogue/themes/ and graphic scenes are more suited to a higher rating.

Marvel staying true to the graphic imagery of the book.

 However, I understand that getting the PG-13 means getting the big bucks. Off the top of my head there are about 3 scenes in the book that are fairly graphic gore, but for the most part, the book if pretty tame, so I see how it can easily slip into that rating.
Now that's not something I could say for Hunger Games, those books are rated a hard R in terms of gore, and they limit it down to PG-13. Shame I was very disappointed as the gore and physical depreciation is essentially the entire story. In the context of the books all the characters in the movie are fat.

Lastly, I really hope they won't try to make Ender a franchise, there are many sequels and parallel novels in Ender, that I feel are incredibly dense and way too difficult to adapt. Honestly, the third book and third parallel novel I have not even attempted to read, they look so complicated.

Well that it, for this long thing.