Five Inspiring Lines from Tina Fey’s Bossypants

Posted on May 2, 2011 at 3:44 pm

I so enjoyed Tina Fey’s book, Bossypants. It is rushed and uneven in places, understandable given her many full-time roles as producer, star, writer, mother, wife, and America’s sweetheart. Still, the book is very funny and very, very smart. Here are five of my favorite lines:

1. Start with a YES and see where that takes you….The second rule of improvisation is not only to say yes, but YES, AND. You are supposed to agree and add something of your own….It’s your responsibility to contribute.

2. There are no mistakes, only opportunities.

3. A wise friend once told me, “Don’t wear what fashion designers tell you to wear. Wear what they wear.”

4. : “The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11:30.” Fey adds, “You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go.”

5. I suggest you model your strategy after the old Sesame Street film piece “Over! Under! Around! Through!”

Related Tags:

Peter Sarsgaard Visits the Pirates Convention

Posted on September 19, 2010 at 2:39 pm

Celebrate “Talk Like a Pirate Day” with a look at this delightful sketch from “Saturday Night Live” with Peter Sarsgaard visiting a Pirate’s Convention and finally figuring out why they really wanted him to be there.

And don’t forget the delightfully piratical Tim Curry in “Muppet Treasure Island:”

Related Tags:

Television

MacGruber

Posted on September 7, 2010 at 8:13 am

A one-joke “Saturday Night Live” skit based on a television series that ended in 1992 has been turned into a no-joke movie that ended 99 painful minutes after it began. It is of interest only to people who think that 80’s references like mullet haircuts, Blaupunkt removable automobile cassette players, soft rock, and many many many potty jokes are always hilarious.
“MacGyver” was a television series about a secret agent who could take a gum wrapper and a bottle of nail polish remover and make it into some very clever device to defeat any threat from any enemy, no matter how high-tech. The series emphasized problem-solving and science over weapons. And now the little boys who grew up watching MacGyver think it is hilarious to trash him by making him into an arrogant idiot.
The SNL skits invariably and tediously show MacGruber (co-writer Will Forte) trying to defuse some bomb with household items only to fail and have it blow everyone up. The movie draws not just from the skits but from a range of 80’s action film conventions. MacGruber is a one-time action hero who has retired to a life of spiritual contemplation after his bride (Maya Rudolph) was murdered at their wedding. He gets a visit from Colonel James Faith (a steely Powers Boothe) and Lt. Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe), asking him to return to service to go after a bad guy played by a beefy and ponytailed Val Kilmer whose character name happens to sound like an extremely crude term for the female anatomy.
MacGruber swings like a pendulum between grandiose self-aggrandizement and humiliating self-abasement. Both are excruciating. He rounds up a team of very big men (played by WWE stars) but accidentally blows them to smithereens so has to work with Piper and his late wife’s best friend Vicky St. Elmo (Get it? Another 80’s reference!), played by the divine Kristen Wiig, who is the movie’s only bright spot. Even the blue eyeshadow and feathered blonde hair can’t hide her brilliance and beauty.
Those for whom the 80’s were not epochal will be bored when they are not being grossed out. Or both at the same time. On the other hand, those who find the idea of a man sticking a stalk of celery in his butt and walking around with his pants off so hilarious that they want to see it twice will be delighted.

(more…)

We Love You, Betty White

Posted on May 8, 2010 at 7:54 pm

Here’s to tonight’s host of Saturday Night Live! Ms. White has been on television since the very beginning, in 1939, when television was just an experiment and no homes had sets. She co-produced and starred in one of the first sit-coms when television began broadcasting, “Life With Elizabeth.” She appeared in an early talk show and in commercials and other series and game shows. And she found romance on television in her real life, marrying Password host Allen Ludden.

My favorite of her roles was Sue Ann Nivens, the “Happy Homemaker” on the fictional Minneapolis television station where Mary Richards produced the news on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Her ribald and often acid humor contrasted delightfully with her dimpled smile and musical voice. She put them to good use as a murderer on “Boston Legal.” Many people remember fondly her addled but always sweet and optimistic Rose on “The Golden Girls.” And she all but stole “The Proposal” from Sandra Bullock. Her faux “behind the scenes” video, where she pretended to be a demanding diva, was far better than the movie it was promoting.

A group dedicated to making her the host of “Saturday Night Live” got half a million supporters. It wasn’t the producer of the show they had to persuade. It was White herself, who had turned down previous invitations to host. She graciously accepted this time, and it is a great way to end the season. If only she could join the cast as a regular!

Related Tags:

Actors Television