S43.E13: Natalie Portman / Dua Lipa

[Writing Wrongs]

Are those positive? (I don't understand French)

[Bruinsfan]

On 2/4/2018 at 12:30 AM, vb68 said:

Honestly I worry about him a little.

 

Sadly I think Pete is extremely likely to go the Artie Lange route once his run on SNL is over. I suspect he won't be one of those comedians who go on to have successful careers despite me finding them painfully unfunny (looking at you, Jim Belushi!). I hope he has a good support system in his life.

I thought Portman did pretty well in most of the sketches (the Amidalia bit of her rap had me wheezing), and it appeared she was in everything, so obviously eager and willing to commit to whatever the writers came up with. Tina Fey was the show MVP for me though, with Aidy as runner up.

Edited February 5, 2018 by Bruinsfan

[cpcathy]

While I didn't LOVE every bit of this episode, I can see exactly what someone upthread said about the difference between Jessica Chastain and Natalie. Natalie seems more at ease, she acting but also seems very comfortable being silly with the cast. I thought Chastain did a horrible job hosting, so, I guess, kudos to Natalie.

[VCRTracking]

43 minutes ago, cpcathy said:

While I didn't LOVE every bit of this episode, I can see exactly what someone upthread said about the difference between Jessica Chastain and Natalie. Natalie seems more at ease, she acting but also seems very comfortable being silly with the cast. I thought Chastain did a horrible job hosting, so, I guess, kudos to Natalie.

Agreed and Scarlett Johannson who is another host who does a solid job because she's comfortable in any scenario. Scarjo might not be a great comic actress but she goes for it no matter how silly a sketch like the one with the dog wearing a mind reader who supports Trump.

5 hours ago, Writing Wrongs said:

Are those positive? (I don't understand French)

Go to the links and you can translate them but here's the first one:

Damn Kate McKinnon who plays Bardot that's the thing that was missing on my Sunday.

I'm ashamed I didn't realize until a few hours ago Bardot was referencing Pepe LePew when he talked about a female cat being attacked!

Edited February 5, 2018 by VCRTracking

[VCRTracking]

On 2/4/2018 at 10:03 AM, lavenderblue said:

I feel like Portman is not obviously funny, but I find her much stronger at this than someone like Jessica Chastain last week for a comparison between serious actress types. I don't know if it's the difference between Chastain coming across more earnest and Portman more dry, the latter of which plays a lot more easily for SNL's humor.

Yeah dry delivery is the best option especially when put up against silly, the best example being "Airplane!" with Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack and Peter Graves. Someone on Twitter said they'd love to see Jennifer Connelly in a movie like that or Naked Gun because she's so serious.

Re-watching Jessica Chastain in sketch where she's a Google host and Mikey Day is a guy who looks like Bart Simpson and she's trying too hard to be funny and it's distracting. It seems desperate. Natalie, in the Nickelodeon Awards sketch however is just playing it straight while the situation gets funnier and that works so much better.

Edited February 5, 2018 by VCRTracking

[VCRTracking]

Sorry to make a third post but they uploaded this cut for time parody commercial:

 

Damn it why do they cut out the interesting sketches?

[Inquisitionist]

11 hours ago, VCRTracking said:

Sorry to make a third post but they uploaded this cut for time parody commercial:

Damn it why do they cut out the interesting sketches?

Whoa, that child actor was scary.

[cpcathy]

I am loving the stuff they cut out, I notice they've all been filmed bits. So too many of those would make it not Saturday Night Live,?

[Galileo908]

8 hours ago, Inquisitionist said:

Whoa, that child actor was scary.

Is it weird that I'd love to see her acting with the kid from the Fisher-Price Well For Emotional Kids?

[lavenderblue]

On 2/5/2018 at 2:31 PM, VCRTracking said:

Yeah dry delivery is the best option especially when put up against silly, the best example being "Airplane!" with Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack and Peter Graves. Someone on Twitter said they'd love to see Jennifer Connelly in a movie like that or Naked Gun because she's so serious.

Re-watching Jessica Chastain in sketch where she's a Google host and Mikey Day is a guy who looks like Bart Simpson and she's trying too hard to be funny and it's distracting. It seems desperate. Natalie, in the Nickelodeon Awards sketch however is just playing it straight while the situation gets funnier and that works so much better.

Exactly! Natalie's raps work so well because she is dead serious in them -- there's no sense that she's laughing her way through the performance. It sells the ridiculousness of the lines and the contrast with her persona perfectly. Jessica Chastain had the somewhat opposite job of leaning into her persona with the "What Even Matters Anymore" game show, but it's an example of a place where being dead straightforward serious would have worked quite well and possibly made the lines funnier. But instead, she performed it with obvious exasperation. Thinking of all the Oscar-type hosts of recent weeks, for me Sam Rockwell followed another good route for serious actors: he just fully bought into every character, and while he had more obviously funny parts to play than Portman, he played each one like the character itself wasn't in on the humor of it.

Every toy commercial sketch the last few years has been absolute gold, and I would kind of like all of them to really exist.

[helenamonster]

1 hour ago, Galileo908 said:

Is it weird that I'd love to see her acting with the kid from the Fisher-Price Well For Emotional Kids?

Exactly the sketch I was thinking of. As someone who was a weird kid, I appreciate them. And as someone who will probably be a mother to a weird kid, they're a handy guide to have in advance.

[NicoleMN6]

Why not save that ad for a future episode?

[Phishbulb]

12 hours ago, NicoleMN6 said:

Why not save that ad for a future episode?

It actually was cut previously from the Jessica Chastain episode. They went to the (rather unusual) trouble of re-shooting it with Portman instead of Chastain, and then it ended up getting cut AGAIN. Julio Torres just can't win. 

[VCRTracking]

On 2/7/2018 at 9:39 AM, Phishbulb said:

It actually was cut previously from the Jessica Chastain episode. They went to the (rather unusual) trouble of re-shooting it with Portman instead of Chastain, and then it ended up getting cut AGAIN. Julio Torres just can't win. 

I could see Chastain more BEING  a scary stepmom than just the mother of a child pretending to be one! Maybe that's why they re-did it with Natalie?

On 2/6/2018 at 4:51 PM, lavenderblue said:

Exactly! Natalie's raps work so well because she is dead serious in them -- there's no sense that she's laughing her way through the performance. It sells the ridiculousness of the lines and the contrast with her persona perfectly.

Confirmed in this interview:

Andy Samberg Explains How SNL Made Natalie Portman’s Rap Sequel in Three Days
 

Quote

 

What makes Natalie so good at comedy rapping?

She commits, hard. And she actually loves the music.

 

Boy, finding out how hard the Lonely Island guys worked so hard across the country in LA and in such a short time makes me appreciate the short even more!

ETA: I wonder what Andy Samberg meant by this:
 

Quote

Do you remember coming up with the Star Wars parts?
Yes, we had written a different breakdown, but it bumped with something else in the show so I just thought about what other iconic characters she’s played, and that Amidala look is great. Then we just started laughing about her going cold-blooded about the prequels.

But then I remembered Natalie played Jackie Kennedy in one of the sketches so he must have been talking about that. There probably was a rap about her role in Jackie.

Edited February 12, 2018 by VCRTracking

[Fostersmom]

On 2/6/2018 at 12:14 AM, VCRTracking said:

Sorry to make a third post but they uploaded this cut for time parody commercial:

 

 

Damn it why do they cut out the interesting sketches?

I've watched this quite a few times since it came out last week. I saw it on HuffPost first (I think) and it's possibly one of my favorite things ever. The little girl is ridiculously good, Beck's confusion as to what's happening, and Natalie's supportive acceptance just makes it perfect. 

Edited February 11, 2018 by Fostersmom

[madpsych78]

Wow, Beck Bennett is similar to Chris Parnell! Especially the voice.