Top 5 Thursday: SNL Skits with Host Seth MacFarlane

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I'm going to admit something. I have a little crush on Seth MacFarlane. How funny is this guy. He created one of the funniest cartoons ever, directed and voices "Ted" and hosted the opening of the new season of "Saturday Night Live". Because "SNL" was such a succes, I decided to rank the skits. Here are my favorite sketches from "SNL" with host Seth MacFarlane.

5. Introduction to Puppetry
Bill Hader’s is actually the funniest man in this skit, but this is really a sketch that Seth MacFarlane could have come up with.



4. Opening Monologue
Seth MacFarlane is know for his voices. Some of the familiar “Family Guy” character pass by, like Peter, Stewie, Brian and Quagmire. We also hear Kermit the Frog, Droopy, Marty McFly and many others.



3. Wooden Spoon Warehouse
Tim Robinson and Seth MacFarlane play two Amish brothers who are trying to sell their wooden spoons on the internet. This is the address: double valley, double valley, double valley, time freckle, double valley, owl’s eyes, stringless harp, broken ladder, hurt snake, fine snake, fat snake, owl’s eyes, hurt snake, double valley, lean-to, fat snake with a sex penis, broken ladder, horse bridge, child’s toy, bull scrotum, the river what took my son, the three-fingered man, dot, com.



2. Lids Club
Seth MacFarlane, Kenan Thompson, and Jason Sudeikis play employees at a Lids store in the mall. MacFarlane tries to cheer Thompson up with the internet-popular “Gangnam Style,” which he can make appear with the press of a button. Bobby Moynihan plays Korean rapper PSY, including all the weird dance moves. Eventually the real PSY enters the stage as well. This was such a funny skit.




1. Seth as Ryan Lochte
Seth MacFarlane’s impersonation of Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte seems spot on. Although Lochte is probably not that dumb, he sure sometimes acts like he is. Favorite quote: “It feels so weird to be dry.” Freakin’ hilarious!



They almost made the top 5: Basic Training and Blind Date

In the Picture: The Characters from "Alice in Wonderland"

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Tim Burton always know show to create a wonderful world in all of his movies. He did it again with the classic story of "Alice in Wonderland". I like to put the spotlight on the characters in the film.

Alice Kingsleigh
Played by: Mia Wasikowska
Alice is not who other people expect her to be. She clearly has her own will and doesn't want to marry well. Alice is stubborn, brave and non-girlie.

Mad Hatter
Played by: Johnny Depp
Although the Mad Hatter looks and acts very strange, I think he is just misunderstood. He has all the best intentions and has a vision of the world no one else can picture. Mad Hatter is very creative and loyal.

Iracebeth of Crims aka the Red Queen
Played by: Helena Bonham Carter
The Red Queen is the ruler and everything should go as she pleases. She is easily irritated and quick to anger. She rather wants people to fear her than people to like her.

Mirana of Marmoreal aka the White Queen
Played by: Anne Hathaway
Mirana is Irabeth's sister and the complete opposite. She also likes the dark side, but is affraid to go in to deep. The White Queen is good hearted and has a better future in mind for her land.

Favorite Character: Iracebeth of Crims aka the Red Queen

In My Mailbox (64)

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Five cards again this week. The first one came from Kiev, Ukraine. A lovely cornfield. The sender is also a big fan of "Pride & Prejudice", both the novel and the movie (the one with Keira).


Sent: september 3rd 2012
Received: september 25th 2012
Distance: 1,722 km (1,070 miles)
Travel time: 22 days

From Lausanne, Switzerland I got this big clocktower. Really beautiful.


Sent: september 15th 2012
Received: september 25th 2012
Distance: 518 km (322 miles)
Travel time: 10 days

My favorite of the week also came from Switzerland, this time Schaffhausen. I love this balloon card. The sender wrote that he visited New York and he went to Bubba Gump Shrimp, from the movie "Forrest Gump". How awesome is that?


Sent: september 20th 2012
Received: september 25th 2012
Distance: 434 km (270 miles)
Travel time: 5 days

The smallest postcard ever came from Ternopil, Ukraine. This cute bunny card.


Sent: september 19th 2012
Received: september 28th 2012
Distance: 1,401 km (871 miles)
Travel time: 9 days

The last card came from Changhua City, Taiwan. It's a bird!!!


Sent: september 16th 2012
Received: september 29th 2012
Distance: 9,508 km (5,908 miles)
Travel time: 13 days

Thanks Kate, Lisa, Ben, Natalia and Li Ling Lo for the great cards!!

Movie Trailer Sunday (54)

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This weeks trailers are about a mysterious uncle, parasites, a place called Silent Hill, identity theft and Jackie Robinson

Stoker
Description: After India's (Mia Wasikowska) father dies in an auto accident, her Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), who she never knew existed, comes to live with her and her emotionally unstable mother (Nicole Kidman). Soon after his arrival, she comes to suspect this mysterious, charming man has ulterior motives, but instead of feeling outrage or horror, this friendless girl becomes increasingly infatuated with him.
Director: Park Chan-wook
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Dermot Mulroney
Trailer: Trailer "Stoker"

The Bay
Description: The quaint seaside town of Chesapeake Bay thrives on water; it is the lifeblood of the community. When two biological researchers from France find a staggering level of toxicity in the water, they attempt to alert the mayor, but he refuses to create a panic in the docile town. As a result, a deadly plague is unleashed, turning the people of Chesapeake Bay into hosts for a mutant breed of parasites that take control of their minds, and eventually their bodies
Director: Barry Levinson
Starring: Will Rogers, Christopher Denham
Trailer: Trailer "The Bay"

Silent Hill 3D
Description: Heather Mason (Adelaide Clemens) and her father (Sean Bean) have been on the run, always one step ahead of dangerous forces that she doesn't fully understand. Now on the eve of her 18th birthday, plagued by horrific nightmares and the disappearance of her father, Heather discovers she's not who she thinks she is. The revelation leads her deeper into a demonic world that threatens to trap her forever.
Director: Michael J. Bassett
Starring: Adelaide Clemens, Sean Bean, Radha Mitchell, Deborah Kara Unger, Carrie-Ann Moss, Malcolm McDowell
Trailer: Trailer "Silent Hill 3D"

Identity Thief
Description: Unlimited funds have allowed Diana (Melissa McCarthy) to live it up on the outskirts of Miami, where the queen of retail buys whatever strikes her fancy. There's only one glitch: The ID she's using to finance these sprees reads "Sandy Bigelow Patterson"... and it belongs to an accounts rep (Jason Bateman) who lives halfway across the U.S. With only one week to hunt down the con artist before his world implodes, the real Sandy Bigelow Patterson heads south to confront the woman with an all-access pass to his life. And as he attempts to bribe, coax and wrangle her the 2,000 miles to Denver, one easy target will discover just how tough it is to get your name back.
Director: Seth Gordon
Starring: Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy, Jon Favreau, Amanda Peet, John Cho, Robert Patrick, Eric Stonestreet
Trailer: Trailer "Identity Thief"
Comment: It actually looks really bad, but... whatever.

42
Description: The life story of Jackie Robinson and his history-making signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers under the guidance of team executive Branch Rickey (Harisson Ford).
Director: Brian Helgeland
Starring: Harrison Ford, Chadwick Boseman, Christopher Meloni, Ryan Merriman, Brad Beyer, Toby Huss, T.R. Knight
Trailer: Trailer "42"
Comment: The best trailer I saw this week.

50 Books Challenge 2012 Update - September 2012

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Only four books this month, but I didn't feel like reading towards the end of the month. That feeling is gone already, because I'msuper excited for October. But first, what did I read in september.



# 39. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens - 5/ 5
# 40. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë - 5/ 5
# 41. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame - 4,5/ 5
# 42. Animal Farm by George Orwell - 5/ 5

Average: 4,8

Favorite of the Month: Jane Eyre

Now the theme for october:



Off course october is the month where we have Halloween, so Stephen King is the perfect author for scary stories. But I'm not only going to read his horror novels. My brother has a huge collection of Stephen King books, so plenty to choose from.

GQ BLOG: Kurt Sutter's Anarchy Diaries: 501 - The Beginning of a New Season

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BECAUSE I'M TOO FUCKING LAZY TO DO AN ADDITIONAL BLOG, I'LL POST MY GQ ENTRIES HERE.

I always experience this odd disconnect when I come back to the show. It's an out of body experience—where it all feels familiar, yet it all feels very far away. I think the rhythm of my job gets moving so quickly and so intensely that when I slow down and unplug anything other than a chaotic pace feels off. So to "ease back into it" just feels fucking weird.

A little insight into me.
You may have already picked up on this already, but I'm a guy who has problems with moderation. All or nothing. Binge and purge. Kill or be killed. Gray is not a color I wear well. I should be dead. I know that. I should not be successful. I know that too. My daily existence is a toss of the coin—one side, fear, the other side, gratitude. I flip that coin all fucking daylong. As a result, I navigate through the world with the excitement and determination of a child. That's why I'm an artist. I'd die without an outlet for expression. Unfortunately, more often than not, that childlike energy is the maturity level I bring to many circumstances. More on this as we get to know each other better. This is Gentlemen's Quarterly, so I'm not gonna let you fuck me on the first date.

 
Now, back to the show.
So I just turned in the first draft of the season five premiere of Sons of Anarchy, entitled, Sovereign. The studio and network cancelled the notes call because they had none. That's a message that's music to a showrunner's ears. No notes, is good notes. I will say that both Fox 21 and FX are very respectful of my process and have placed a lot of trust in my ability to deliver this show. Most of my notes are really questions. Not so much, "Don't do that!" but "Why are you doing that?" It's about making sure we're all on the same page. I've said this before, but it's true, I value their input. John Landgraf, the president of FX, is a very story-savvy dude. His notes are usually well thought out and more often than not, help the episode. Sometimes my sense of the violent and the absurd will cross the line. I tell the story of a feature script of mine, Delivering Gen, to illustrate this point. In that script a baby's life is in mortal jeopardy like twenty fucking times. Literally, I almost kill an infant every other page. When we went wide with the script, there were several Parental Advocacy Groups who took exception and pointed that out. I was clueless. Not just to the level of near infanticide, but to the fact that was even a bad thing. Being a father has changed that perspective. Clearly, I'm a guy who needs someone with a better grip of reality looking over his shoulder. My writers and the network provide that service. Considering the level of violence in my show, you can only imagine the shit we didn't do.

So now I'm about six weeks into the season and I'm finally finding the groove. We've broken the first four episodes. Drafts of 503 and 504 are being written and I begin my draft of 502 today. It's like the workload almost has to reach a certain pace for me to recognize my position. 

I'm just a Thurber character.
Although it always feels different every season, my wife informs me that I experience the same thing every year. I'm lost and then suddenly when I'm overburdened, I'm found. I have to believe her. Katey knows me better than I know myself. She refers to me as her "Twisted Walter Mitty." I'm often a million miles away, lost in a daydream, where terrible things are happening to innocent people. 

One time, during a car ride where I was supposed to be paying attention to something important Katey was telling me, she realized I had "gone away." She asked me where I was and what I was thinking about. I deflected and feigned interest in whatever the fuck she was talking about. She called bullshit and after some prodding I told her where my mind had taken me:
I was in the basement of an old house in Jersey, where an obese, mentally challenged teen was vaginally raping the corpse of his dead mother with a forearm he just chewed off his nearly-dead, thin older brother. It wasn't the story as much as my emotional connection to the characters that unnerved her. Katey no longer asks me where I am. She just says, "Let me know when you're back." 

I'm back.
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GQ BLOG: Kurt Sutter's Anarchy Diaries: 502 - Please Don't Say That...

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So as I was working on my draft of episode 502, I flew out to NYC for the network "upfronts." These are traditionally a big dog and pony show where a network parades the talent in front of advertisers and affiliates. FX does a much hipper, scaled-down version at a bowling alley. As much as I struggle with crowds, it's always a fun night. I've been in this family for over ten years now and it's really cool watching the network grow and flourish. I'm really happy for Landgraf and his team. And that's not just me sucking up to my boss. I actually mean this. Hey, I don't like many people wearing suits, so let me enjoy this one.

It's also at this event where I begin the process of talking to TV reporters about the upcoming season. I have such a love-hate relationship with the TV media. I'm the dick who desperately wants to be noticed and interviewed while at the same time bemoaning the inconvenience and intrusiveness. (The only thing worse than false humility is false humanity.) I'm very aware of the value of the media and how they help keep the show alive, but I also hate the invasiveness of spoilers and the gossip component. The season doesn't premier for another six months and already I'm answering questions about how Season 5 will end. It always turns me around a bit.

It's in this process that I'm also reminded of my responsibility as the voice of the show. Meaning, that the things I say and do, because of my "created by" association with Sons, directly impact the show. I can no longer just "vent" with impunity.

Twitter is one thing. If some cunt wants to spin a story on a single, absurd 140 character tweet, that's their desperate prerogative.

But the blog, where I'm able to formulate ideas and present an argument—I now need to think twice before I vomit my bombastic subjectivism in this forum. As a result, I continue to struggle with topics and ideas for this blog and my own personal blog. That problem in itself suggests who I am as a person—clearly, I feel most alive and creatively stimulated when I'm in the state of self-righteous agitation.

I constantly self-edit these days. Just this week alone I kyboshed three ideas for this post. I started writing about my disdain of episodic reviews by cunt bloggers, but killed it because I realized it would look like sour grapes and ultimately create reviewer vengeance that could hurt the show. I started one about Charlie Collier's fluffy THR interview, but killed that because it made me look like an envious bitch (which is probably true). I started one about the flawed broadcast network development process, but killed that one because the truth is—I've never developed a show on a broadcast network, so it was all second-hand fact and bitter speculation.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, things I say about TV these days carries weight. Me qualifying with, "This is just my opinion," doesn't allow me the freedom from scrutinized feedback. People don't give a shit if it's just opinion, they'll spit it back at me and the rest of the entertainment community, as ungrateful fact. So for self-preservation, self-editing has become necessary. In the big picture, I'm not whining about any of this. I'm a guy in need of a little self-editing and clearly I still say and do shit that gets me in trouble. So, I'm not complaining about the scrutiny, I guess I'm just adjusting out loud.

I had a funny conversation with Glenn Howerton of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia at the upfronts. We were bemoaning the lack of the balls in our business. And he was complimenting me on my ability to generally not give a fuck about whom I piss off. He said he expects all my blogs and tweets to be signed off with, "Goodbye, Hollywood..."

Anyway. 502. I finished it. I get notes today. I don't think it sucks. But I guess I'll have to wait until September for the thickly-bullshit-detrimental-invasive-episodic-cunt-bloggers to tell me if it's any good.
Goodbye Hollywood...

BIO:
 
Kurt barely graduated high school, had the lowest SAT's in his class and went to the only state college that would take him. A fucked-up home, childhood obesity, food/drug addiction, and relentless television watching all contributed to his absurd, insular world of violent fantasies and sexual dreams. He hardly reads books, he plays a fuckload of games, and his only marketable skill is his imagination. If he respects you, he'd gladly take a bullet for you. If he doesn't, he may very well be holding the gun.

Professionally, this shit is happening: He signed a three-year deal with FX and 20th Century to continue running Sons of Anarchy and develop new projects. He ventures into reality programming this year with a new documentary series set up at the Discovery Channel, called Kurt Sutter's Outlaw Empires. Along with his TV work, he has feature projects in development at MGM, Sony, and Warner Bros. His script, Southpaw, written as a starring vehicle for Eminem, has Antoine Fuqua attached to direct and will probably never get made.

The thing that makes Sutter remotely human and considerably happy is his family—his wife, Katey and their three kids, Sarah, Jackson and Esme'.

Kurt's latest passion is birds. No one has the courage to ask why.
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GQ BLOG: Kurt Sutter's Anarchy Diaries: 503 - The Emmys. Don't Ask. Don't Tell.

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I love my job. Truly, I do. I know how lucky I am. I think it was Warren Beatty who said (and I'm badly paraphrasing), "Success is having a job that pays you a lot of money, that you would gladly do for free." I feel that way.
Most days. 
This is my favorite time of the season. My hours are split between the writers' room, gearing up production, and writing. I'm a writer who loves to write. I know that sounds obvious but you'd be surprised how many writers actually hate writing. Not me. Being alone with a white board, a computer and the voices in my head is fucking nirvana. And not the part where he puts the shotgun in his mouth. That comes later. Right now, I'm happy, relaxed, invigorated and grateful.
Then it happens. The shotgun in my mouth. Emmy Award season. For people like Terence Winter, Matt Weiner, Vince Gilligan, gearing up for the Emmys must be a very satisfying time of year. Recognition of your peers for all the hard work. The process leading up to the awards is time-consuming and tedious, but at least these guys know, at the end of the day, it'll all be worth it. History has played that out. 
For me, award season continuously just feels like an angry kick in the scrotum. 
I know I shouldn't give a shit. It ain't about the prize; it's about the work. The fans are the ones who determine our success. Logically, I know all of that. I enter the award season detached and philosophical, but after a few months of engaging in the build up, that distance gets washed away and I'm neck-deep in expectation and self-righteousness. I always end up broken and bloody the morning the nominations are read. 

From season two of The Shield to season five of SOA, that expectation and disappointment has rubbed me raw. Say what you want about Sons not being Emmy worthy. You're probably right. But there is no way you can say the last two seasons of The Shield were not as good or better than any drama on television. 

So why no Emmy love? 

Simple. People didn't vote for us. 

Why? 

The supporters (fans, network, my wife) give me a laundry list of reasons. All logical and ego-soothing.

The haters (cunt bloggers) say it's because the show sucks.
My guess is both camps harbor some truth.

What do I say?

Really. Haven't I said enough? 

Yes. I have.

I'm exhausted by my own obsession for recognition. It goes deeper than just pride and ego. I'm sure it's some kind of daddy-thing I haven't had the courage to dig into. Who knows? But it's just scabbed me over. I can't do the dance anymore -- the submissions, interviews, panels, photo-shoots, predictions, polls, post-mortem snubs -- Fuck me, I'm done. 

This season and hopefully for the rest of the run of Sons of Anarchy, I say nothing about any award. Other than, "thank you," "good luck," and "congratulations". 

And to clean it all up before I put it away:

I apologize to academy members (of every age) for the bombastic comments I've made in the past. I apologize to my cast, crew, studio and network if my arrogant reaction to snubs has embarrassed them or impeded their chances for recognition.

This blog will be my last comment on the Emmys. And yes, I can hear the snarky comments echoing through cyberspace as I type that statement. And they'd be correct to assume that me keeping quiet is a great idea in theory, but difficult to implement. So time (and all the cunt bloggers) will be the judge. 

You can say many bad things about me and they'd all be true -- I'm arrogant, abrasive, narcissistic, juvenile, over-sensitive. But I'm also a man who lives in a perpetual state of change. I have no choice. There is no stasis. If I'm not moving forward, I'm sliding back. And behind me there is only wreckage and remorse. 

In front of me there is only opportunity.

I may be a dick, but I'm a dick in progress. 


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