This weekend’s season finale of Saturday Night Live was an especially emotional episode, one that saw beloved cast members Bill Hader and Fred Armisen bid the show a fond adieu. Hader’s big farewell sketch was, of course, the epic wedding between Stefon and Seth Meyers, while Fred Armisen was joined by a calvacade of indie rock legends—Carrie Brownstein! Steve Jones! Aimee Mann! Michael Penn! J. Mascis!—for an emotional performance as his punk rocker alter ego Ian Rubbish.
What do you get when you combine a wedding, Anderson Cooper, DJ Baby Bok Choy, Amy Poehler and “Dean Cain‘s List of Homeboys You Don’t Mess With?” You get Saturday Night Live’s fond farewell to Bill Hader and the closure on Stefon’s long-standing flirtation with Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers.
What’s Bill Hader going to do after Saturday Night Live? Is Amy Adams revealing a bit too much skin in her new flick? Will Star Trek Into Darkness beat down Iron Man 3 at the box office?
Is this week’s Saturday Night Live going to be Bill Hader‘s last? Why is Zoe Saldana comparing herself to Elizabeth Taylor? And what was Star Trek Into Darkness almost called instead?
Guys, this is looks good. Like Mean Girls good. Immediately following the announcement that it would premiere February 14, 2013, the To Do List trailer ticked off all the things we want to see in a teen movie. Things like Bill Hader, Donald Glover, Alia Shawkat, Rachel Bilson, and skorts. Most importantly, the To Do List has Parks and Rec‘s Aubrey Plaza as the goody-goody nerdlinger protagonist, who tries to put some notches on her belt before going off to college…with hilarious consequences! It goes without saying there will be hilarious consequences, right? So go on and watch the (sort of NSFW) trailer. It perfectly fulfills all our teen comedy needs. Needs like:
We’ll admit it: we still remember Tom Cruise‘s Oprah meltdown from time to time, not to mention the, um, bizarre anti-psychiatry rant he delivered to Matt Lauer on Today in 2005. Those are two things you don’t forget easily. That being said, it’s been 7 years since Cruise lost his mind on that couch; if Ghost Protocol and the upcoming Rock of Ages hadn’t won us over already, Bill Hader‘s epically sweet TomKat story would have.
According to an anecdote Hader told at this week’s Friars Foundation Gala honoring Cruise, the Valkyrie actor talked him out of a “full-on panic attack” on the set of Tropic Thunder, brought on by news of a would-be car bombing in New York, where the SNL actor’s wife and infant daughter lived at the time. “He comes over and he’s like, ‘Are you okay, man?’” Bill recalled. After Tom learned that Hader wasn’t scheduled to go home for two days, “He thinks for a second. ‘No,’ he says. ‘We’ll get you home tonight.’ And in that moment, Tom Cruise, as Les Grossman, in a karate gi, began to direct all my coverage. All my footage, all my close-ups. Boom! We do three perfect takes. Boom, boom, boom. Everyone’s chest-butting each other, some people are chest-butting themselves, people are going insane.” Hader explained. “And he got it done in 45 minutes.” Wow, there are times that somewhat upsetting intensity really pays off!
We’ve been worried sick about the news that Gary Ross and Lionsgate are still on the fence about whether the director will return for The Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire. (Negotiations are ongoing as of Monday, we hear.) Would anyone else be able to nail the tone of this story the way he did? But now, we’ve decided not to fret, thanks to Sofia Vergara and Saturday Night Live, who showed us what the movie would be like in the hands of someone, well, less reverent.
In a pink Effie Trinket wig, Vergara shimmied, laughed and gave a great Univision-worthy yell as the Capitol’s newest Hunger Games correspondent, Maria Gutierrez, reporting live from the arena and enjoying herself immensely as the kids stab each other nearby. And in the studio, Bill Hader and Fred Armisen yukked it up as Claudius and Caesar, echoing a number of silly sports news show SNL’s done over the years.
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Tis the season to talk to celebs on the red carpet about the ups, downs and WTFs of the holidays. In the video above we’ve got Jay-Z dissecting the drama of drinking too much egg nog (we’ve all been there, Hov), Nicole Scherzinger getting grossed out over fruit cake, and Shame star Michael Fassbender claiming that he still believes in Santa Claus. Funny, that’s kind of like us still believing we can one day date Michael Fassbender! Here’s to ho-ho-hoping that he’s under the tree waiting for us this Christmas. If not, an advance copy of Shame will do. (Guys, he’s naked in it! NAKED. Happy Holidays to our eyes!)
Kristen Wiig must have missed the memo. While the men at the Paul premiere were dressed in business casual—suit jacket yes, tie optional, jeans maybe—and most of the women looked like they could have been guests at a semi-formal wedding, the Bridesmaids star showed up in a dramatic, ruffled gown that would have been out-of-place even if it also wasn’t totally sloppy and unflattering. Sure, Liev Schreiber‘s Sheen-style combo of baseball cap and jacket around the waist was also off-key, but when attending the premiere of a comedy starring Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, and Seth Rogen as a wry alien, one’s probably better off erring on the side of informality. No wonder Kristen threw on a leather jacket before hitting the afterparty.
See photos of the event—including an awesome shot of Jane Lynch cracking up Bill Hader—in the gallery below.
[Photos: Getty Images]
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
When somebody is attacked by a flock of hungry roast chickens, it’s clear that this isn’t your everyday animation. Capping a tremendous year for ‘toons, Cloudy‘s bizarro set-up involves a young inventor who creates a device that makes giant morsels fall from the sky. The road to surreal excess is paved with good intentions and soon chaos reigns along with the bolognese. Anna Faris and Bill Hader’s voices are in amongst the weirdness.
Extras: The two-disc special edition boasts Hader’s commentary track, featurettes on the production and vocal cast, games, deleted scenes and more.
- By C. Bottomley
