Oscar Predictions: Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)

Questlove, from the hip hop group The Roots and bandleader on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, took Sundance by storm four years ago with Summer of Soul. That documentary focused on 1969’s Harlem Cultural Festival won the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize for its genre at the Utah event. Over a year later, it would emerge as Best Documentary Feature at the 94th Academy Awards.

The filmmaker’s follow-up is Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) and it too has kicked off in Park City. Centered on the life and career of the enigmatic Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone, it’s slated for a Hulu streaming bow in February.

Word-of-mouth is encouraging though some critics are not as effusive as they were with Soul. Academy voters may take that into consideration when evaluating whether to take Sly higher into the awards convo next year. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…

Oscar Watch: Summer of Soul

Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson has had a sterling career with his rap group The Roots and as Jimmy’s Fallon’s Tonight Show bandleader over the years. He can now add acclaimed documentary filmmaker to his resume with Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). The film focuses on the Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of concerts featuring the likes of Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight & The Pips, and Sly and the Family Stone that took place in the summer of 1989. That also happened to be the season of another festival named Woodstock.

Soul premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to massive acclaim and ended up taking that festival’s Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize. The doc hits theaters and Hulu streaming this Friday. More reviews have come in and it stands at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Will the Sundance love translate to Oscar voters? Every time I write about documentaries in these posts, I must point out the Academy’s branch in that category is notoriously unpredictable. Oftentimes, the most hailed and popular docs don’t make the cut. I suspect distributor Fox Searchlight will give this a major push and that could put it over the edge. That said, projecting the pics of this genre which make it in is always a tricky proposition. My Oscar Watch posts will continue…

The Late Night Carousel and Jon Stewart

For longtime followers of my blog, you may know that I’m endlessly fascinated by the nowadays seemingly constant shifts taking place on late night comedy TV. This evening, we were informed of yet another seismic shift in the medium.

Some context: when I was very young, there was essentially only one late night talk show in town and it belonged to The King of Late Night, Johnny Carson – who hosted The Tonight Show for 30 years. Competitors such as Joan Rivers and Alan Thicke, among others, tried and failed to take him on. Only Arsenio Hall managed some success against him in the waning years of Johnny’s run.

Of course, for many years, it was the man who followed Carson that was seen as his obvious heir apparent upon retirement: David Letterman, whose innovative Late Night show followed Tonight. When Jay Leno (one of Dave’s favorite guests) began filling in for Johnny as he began to vacation more, the paradigm shifted. It was Leno who would succeed Johnny in 1992 amid much controversy. It prompted Letterman to move to CBS the following year. For two years, Dave would reign supreme as the new King of Late Night until Leno (with an assist from Hugh Grant who appeared immediately following his shocking arrest with a prostitute) became #1 for nearly two decades.

Oh… There’s more! The Letterman departure to CBS as Leno’s competitor left a void at the 12:30 Late Night slot that’d be filled with an unknown SNL writer named Conan O’Brien. And in yet another highly controversial media frenzy some sixteen years later, Leno would reluctantly “retire” and hand Conan the Cadillac that is 11:30 on NBC. It didn’t go as planned. Jay would end up with a 10pm nightly program that failed badly. Conan’s ratings couldn’t match what Leno brought in and NBC let him go with a reported $40 million payout. He would eventually end up at TBS where he remains today and Leno would return to The Tonight Show.

Oh… There’s more! When Conan did first jump to 11:30, it once again left a hole at 12:30am and SNL vet Jimmy Fallon was named. By 2014, Leno would once again depart (for good this time) and Fallon was moved up. In the year since Jimmy has taken over, it’s gone considerably better for him than Conan. Fallon has kept The Tonight Show at #1 over Letterman and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel.

And of course Letterman announced his retirement that will take place in May after 33 years at Late Night and Late Show. His successor will be Stephen Colbert in September. Colbert, along with Steve Carell, Ed Helms, Rob Corddry, John Oliver and many others, owe their careers to one program and one man…

Jon Stewart. You knew I’d get there eventually, right? Of course that would be the news of the day. The man who’s hosted The Daily Show for 17 years announced he is stepping down this year as host. There is no doubt that Mr. Stewart, like Dave and Johnny before him, has forever changed American comedy and late night. It changed the way people thought about news and received it (especially among the coveted 18-49 audience demographic).

What some younger viewers might not know is The Daily Show existed before Jon Stewart. The first host was former ESPN anchor Craig Kilborn. He left to host The Late Late Show, the talk show airing after Letterman. Kilborn’s eventual departure paved the way for Craig Ferguson, who also announced he’s stepping down this year and that has set up James Corden to be the new host who will follow Letterman successor Colbert.

Most importantly, Kilborn’s Daily Show exit led to Stewart in 1999. You also may not be aware that this wasn’t Stewart’s first talk show. It was his second. His first aired on MTV and then in syndication and was canceled after two seasons. On his final show on that program, he nabbed his biggest guest: his comedy idol. A man named David Letterman.

Conan and Kimmel and Stewart were all Dave disciples, in the same way Letterman was a Johnny disciple. Yet Stewart brought something new to his iteration of “The Daily”. He turned it into must see TV very often. His political satire could shape people’s views on stories and politicians. As mentioned before, it provided his correspondents a platform to big things whether on film or the small screen.

There will be breathless speculation as to who will take over The Daily Show. Had Stewart made the announcement last year, my guess is John Oliver would be the easy choice. After all, he filled in for an extended period of weeks when Stewart took a sabbatical to make his directorial movie debut with Rosewater. Oliver did such a great job as guest host that HBO quickly snatched him for his acclaimed weekly Sunday evening program. He’s likely to stay put. So is Seth Meyers at Late Night, who succeeded Fallon.

My hunch is that Comedy Central will look to their current crop of Daily contributors which includes Jason Jones and Aasif Mandvi. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they go with their current longest tenured correspondent Samantha Bee, giving a much needed late night female face among the two Jimmy’s, Stephen’s, Seth’s, etc…

One thing is nearly certain: while Johnny Carson was not the first host of The Tonight Show and Jon Stewart was not the first Daily Show hosts, these two landmark television programs will always be linked to them, even as the Late Night carousel keeps spinning.

And here it is. Your Moment of Zen:

The Rise of Jimmy Fallon

If you’ve followed my blog regularly over the last near year and a half, you may have noticed that I’ve got quite a keen interest in the “late night wars”. Recently, I wrote a post speculating about who may be in line to replace David Letterman on CBS when the day comes. You can read that here:

https://toddmthatcher.com/2014/01/25/the-history-and-future-of-late-night-talk-shows/

In the past week, Jimmy Fallon has taken over “The Tonight Show” following Jay Leno’s second retirement from the program. Fallon has moved into the role without the controversy that involved Conan O’Brien’s brief ascension to hosting duties a few years back. Of course, it was the Conan fiasco that allowed Jimmy to take over “Late Night” five years ago.

Truth be told, when Fallon was announced as host of that program – my reaction wasn’t all that positive. While I admired a good deal of his work on “SNL”, I didn’t consider myself a big fan of his. I had my serious doubts as to whether he’d be a decent fit for the late night talk show format.

Well, folks, I was wrong. Very wrong. As evidenced by his tenure on “Late Night” and his first week hosting “Tonight” – Fallon has mastered the art form. What’s even more astonishing is he’s done it in a way that seems to appeal to the widest audience possible. He has started out of the gate at #1 beating Letterman and Kimmel and I’ll predict that crown will not be relinquished.

Why is Fallon so good? There are several reasons, as I see it. He’s a master impressionist and his sketches playing musical artists are genius… Google Fallon-Jim Morrison-Reading Rainbow if you don’t believe me (or watch it in the link I provided below).

He has an easy rapport with his guests. Leno came off (to me) as robotic during celebrity interviews. Letterman is much better, but sometimes he appears disinterested when the new starlet is plugging her latest mediocre project. Frankly, Dave probably is disinterested. Jimmy succeeds at actually seeming genuinely interested with his guests.

Fallon’s skits (whether musical or playing around with Justin Timberlake, his best guest) have become the stuff of YouTube legend. More than anyone, he has honed the art of web based comedy gold that is watched and re-watched over and over.

Most of all, it’s Fallon’s enthusiasm that shines through. This is kind of harder to explain. Every time I watch him, I come away with the notion that Jimmy is extraordinarily grateful for the opportunities given to him. He seems to love hosting the show. While Dave Letterman has earned his reputation as a somewhat grumpy curmudgeon – Jimmy Fallon is almost always positive.

Don’t get me wrong – I firmly believe Letterman is a genius. And his 30 years of work has influenced comedy more than anyone else – from Stewart to Conan to Colbert to Kimmel and so on. While Dave’s show can still be great – I must admit that there’s a feeling of autopilot from time to time.

Over on ABC, Jimmy Kimmel has carved a nice niche for himself. His show has the loosest feel of them all, he’s a solid interviewer, and many of the comedy pieces score.

Nowadays, though, Fallon’s getting it done the best. And I never would have expected that. I fall into the category of thought that Leno more or less botched his tenure as host of “Tonight”. Jay seemed to try way too hard to appeal to the widest audience possible and what we were left with was a show that usually felt empty and bland and too middle of the road. And I must admit that the whole “Nice Guy Jay” routine felt forced to me, especially when knowing this is the same man who hid in a closet at NBC to spy on his bosses discussions on him and Letterman.

Ironically, Jimmy is in the similar position as most accessible to viewers compared to his rivals. With Jimmy – it doesn’t feel forced. It feels natural. That’s because Fallon is a natural. And for the first time in 22 years, I’m left with the feeling that someone is hosting “The Tonight Show” who is truly an heir to the throne that Johnny perfected.