Ty Watches "Coming 2 America"

For date night this week my wife picked "Coming 2 America".

Two weeks ago we watched the original movie because she had never seen it, and she enjoyed herself so much that she wanted to watch the sequel. This worked out well for me because, as a big fan of the original, of course I wanted to watch the second one. Eddie Murphy is also on some kind of come back tour, if he even needed one. "Dolemite is My Name" was one of the better movies I saw last year, and he crushed when he finally came back to host "SNL". It seems like he is finally having fun again being funny. He isn't doing the family comedy stuff or the big paycheck stuff. He is more in a "Tower Heist" groove, a very underrated movie I might add, and that is the perfect Eddie Murphy mood for me. He is so funny, and when he has really good material to work with, he usually crushes it. And I did not care at all what the critics were saying about the movie. I know it didn't get the best marks, but hey, neither did "Hot Rod", or the myriad of movies RD and I talked about on the pod a few weeks back, and I like those movies very much.

This is the category "Coming 2 America" falls into for me, the "Hot Rod" category. I had an absolutely delightful one hour and forty minutes watching this movie. There were call backs that were great. They had everyone who is still alive from the original in the sequel. Arsenio Hall was dynamite as Semi, and all the heavily made-up characters he played. I loved the newer character he played, the old man that lives in Zamunda, that guides Prince Akeem after his father passes. I could say the same for Eddie Murphy. Prince Akeem is a classic, but so is the sexist minister and the barber and the infamous singer from Queens. Murphy returned all these characters, and they all made me laugh just like I did when I first saw "Coming to America". Murphy really nails this, or these, roles. Shari Headley, as Lisa, is just as strong and confident and beautiful and proud as she was in the original. James Earl Jones, in his maybe five minutes of screen time, was awesome. His funeral was one of the silliest, yet saddest, and most choreographed things I have ever seen in a movie, and I loved every single second of it.

In the movie, Akeem and Lisa have three daughters, one of which is played by Murphy's real life daughter. They are all strong willed, tough and have the best qualities of their mom and dad. The oldest daughter, Meeka, played by KiKi Layne is almost a replica of her father from the original movie, except she may be tougher. Her story arc is one of my favorite things about this whole movie. She was awesome. They even brought back John Amos, Louie Anderson, Clint Smith and Paul Bates to reprise their roles from the first movie. It was nice to see them all acting and all doing a great job in these very memorable roles. The new additions were excellent as well.

The main story of the movie is that Akeem has a son who was fathered while he was in Queens in the first movie. He is the rightful heir, so Akeem and Semi go back to retreat him. The son is played by Jermaine Fowler. His name is Lavelle. I am a Jermaine Fowler fan. I loved his role in "Sorry to Bother You", he was one of the only things I liked in Pete Holmes' HBO show, "Superior Donuts" was decent because of him, and he does a great job in this movie. For him to keep pace with Arsenio Hall and Eddie Murphy is a triumph on its own. Add on that this movie also put Leslie Jones in it, as his mom, Tracy Morgan, as his uncle and Luenell as his aunt, and he kept up with all of them. Leslie Jones was hysterical, and she made me laugh any time she was on screen. She is so consistent. Luenell is quietly hilarious in everything she does. And Tracy Morgan, he is my favorite actor of all time, and Fowler kept up with all of them. This had to be a dream for him. They also put Morgan Freeman in this movie as the narrator at the funeral, and that ruled. Trevor Noah was a newscaster from Zamunda, and he was great, and so was his fake mustache. And Wesley Snipes, much like he did in "Dolemite is My Name", nearly stole the show as the rival king from Nextdooria, a great name by the way.

Look, this movie works on a few different levels. It is great nostalgia, it is fun, it gives Eddie Murphy another starring role, it gives some up and comers a real chance and it allows great comedic actors to do funny things over and over again. This movie is good. I definitely would ignore the critics reviews and check this movie out. It is more than worth your time.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Tracy Morgan brings some glory back to SNL

Tracy Morgan is bringing comedy sunshine the dark landscape that has been SNL.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming from me.

I know I've been blogging a lot about basketball and sports lately, and I'm still going to do that, but now I'm going to get back into the groove and give you pop culture from a lot of different angles. I'll get back to movies, TV shows, music and everything else starting today.

Today, I'm going to tell you about the sheer greatness that was last Saturday's SNL. Tracy Morgan, making his triumphant return to TV, crushed as the host of the 41st seasons third episode. The season premiere, featuring Miley Cyrus wasn't very good, and Amy Schumer did a better job on the second episode, but Tracy Morgan, hosting the third episode, hearkened SNL back to it's glory days. He seemed so comfortable and calm on that stage. This was the perfect place for him to make his official return to TV. As I written before, he's most comfortable at 30 Rockefeller Center and that's where his career took off, both on SNL and "30 Rock".

I did want to touch on the cold open before I get to the meat of the episode. My wife and I usually never watch cold opens because they're always political and we, quite frankly, don't care for humor involving politics. But, due to some social media searching, we both found out Larry David would be making an appearance. I'm a HUGE Larry David fan and this piqued my interest. So, we watched the cold open, hoping that it would be worth it, and boy was it totally worth it. David played Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. I can't think of a better character for him to play besides himself. This was a grand slam, getting David not only to appear, but also to play his doppleganger, Bernie Sanders. He was absolutely hilarious, and had you told me the lines David was reciting were actual Sanders quotes, I would've believed it. Bernie Sanders is a total nut job, and Larry David played that almost as perfect as comedian James Adomian does. Seriously people, if you liked David's impression, check out James Adomian's impression, it's better. Needless to say, the cold open set the tone for this being a really, really good episode. Oh, and I didn't even mention that Alec Baldwin showed up playing, a senator I think, named Jim Webb. But, David's appearance outshined everyone else on the stage.

Now, let's get to the return of Tracy Morgan. First of all, during the monologue, he started to talk as if he had a stroke. I was taken aback, but he immediately said he was joking and I was already laughing. The monologue was very good. None of the singing that usually goes on now, in fact, he talked about his old show "30 Rock" being prophetic about his accident. Which reminds me, he said that maybe the accident made him smarter because he now knew what prophetic meant and how to use it in a sentence. Back to the "30 Rock" episode. It was on the same stage, obviously it wasn't a real "30 Rock" episode, and cameos were made by Tina Fey, Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer and Alec Baldwin once again. They all reprised their roles from the show and talked about Tracy Jordan being in an accident. Morgan appeared as Jordan and let everyone know he was okay. This bit was played to many laughs. And, it's always good to have old friends and cast members appear on SNL. Pretty much all of the sketches were hilarious, and they brought back two beloved characters that Morgan played while part of the cast.

The first character they brought back was Brian Fellows. They did the Brian Fellows Show and anyone who watched when Morgan regularly did the show, knows how insane and bizarre this sketch is. It was just as crazy, with Fellows at one part, accompanied by a dream bubble, thinking about a beaver smoking cigarettes. He also yelled his titular line, "I'M BRIAN FELLOWS!".

It was great. During Weekend Update, we got a cameo from Tina Fey, hilariously making fun of Playboy not being a nudie magazine anymore. She even showed off some of the poses she always wanted to do, if she ever got a chance to pose for Playboy. During Weekend Update, while Michael Che was talking to his always upbeat neighbor, Willie, Morgan showed up as the bum who thinks he's way more important than he really is, Woodrow. Woodrow was Willie's life coach and the two of them sang a sweet, but very sad song. This was a great use of this character.

Some of the other good sketches were, one where, it was set up like a musical and all the cast members were joyously singing what they were doing. Well, when Morgan showed up, he sang what was literally on his mind. For example, one of his lyrics were, "I just peed". It was so weird, but Morgan made it funny because that's what he does. There was another weird sketch that Morgan made work called "Where's Jackie Chan At?". Morgan and Keenan Thompson played two guys that simply asked the question, where's Jackie Chan at. They had callers and even a person to person chat with Chris Tucker, played excellently by Jay Pharoah, and no one knew where Jackie Chan currently was. I loved this sketch, because I'm still trying to figure out, where's Jackie Chan at. They did one of their premade videos and it was very funny. The "movie" featured Pharoah, Shasheer Zamata, Taran Killam and Morgan. Killam and Zamata are a couple at the bar and Killam's character is clearly upset. Apparently, Morgan's character said something to her in passing and Killam was waiting for the right time to broach the situation. He finally does, and it's revealed that Morgan's character wants to dance. They keep saying, "you want to dance", insinuating a fight, but Morgan literally means dancing. He even has ballet flats on to prove how serious he is. They get into a whole back story about how Morgan's dad never let him dance, and made him act tough, and finally Zamata says she will dance with him because his story is so sad, but Morgan says he needs to dance with Killam because, "I can't lead, I don't know how". It ended with the two of then getting ready to dance, it was pretty funny.

The best sketch of the entire show was the first sketch after the monologue. They did a "Family Feud" sketch and I was in stiches the whole time. First of all, if there's a better impersonation of Steve Harvey than what Keenan Thompson does, I haven't seen it. He does a spot on Harvey impression, going so far as to call everyone player. It's great. During this sketch, we find out that the two families involved in the game are Tracy Morgan's new family, he got divorced six months prior, and his ex wife and three kids. This was a very, very funny premise for a sketch. We first met Morgan's ex wife, played by Leslie Jones. She's a star and needs to be on this show much, much more often. The kids are played by Pharoah, Zamata and Che. Morgan's new wife and family were as lily white as they come. His new wife was played by Cecily Strong and his kids were the new cast member, his name escapes me at the moment, and Vanessa Bayer. The only question asked during the feud was, "name something someone forgets". Jones rings in first and exclaims, "COMMITMENT!", clearly still upset about the divorce. She gets the answer right and her family gets to play. Pharoah answers, "not coming to your son's clarinet recital because it's not manly" and Zamata says, "not being there as a male role model, so now I have to strip". They each get strikes, and when they get to Che, he's gone to the other family because, "they're happy and always smiling". The whole time, Morgan is yelling back at his ex wife and children and it's hilarious. This was a great sketch to open with.

Obviously, I loved this episode. Tracy Morgan was phenomenal and exceeded my expectations by a million miles. I'm so, so happy that he's healthy and back doing what he loves. The comedy world has missed you Tracy Morgan, but your future looks bright after your triumphant return to SNL.

Welcome back.