And now for everything that reminds us that Saturday Night Live is never quite as good as we want it to be.

Actors impersonating characters

During the “Weekend Update” bit several actors appeared as famous SNL characters. Emma Stone impersonated Gilda Radner’s “Ros…      

It’s become a somewhat annual tradition for the gossip-well to run dry just before the Oscars. Things should pick up next week, I promise! But for now, let’s talk about Jennifer Aniston’s big 46th birthday party last week. E! News says Aniston “organized an epic celebration” with all of her celebrity friends, including Jimmy Kimmel, Courteney Cox, Malin Akerman, John Krasinski, Tobey Maguire (and wife Jennifer Meyer), Lake Bell and many more. They partied at the Roosevelt Hotel’s Spare Room. According to Us Weekly, they played games, bowled, and enjoyed the fully stocked bar. Sounds like a nice birthday party.

Justin Theroux was obviously at her b-day party too, because I guess he doesn’t need to be in NYC for season 2 of The Leftovers. Yet! Many of us also assume that Justin will be on the red carpet with Jennifer at the Oscars this Sunday, as she was asked to present. She made it to all of the big awards shows this year, by hook or by crook – she was legitimately nominated at the Critics Choice, SAGs and Golden Globes, and now she’s presenting at the Oscars. Speaking of her previous appearances, In Touch Weekly had a story last week about Jennifer being “hurt” by the criticism of her “saggy” bust at the Critics Choice and SAGs. A source claimed that Jennifer is really “sensitive about them not looking as good as they once did.” The source also claimed she was thinking about getting a breast lift. But Jennifer’s rep, Stephen Huvane, told RumorFix that the rumor was “completely ridiculous.” For what it’s worth.

And finally, there are some UK tabloid reports that Justin and Jennifer have finally worked through their pre-nup issues and it should be smooth sailing to the wedding. Yeah right. Apparently, Justin asked for a “cheating clause” which would have had Jennifer paying him $2 million if she cheated on him, but that’s now off the table. Sources claim that their pre-nup now says that if they divorce, Justin will only walk away with $1.5 million of Jennifer’s money. I don’t know, this whole story sounds completely made up.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Like Saturday Night Live itself, the 40th anniversary celebration show was a mixed bag. Here’s everything that was good.

Andy Samberg’s digital short

Because they are ALWAYS good, but this one, sung with Adam Sandler featuring an assist from Chris Parnell, highlighted the his…      

During a Monday appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, newlywed Benedict Cumberbatch dished on his recent wedding and impending fatherhood.

The Oscar nominee – who wed Sophie Hunter on Valentine’s Day – started off the interview by apologizing to Kimmel for not inviting him to the ceremony.

But there were no hard feelings.

In the spirit of Cumberbatch’s working honeymoon, the pair drank piña coladas to a tropical island backdrop.

“Later we’ll make love,” Kimmel joked.

The host went on to congratulation the Imitation Game star‘s “Cumberbun in the oven” and asked if the baby will take his last name.

“Poor child, I think it’ll have to,” said Cumberbatch, remaining mum on the baby’s gender. “That’s kind of the tradition.”

Kimmel went on to suggest choosing a name beginning with a Q so the child would go by “Q. Cumberbatch.”

“Too soon,” the actor, 38, responded with a laugh.

Regarding last year’s Oscars prank on U2, Cumberbatch said, “There was a lot of vodka being passed around on the red carpet, which I think is one of the reasons I did the photobombing. I blame it on the vodka.”

Last week, Ariana Grande released the fourth single from her 2014 album, My Everything. The song is called One Last Time and is a catchy forgettable little tune about wanting to get an ex back. The video, directed by 29 year-old Max Landis (The son of director John Landis), features Ariana running through a montage of post-apocalyptic scenes on the earth’s last day. Spoiler: she ends up kissing a guy at the end as the sky lights up with pink fires, which are presumably from meteors which wipe out humanity. It’s a decent concept for a video and it kept me watching. The problem is, there’s already a music video featuring a woman running through scenes of post-apocalyptic chaos until the end, when she kisses a guy before the sky lights up with pink meteors which blow up the earth. That video is 2014?s You Are The One, by the Australian group SAFIA. SAFIA issued a statement on Facebook calling out Ariana’s video.

This might just be coincidence but to us it looks like either the people at Ariana Grande’s label or the film maker have seen our clip for ‘You Are The One’ & reworked the concept a little bit and then straight up stolen and copied some bits…(ESPECIALLY THE END!)

Wouldn’t be the first time uncreative talentless f*cks from big labels and/or big film firms steal ideas from small independent creatives who are trying really hard to make something different for a change…

[From Facebook via Contact Music]

SAFIA also posted a side-by-side of the end of Ariana’s video and their video. It was similar to these two screenshots from the videos.

In response to this, director Max Landis got equally pissy on Twitter. He accused SAFIA of stealing their video too (From Injured Ninja, this video is from 2011) and claimed that it was just a trope he was using. Here are some of his tweets on this and he’s written so much more on Twitter if you’re interested.

No but seriously for people who are saying we stole @SAFIAmusic ‘s video, they should watch @Injured_Ninja’s video
https://t.co/GPxnowixYJ

— Max Landis (@Uptomyknees) February 17, 2015

Protip: don’t accuse someone of stealing for having similar tropes if you REALLY ACTUALLY STOLE YOUR VIDEO YOU’RE ACCUSING THEM OF STEALING.

— Max Landis (@Uptomyknees) February 17, 2015

coincidences are coincidences
tropes are tropes
But those in glass houses shouldn’t throw meteors.

— Max Landis (@Uptomyknees) February 17, 2015

Landis also tweeted “Everyone in the biz said “stay quiet, let it blow over” f*k that. i respect Ariana way too much to let her get called a thief.” For the record, Landis was getting called a thief not Ariana, and his argument is basically “you stole it too,” and “tropes are open to everyone.” That’s weak. Ariana’s videos is at least derivative of SAFIA’s, especially the ending. At least SAFIA’s video has a different ending than Injured Ninja’s.

I don’t care too much how this turns out, but I do think that Landis’ response was telling. Instead of admitting inspiration or apologizing he’s getting defensive and accusatory.

Here are the two videos:

Ariana Grande: One Last Time

SAFIA: You Are The One

photo credit: WENN.com

During a Tuesday appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, mum-to-be Keira Knightley opened up about her first pregnancy and her birth plan.

“Sorry, but what is the plan apart from to get it out?,” Knightley joked when asked about her birth plan. “There isn’t an option to sort of keep it in, is there?”

“So, I’m assuming my plan is to get it out,” she added. “But apparently there’s more to the plan than that. I don’t know what that is. Still, my plan is to get it out. It will come out.”

The host went on to remind The Imitation Game star, 29, that “back in the day, people would be in the field and have a child.”

“Yeah, just drop it out and keep working,” Knightley quipped. “Pick it up…yeah, that’s my plan.”

The pregnant actress jokingly recalled a visit to her doctor.

“When can I drink?,” she asked her doctor. “Please? I just want a margarita! I’m up for an Oscar and I can’t drink!”

That said, Knightley and her husband, musician James Righton, are “having a great time,” she said. “I’m eating for two and he’s drinking for two!”

When asked about her baby’s gender, Knightley said, “No, I don’t know.”

Kanye West has a really, really long interview with Style.com this week, all about his collaboration with Adidas and his NYFW show last week. This is what bugs me about Kanye: he’s taken seriously within the fashion community, but he always acts like the world is against him. He has a massive martyr complex about everything, even when Anna Wintour is sitting right there, supporting his every move. Even when he gets a prime NYFW slot and he gets to work with some of the most experienced people in fashion, even when money is no object, Kanye is still positioning himself as an underdog. You can read the full Style.com piece here (it’s SO MUCH Kanye) and here are a handful of highlights:

He doesn’t read reviews: “I don’t read the reviews, because it’s some kind of backhanded compliment or something focusing on not the main point. It was really difficult to do this. It would be difficult to make a proposition this simple for any designer. So many people told me that it had to have logos or it had to have this, but I fought for exactly what I wanted in my closet. I fought for what was true to me … There are a lot of kids in the streets that have waited for someone to speak for them and what they’re doing and for them to connect with it directly. And that’s what I’m here to do. Just as the last photo showed you, I’ve got an army behind me, so unless the reviewer is recognizing the army, they’re not recognizing the tank coming. I mean, I don’t know if people felt this, but it’s too late. Like the Drake album says, if you’re reading this, it’s already too late. If you’re seeing this, it’s already too late.

The best red carpet look of all time? “I believe the category of ready-to-wear should be removed. I’m biased, but I think the best red-carpet look of all time—if not, one of the top five—was my wife’s look at the Grammys. You know what [Jean Paul Gaultier] just did. He said, “F–k the sh-t. I’m making real sh-t. I’m doing perfume and couture.” And by focusing on that, he delivered … I just think for me as a person that dresses the most photographed person in the world, I get bored with ready-to-wear really easily. Here’s this glamorous being, this modern-day Helmut Newton girl, and you just get this “mid” thing. I just feel like we’ve been hit with this barrage of extreme medium. And you never go and ask, “Hey, can I get an extreme medium?”

Kim is always his muse: “She was always my muse, now she’s become other designers’ muses. Or designers’ muses, because like I said, I don’t want to disrespect designers by calling myself a designer, I just think I have a vision of something that I want to do. But God has a special way to teach people through life. I guess I got a little more credit for my second collection than my first, for whatever that is worth. But soon as we started dating, fashion people were really opposed to the idea of reality stars. And all the relationships, the somewhat friends that I had somewhat built up, completely turned their backs on her and me. They already had their back to her, and now they turned it to me. The so-called traction that I was getting in the high-fashion world was completely thrown out the window and I was finally allowed to go to school, where every day I was in my mom [Kris Jenner]’s house, in my little brother’s old room, Rob’s old room, re-tailoring a Céline skirt, re-tailoring a Saint Laurent jacket, re-tailoring a Zara top, re-tailoring Wolford … And day by day by day, [Kim and I] learned, we got better. We looked at the photographs together and she improved my style, we improved each other.

Whether the NYFW audience was on his side: “This audience isn’t on my side, anyways. It’s the fashion audience. They’re not even on their own side.”

Chic: “I dislike the concept of chic being the highest compliment for a human being. I’d rather someone be nice than to be chic.”

The realization: “And I realized that it had all been a scam, that it had all been smoke and mirrors to present this concept that a straight black guy out of Chicago that’s a rapper, that’s married to a reality star, could somehow not design a coat, that can’t design a T-shirt, that can’t have enough of an opinion. You know, it’s like voting. Fashion is merely an opinion. And I’ve got a lot of opinions.

Racism: “Racism and the focus on racism is a distraction to humanity. It would be like focusing on the cousin from your mom’s side versus the cousin on your dad’s side. We’re all cousins. We’re all the same race. To even focus on the concept of race, it’s like—perhaps people give me an extra cookie for the fact that my color palette is so controlled and I’m black. When someone that’s like, racist, comes up to me at A.P.C. and says, “I thought it would be a bunch of animals on your shirts,” because they heard that I rapped. But it just makes the journey interesting. We came into a broken world. And we’re the cleanup crew. And we’re only cleaning up by helping each other.

[From Style.com]

Kanye actually makes several stabs at humility throughout the piece, although I have to admit, by “Chapter 3” of this interview, I did stop reading. The biggest headlines are about his “muse” Kim Kardashian and how he calls Kris Jenner his mom and all of that, but if you have a good 20-30 minutes, I would suggest reading the whole interview in depth. It’s a whole lotta Yeezy, but he’s always interesting. You don’t have to agree with him, you can laugh about what he says about fashion and Kim and art, but he IS interesting.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I understand opening SNL40 with Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake. It certainly wasn’t a surprise though. This is a great example of choosing to give people what they want over what they need. Then again, the idea of a reunion show is a “want over need” situation to begin with. It …      

Alright, I’ll admit it. I was wrong! A few weeks ago, I believed a story about Amal and George Clooney and it looks like I was sort of wrong. The story was about Amal and George having some growing pains as a married couple, and Amal deciding to spend a month or so in London, or on the road for her job. While Amal has been traveling in Europe and the Middle East over the past month, it seems like she’s made LA her homebase, and she’s been flying back to see George whenever she can. And it seems like she “can” more than we think.

It looks like the honeymoon phase is far from over for Mr. and Mrs. Clooney! The actor, 53, and his barrister wife Amal spent their first Valentine’s Day as newlyweds at one of Clooney’s favorite dinner spots Saturday night, Asanebo in Studio City, California.

The couple looked happy and affectionate as they were spotted leaving the sushi restaurant, smiling and holding hands. Amal – whose style choices have already grabbed headlines – donned a tan, fringed cape, booties and an oversized blue clutch. George, who kept it casual in jeans and a short-sleeved grey button, had his arm around his wife’s waist at one point.

George and Amal’s first several months of marriage have been full of celebration. They toasted Amal’s 37th birthday Feb. 1 with a casual dinner with close friends at their home and made their first red carpet appearance at the 2015 Golden Globes on Jan. 11.

The couple also topped their newlywed glow with some sunshine on a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, last week, where they were joined by Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber, a source tells PEOPLE. They relaxed at the El Dorado Golf & Beach Club and “enjoyed a few days in the sun with friends,” the source says.

[From People]

They were in Cabo AGAIN last week with Cindy and Rande?! They were just in Cabo over the holidays! Amal might be tired of always vacationing with Rande and Cindy, right? Sure, none of George’s girls ever complained about it before, but I have a serious question: after their honeymoon, have George and Amal spent any quality downtime alone, just the two of them? Also: it’s worth noting that while Amal and George were on vacation in Cabo, George’s press machine was working overtime to remind everyone of all of Amal’s legal work. It’s sort of a Duchess Kate move – release new “work” information while on vacation. Interesting.

You can see the photos of George and Amal out on V-Day here.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

I didn’t cover Sarah Palin’s whackadoodle appearance at an Iowa Summit last month, mostly because it was pure politics. Palin’s Iowa speech was so crazy and nonsensical, even die-hard conservatives were like “Whoa.” You can see the whole speech here. Sample quote: “GOP leaders, by the way, y’know the man can only ride ya when your back is bent. So strengthen it. Then the man can’t ride ya, America won’t be taken for a ride.”

Why bring this up? Because it’s like Palin is a malfunctioning fembot these days. Someone spilled water on her motherboard or something. While at the Saturday Night Live event, Palin spoke to People Magazine and I think I know what she was trying to say – that Tina Fey’s impression was great AND a political disaster – but Palin just went with a word salad jumble.

Tina Fey, Sarah Palin has a bone to pick with you. While on the carpet ahead of Saturday Night Live’s 40th anniversary special, the former Republican VP candidate called out Fey for not sharing the wealth.

“Well, have I helped her career or has she helped mine? I’m like come on Tina, you should be paying my kids’ braces or something,” Palin told reporters when asked whether being impersonated by Fey on the series had helped her career. “She’s so good, though. I really respect her and her work ethic and her capitalization, you know, on the opportunity.

In fact, Palin, 51, said Fey’s uncanny impersonation is so good that the Alaskan finds her own self being fooled by it.

“You know, I’ll do a double take every time I see her on a rerun or a picture of her,” the mother of five said.

And there are no hard feelings? “I think she’s great,” Palin confirmed. “I just talked to her again today and I brought her girls some Alaskan grown sweatshirts and hoodies. I really respect her.”

[From People]

“I really respect her and her work ethic and her capitalization, you know, on the opportunity…” Her capitalization on the opportunity? As in, Tina Fey capitalized on the fact that she looked like Palin? To hear Fey tell it, Lorne Michaels pretty much begged her to come back to SNL and play Palin and it really threw a wrench into Fey’s schedule at the time. Fey was already a well-established comedic talent too, so it’s weird that Palin makes it sound like Tina Fey built her career on impersonating Palin. Like, if there was no Sarah Palin, Tina Fey wouldn’t exist as a well-known comedienne? Which is utter crap.

Also: “You should be paying FOR my kids’ braces or something.” Not “paying my kids’ braces.”

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.