Jacob Hall

After of a month of the weekend box office being dominated by Split, the arrival of three new major releases has finally given the top 10 a thorough shake-up. As expected, The LEGO Batman Movie led the pack, with Fifty Shades Darker and John Wick: Chapter 2 following. And while each film opened strong, only two of them feel like unqualified successes.

The box office success of Moana feels like destiny: an old school Disney formula plus 21st century polish plus great songs plus the mere presence of Dwayne Johnson and near-universal critical notices is a surefire recipe for success...

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was never not going to have an enormous opening weekend. Toxic reviews and mixed word of mouth mean nothing next to hype — that title alone guaranteed a record-breaking start. And right now, Zack Snyder’s superhero epic does look like a gigantic hit. However, this weekend is really all about the trailers and posters and Warner Bros.’ omnipresent marketing. The real challenge will be next weekend, when the film’s legs will be properly tested.

Pardon the pun, but Zootopia is a beast. Disney Animation’s new film held on to the number one spot at the box office for the third weekend in a row and made it look easy. Not even Allegiant, the third film in the Divergent series, could topple it. Could the film end up pulling Frozen numbers? Maybe. Possibly. We’ll have to see how strong it stands in the face of a couple of superheroes.

In news that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone with a child in their life, Zootopia held on to the number one spot at the box office this weekend and made it look effortless. And yet, 10 Cloverfield Lane’s second place opening is nothing to scoff at, especially for a modestly budged, small-scale thriller (although the “Cloverfield” in the title certainly helped).

Last year, SNL was hosted by Republican presidential nominee frontrunner Donald Trump and the response was unkind, to say the least. Back then, he still seemed like a big joke — just a loudmouth who was surely going to drop out at any moment. And now, as he wins primary after primary, the beloved sketch show has slowly turned on Trump, culminating in a faux campaign ad that lands like a punch to the gut.

Last week, Beyoncé released a surprise new music video for her new song “Formation” and the world temporarily hit pause on itself so everyone could watch it, as is often the case when she does just about anything. However, this song and its video instantly courted controversy, as far too many white commenters and writers and what-have-you found themselves churning out think pieces and hot takes about how the beloved pop singer used this opportunity to embrace her heritage. In other words, a bunch of white people suddenly found themselves deeply uncomfortable that Beyoncé was black and SNL has parodied this with a fake movie trailer.

Around this time last year, SNL presented a commercial parody centering around Totino’s Pizza Rolls, just in time for the Super Bowl. And it was a nasty piece of business, tearing apart the image of the NFL’s biggest game as a day for men and imprisoning Vanessa Bayer’s indefatigable housewife in the kitchen, where she was simply tasked with warming up more disgusting food. So when SNL aired another Totino’s sketch in last night’s episode, we simply assumed it would be a carbon copy of the first one. Boy, were we wrong.

And like that, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders became the third presidential hopeful to appear on SNL this season. While Donald Trump hosted an entire episode last year and Hillary Clinton put in a brief appearance as a bartender counseling Kate McKinnon’s version of her, Sanders’ cameo is a bit more disconnected and bit weirder. Most importantly though, it puts him right next to guest host Larry David, who has been playing him in the show’s political sketches this season.

When the 2016 Oscar nominations were announced nearly two weeks ago, the response to the overwhelmingly white line-up of talent proved instantly controversial. Film fans and industry veterans alike gathered around the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag to make their voices heard, especially decrying how films starring black actors and directed by black filmmakers — like Creed and Straight Outta Compton — somehow managed to only receive nominations for the white people involved in making them. With material this ripe, of course SNL was going to take a swipe at the Academy Awards this week.