The season premiere of Saturday Night Live, which aired on September 13, delivered the show's highest ratings since 2002 (via HuffPo). The show was hosted by Michael Phelps (who didn't take his shirt off once!) and the opening sketch featured Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton. The Washington Note has the clip, with the headline "SNL Funny Again!" NewTeeVee is monitoring the clip's viral status (looking at "viral qualities," "star power," "mash-up potential," "current viral status," and "drawbacks") and rates it an 8 out of 10: "It's one voice in the chorus of people mocking the governor of Alaska--but it's the star soprano." TV Squad discusses the entire episode, calling Phelps's performance "pretty awkward, but at least they didn't give him a lot of crazy characters to struggle through." What's does Palin say? She thought it was "quite funny" said a campaign adviser (via The Caucus). 

Joel and Ethan Coen's new comedy, Burn After Reading, was #1 at the box office this weekend, bringing in $19.4 million (via HuffPo), which makes it their most successful debut ever (via EW.com). Film School Rejects writes, "It has the violence of Fargo, the funny 'George Clooney eyebrow effect' of O Brother, the zaniness of Arizona, the manic divorce talk of Cruelty, and the 'plan gone awry' theme of EVERY Coen film ever made. What's more is that it has a Coen stamp if its own, and it's a very solid movie." Pop Critics thinks the movie will inspire a new drinking game where you drink every time John Malkovich says "What the ***k."

And Deborah Kampmeier's controversial Hounddog, in which Dakota Fanning's character is raped by an older boy, will be released in limited theaters this Friday after being delayed several times. "People were petitioning to have me arrested for child pornography. There were petitions to have Dakota's mother arrested. We had a bodyguard at the Sundance screening. There were death threats against me," Kampmeier told the LA Times. Videogum has the trailer, has seen the film in its entirety and says it wasn't good, plus "I watched the entire trailer for the other Dakota Fanning movie set in the South coming out this month, The Secret Life Of Bees, wondering 'Okay, but when does she get raped' before realizing that was another movie." Dave at The Bad and Ugly got to read Hounddog when it was still being shopped around, and "can't imagine the film turning out to be one iota of awesome."