Saturday Night

I enjoyed Saturday Night, but not as much as I hoped. It was a little repetitive that Lorne Michaels was having so many problems on the show. There were good laughs and convincing performances of all the main characters/actors we watched, but there could've been a little more to it then the final 2 hours or so before the show aired it's first episode. I would've liked to know where Lorne Michaels had the idea of Saturday Night Live and what he produced before. It was mostly entertaining with good laughs, but kind of claustrophobic being in a sound stage almost always with a few scenes outdoors.

"SNL" has been around before I was born an "NBC" staple that I've watched some over the years, it's celebrated here with this auto bio type picture from Jason Reitman as it goes behind the scenes to see how the first and original show in Oct. Of 75 went on the air. The movie is funny and full of drama showing how the cast, crew and comedians, struggled to get it all together for Lorne Michaels to go on the air(hey he could even rival Johhny Carson!). The sets, clothing, and dialogue captures times of the early and mid 70's and seeing Chevy Chase, John Belushi, and Andy Kaufman in their early years was a historical laugh feast. Overall not the greatest still a film that any historical film buff should see.

This movie depicts the run up to the first performance of Saturday Night Live. The run up is shown as chaotic, frenzied, and disorganized, with no final list or ordering of sketches and the set still under construction. Creator/Director Lorne Michaels darts frantically between the cast, crew, writers, network executives, and special guests. All the frantic activity becomes tiring, but the 139-minute movie still manages to drag in a few places.

I wasn't there, but several events depicted seem to be of dubious historical accuracy, such as when Michaels wanders out of the building shortly before showtime. This makes me wonder if the chaos was created by the screenwriter and the director.

The most enjoyable part of the movie was watching the portrayals of the original cast members, although the portrayals of John Belushi and Chevy Chase seem exaggerated. Being familiar (or becoming familiar in advance) with the original cast members is helpful for getting the most out of Saturday Night. Overall, the movie is entertaining and occasionally funny but falls short of the high bar set by the original production.

This is one of those films where you see the trailer and think "How in the hell are they going to pull this off?" It's going to require taking risks, a lot of dramatic tension, some very funny dialogue, and anecdotes we haven't heard about 100 times in 50 years.

Jason Reitman (barring Ghostbusters sequels) can make some pretty decent films when paired with a writer who colors outside the box and digs deep into characters (Diablo Cody, for example, with Juno and Young Adult). Gil Kenan does not appear to be one of them, given this film's "insert the crowd pleaser here" script.

It seems like Kenan and Reitman are a little too cowed by the mythos of SNL to really try anything outside of too-timed "bits" that smack of bad sitcom or over-the-top dramatics that don't really generate any tension.

The cast is, by and large, pretty terrific... except for Gabirel LaBelle. Labelle often seems just befuddled and gaping-mouthed, characteristics I don't often equate when conjuring up the Lorne Michaels *I've* read about and seen over the past half century.

"Michaels was kind of a cypher" Reitman says in the film's commentary. Fair enough, and likely true, but it doesn't help to have this unknowable entity at the center of each scene. Many people have complained that the original core SNL cast is given rather short-shrift, and they're right. Again, Reitman says in the commentary "I wanted people to get to know not only the 80 some characters but the background actors as well...." And that was green-lit?

If you're an SNL fan, this is worth a watch, simply because it's a fascinating glimpse at how a show like SNL can even exist, week to week, without it being a seismic train wreck. Reitman manages to impress us in this regard. As a technical masterwork, it hums. And there are many fine performances (cameos?) here that pop: DaFoe, Simmons, Tracy Letts, Cory Smith's Chase is particularly good.

Cooper Hoffman maintains a hot wired mix of anxiety and bravura as Dick Ebersol... it's probably the strongest performance, with the most face time in this picture.

But having Phillip Seymour Hoffman for a dad, I'd say he's got a bit of an advantage in the genetic gift arena --- I'm guessing you'll see more of him soon and I for one can't wait. Jason Reitman comes from good stock too, but in this case he's maybe not playing to his strengths. In Saturday Night, he's drowning.

There's a scene at the end when LaBelle hires Josh Brener (playing legendary writer Alan Zweibel) at a hellish comedy club that exemplifies two things: first, the exaggerated facts of this piece and it's near miss misanthropy.

If Josh Brener, a subtle almost lethally understated comedic actor, had been cast as Lorne, this might have been a very funny movie.

Presented to us as occurring in "real time" as the hour and a half long movie counts down the last 90 minutes before the first episode of "Saturday Night Live" (then called "Saturday Night") went live on air. We are invited to witness and get dragged along backstage as we enter the chaos of this hollywood-magic version of the start of a legendary TV show.

Long time fans of SNL will enjoy spotting the many, many easter egg references to SNL's most-famous and beloved sketches, the majority of which would not have been present and ready before this first showing.

The pace and action are frenetic as disaster after disaster happen while the hundreds of tiny little gears required to make something like SNL all try to come together in some form which will work and produce a viable show by the time the curtain raises.

The character actors chosen to mimic the first cast are spot on and do a great job really embodying what are undoubtedly huge shoes to fill. They are extremely fun to watch and carry the majority of the film with great humor.

But I fear Lorne Michaels was miscast or poorly written, because as our main focus of this maelstrom of frustratingly inept administration, he largely devolved into an amateurish and annoying little twit we keep waiting an waiting and waiting to see rise to the occasion, and never truly does.

He can barely share his vision of the show with mealy-mouthed human words and wanders around from fire to fire, never actually putting any out and immediately forgetting them as he toddles on to the next.

When the first show is pulled off, it's largely because everyone else had been carrying on without him and made it work in spite of him.

I also just irrationally hate his face and the little look he gets when anything goes wrong; it's like an overwhelmed, pissed off toddler is smelling something bad.

This film is a fun bit of nostalgic fantasy homage. A visit from the spirit of SNL past. But it definitely is NOT a biopic recreation of what actually happened, and should not be viewed as such.

This is a film largely for the fans, and other viewers will find it hit or miss, and will most likely find themselves googling the mentioned sketches afterwards.