Saturday Night

I thought the frenetic pace of the movie was executed almost flawlessly. It kept moving, the camera swinging around the room to give the feeling like it was all in one take, or long takes.

The acting was fantastic, so many famous people were portrayed so well. What was really impressive was how many people we came across.

One reviewer stated that they were upset Gilda Radner wasn't featured more. I will say this is a fair criticism. She has a couple scenes but we don't get to hear her talk about her comedy. Although she does have a more thoughtful scene at an ice rink where she shows how free spirited and thoughtful she was.

As for the plausibility of the timeline of events, it's completely unrealistic. It's 45 minutes to air and people are just sitting in rooms hanging out. But at the same time, it's pretty brilliant because you get to see all these characters and also feel the anxiety of having a live show coming and still needing to work on the production up to the minute.

And the fact that the network didn't have confidence in the show and Lorne Michaels is running around trying to bring it together is probably how it really felt to bring something so new to TV.

And it was funny!

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.

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.

I expected to really enjoy 'Saturday Night'. I was hoping for a fast-paced and hilarious look at a historic night. They got the fast-paced bit down (perhaps even a little too fast-paced for its own good at times) but the hilarity never came. Instead the movie came across quite unpleasant, with forced drama for the most part.

There are a lot of characters in this movie and very few of them are interesting to watch. 1975 was far too long ago for most of us to know who these people are, but it seems like the movie just assumes that we will. And because of the structure there isn't much, if any, time to set up and develop the characters. So we are just told, here's a person who was there that night, enjoy their screen-time. I will say the scenes with Chevy Chase were interesting, but that probably worked for me because I know who he is and am a big fan.

I felt like there was so much potential for comedy and witty dialogue and yet it just never came. A funny situation would arise with a character taking drugs that were too powerful for them, but the movie was in such a hurry to get to the next scene that it couldn't breathe and become a memorable scene.

This probably sounds like a very negative review, and it is, but it's more negativity aimed at what this film could've and should've been, as opposed to the general quality of the film. It isn't a bad film, but it should have been so much more. 6/10.

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.