I have no idea if Jason Reitman was a Studio 60 on Sunset Strip fan but man it sure feels like I’m watching Saturday night. Anyway, Reitman’s film – about 90 minutes leading up to the premiere episode of Saturday night live – is extremely Sorkinesque, from the labyrinthine walks and conversations around Studio 8H to the dialogue that is sometimes quite clever but rarely funny. (Personally, I would like a film about Saturday night live to be funny. The Actors Playing Season 1 Cast and Crew SNL We laugh a lot more at each other on the screen than in my seat at the theater.)
Yet, Saturday nightThe concept is undeniably clever: tell an expanded version of the hour and a half before the SNLThe debut of real-time — although “real-time” here is a bit unrealistic. (Somehow, a movie that takes place between 10pm and 11:30pm lasts 110 minutes.) Even more than that: structure those 90 minutes like an episode of SNL. Saturday night includes offbeat comedy sketches, musical guests (Billy Preston and Janis Ian, played by Jon Batiste and Naomi McPherson, respectively), monologues (Tracy Letts, a veteran TV writer who delivers an elaborate prediction of a cast member’s future rise and fall ), celebrity cameos (hey, there’s Finn Wolfhard as an anonymous NBC page!), bits that don’t quite work (Nicholas Braun plays Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson for no reason), the whole thing gets a little complicated in the final 15 minutes, and in the last scene the entire cast is there at the house to send you off for the night.
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That night: October 11, 1975. That’s when the producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) and NBC executive Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) pitch their bold idea for a new kind of late-night TV comedy: an edgy variety show featuring stand-up, rock and roll and a repertory company of up-and-coming comedians. . who were mostly unknown to mainstream America.
As NBC Saturday Night (as it was known back then) approaches show time, the entire production is in complete disarray. A lighting rig falls during rehearsal, nearly killing actor John Belushi (Matt Wood), who has not yet signed his talent contract. Muppet maestro Jim Henson (Braun) doesn’t have a script for his sketch. Despite being the old man who got laughs during a disastrous dress rehearsal, Billy Crystal (Nicholas Podany) doesn’t know if his long monologue will make it to air. All the while, as the NBC censor (Catherine Curtain) continues to eliminate profanity from head writer Michael O’Donoghue’s (Tommy Dewey) scripts.
Most importantly, NBC’s talented head of talent, David Tebet (Willem Dafoe) isn’t convinced Michaels’ show is ready for prime time; If he can’t get the team together, Tebet promises to pull the plug and broadcast a rerun of Johnny Carson Tonight’s show. As the seconds tick down to 11:30, Lorne rallies his team and fights for the integrity of a creative vision he still can’t fully articulate. (Pressured by Ebersol to tell him what Saturday night that is, Michaels will only admit that he is sure of the “ingredients” but not the “proportions.”)
Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan’s concept of a frantic race to the finish that plays like a pseudo SNL episode doesn’t sync perfectly with the real story of the first SNL. It’s been a few years since I reread it Live from New YorkJames Andrew Miller and Tom Shales’ incredible oral history of SNLor the underrated Saturday Night: A Behind-the-Scenes Story of Saturday Night Live by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, but even if you’ve never read a page of either of them, some of the notes made in Reitman’s book Saturday night are simply patently false. To choose just one: According to the film, 15 minutes before the premiere of the first SNLJohn Belushi, Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt) and Lorne Michaels were casually relaxing at the Rockefeller Center ice skating rink. Really? And the track opened at the beginning of October? And no one else was using the rink or standing anywhere in the square?
This is one of many strange, unbelievable moments that pile up like so many discarded cards at the end of the film. Then Saturday nightIt’s not a great story. But if you want history, read the books mentioned. I suppose the reason you’re going to watch this movie is the energy, which Saturday night has it in abundance. The swirling Steadicam shots, the edgy score, the on-screen clock counting down the minutes until it airs, plus some performances that really nail the Not Ready For Primetime Players vibe, especially Dewey as the rebellious Michael O’Donoghue, Cory Michael Smith as the arrogant Chevrolet Chaseand especially Lamorne Morris, who nails the speech rhythms and slinky physicality of Garrett Morris and gets some strong scenes where he legitimately questions his role in the nascent series.
In many ways, Saturday night and no what is the production of the first SNL it was like. That’s because Saturday night It’s not actually about the first one SNL recording, or about the history of the program in a more general sense. It’s about the mythology of this proving ground for the greatest minds in American comedy for half a century and counting. Reitman clearly made this film out of a sense of love and admiration for the institution of SNL and the people, then and now, who produce it. He may sometimes misinterpret facts; What he gets right is the feeling that every fan who grows up watching SNL you’re welcome the show is like backstage – dizzying, chaotic and filled with passionate creativity.
To watch Saturday night is to have a taste not only of Saturday nightfirst night, but an idealized microcosm of what it’s like behind the scenes all night. And if that was the pilot of Studio 60I absolutely would have watched Episode 2.
Additional Thoughts
-It’s hard enough to make a biopic about a famous person, where you need someone who not only looks and acts like an iconic figure, but who has to deliver a performance that rises above the level of SNLstyle imitation. Saturday night and all famous people. Some of the actors don’t look like their real-world counterparts (Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd), some don’t look like their real-world counterparts (LaBelle), and some don’t look like or they sound like their real-world counterparts. (JK Simmons like Milton Berle, who wasn’t even in the premiere episode of SNL.)
-The longer I get with that whole cast, the more I wonder if the questionable similarities could be intentional. After all, where would you be? Saturday night live not getting impressions of famous people from cast members who bear no resemblance to the people they played? (See photos of Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford if you don’t believe me.) Maybe this adds more to the vibe Reitman is going for from the best SNL episode, in film form.
RATING: 6/10
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