Movie Number 34 of 2024
The Movie: Saturday Night
The Cinema: Village Cinemas, Rivoli, Gold Class
Stars: 4.5
Saturday Night Live is not as big a thing in Australia than it is in America, however, now, with the internet, we're seeing a lot more of the show's revolutionary skits and entertainment.
This movie gives an insight into the shown inception. According to IMDB.com "At 11:30pm on October 11th, 1975, a ferocious troupe of young comedians and writers changed television forever. Find out what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live."
What comes of this film is a look at the absolute chaos that was the first show of Saturday Night Live. We meet Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) the producer who's trying to keep his merry band in order while keeping the executives placated. There's John Belushi (Matt Wood) who hasn't signed his contract is being a petulant arsehole. Of course, there's Chevy Chase (Corey Michael Smith) charming everybody and everything in sight. Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott) is trying to keep her marriage to Lorne a secret. Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt) is trying to keep Belushi in his place. And Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris) and Dan Ackroyd (Dylan O'Brien) just want to get on with the job as Billy Crystal (Nicholas Podany) complains about his airtime being cut.
The stage is not built, the script is not ready and the executives, headed by Dave Tebut (Willem Defoe) are ready to pull the plug on the whole thing and put on an episode of Johnny Carson.
Saturday Night captures perfectly that time when things were on the precipice of change. A time where things were television was run by aging white guys. The show was about to sweep the floor with all of that. Even the censor, Joan Carbunkle (Catherine Curtin) has a hard time working out what's going on - and she provides some of the best laughs.
This film only looks at this bonkers hour and a half, and it is brilliant in what it does. Jason Reitman's direction keeps every moving at breakneck speed. The use of a handheld camera to give a shaky feel to the whole experience brings more urgency to the film.
Another great thing about this film is some of the cameos, which have you scratching your head and gasping at the brilliance of the casting. Nicholas Braun, best known as Cousin Greg in Succession, is wonderful as both Andy Kaufman and The Muppets Jim Henson. JK Simmons is a creepy as all hell as Milton Berle. And an unrecognisable Matthew Rhys embodies George Carlin.
The costumes and sets are on point for 1995. For the nearly two hours of the film, you are in 1975, that hard smoking, polyester lined era where OHS was an afterthought.
For lovers of television, history and a good chuckle, this comes highly recommended. They've done an excellent job of this one.
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