SATURDAY NIGHT (R)
Jason Reitman’s “Saturday Night,” a frenetic recreation of “Saturday Night Live’s” first airing 49 years ago today, had me concerned for the first half of its running time.
The film is decidedly high energy and filled with the kind of inside jokes and winking asides that “Saturday Night Live” fans will surely appreciate. For a while, Reitman’s roving camera seems to playing “Where’s Waldo,” dunking you right into the madness while introducing dozens of younger versions of comedic and musical luminaries; with everyone from John Belushi to Gilda Radner rubbing elbows with a frazzled Jim Henson or Billy Preston. Diving head-first into the mayhem isn’t without its charms. My concern was simply that we might not ever be let up for air.
From the opening frames, the movie-going audience is caught by the belt to a whirling dervish as we follow young producer Lorne Michaels (“The Fabelman’s” Gabriel LaBelle) as he tries to put out fires, lock an unwieldy script, and keep NBC from canceling his show before it even makes it to air. To break down all the bits of television history, references and asides that make up the first portion of the film requires a longer format than we have here to dissect. But, suffice to say, during this shotgun wedding approach to the proceedings, I was concerned that the film would remain in this mode; pedal to the floor, rip-roaring its way through reference after reference as these crazy comedy kids snub their nose at the chaos before taking their inevitable place among TV royalty. And then, around the halfway mark, the film shifted with a phone call.
Midway through the movie, Lorne Michaels takes a phone call from Johnny Carson, the God of Late Night. Over the course of this less-than-cordial exchange, we learn that Carson is expecting the young counter-cultural whippersnappers to crash and burn, thereby reasserting his place as king of the network. Soon Lorne learns that everything that he has been allowed by NBC, the money, the unwieldy equipment, the cast of nobodies, has simply been enough rope to hang himself with. They want him to fail. They want all of them to fail.
Now I have no idea how realistic this is to the truth of the matter. I recently read something from Dan Akroyd that seemed to imply that the first night of SNL was a largely ‘by the book’ affair. But as the movie swerves into its second act, we see our still-wet behind-the-ears luminaries facing the full brunt of television history and finding a formidable opponent. The odds are stacked against them and there is a chance they might implode spectacularly. Now, THAT is a story worth putting down my cold, hard cash to see.
The best scene in the movie is one where Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) finds his fiancé being flirted with by Milton Berle (J.K. Simmons). Chase, who has been playing himself as the coolest guy in the room the whole night, tries to pull the same card on Berle; only to be outdone by the blind, crude, confidence of the elder star. To see Chase, historically as much a pain in the butt as anyone in show business, knocked on his heels felt like I was given a window into the soul of the man. Not as the star he would become, but as the kid who had talent and moxie but was still very much a kid. The movie crescendos with several sequences of this type, allowing these larger-than-life people a chance to come back to Earth and show the fragility behind the hilarity.
To my relief, Reitman finds a story worth telling after all, that of a bunch of hip kids fighting a skyscraper-sized Goliath with only a few cutting barbs and Andy Kaufman bits at their disposal. Though the movie is still racing toward the inevitable conclusion, the challenge for Michaels and his merry band of weirdos feels righteous, because we have seen them as underdogs. These kids just wanted to put on a show, needed to put on a show, and had to fight to make sure it lived to see the light of day. And I must say, by the movie’s end, I couldn’t help but be grateful to those sloppy, silly people for doing just that.
“Saturday Night” is playing at The Broad Theater and Prytania Theatre Canal Place.
TERRIFIER 3 (UNRATED)
The bloodier of a pair of murderous clown films screening wide across the US, “Terrifier 3” is the kind of film that I am delighted to have back in the culture. It has been too long since horror has had a proper icon, even longer since we’ve had a proper slasher icon. Now on his third blood-drenched adventure, Art The Clown has fully come into his own; with his grease paint grin seen everywhere from your local AMC to the Spirit Halloween. A proper gore fest that harkens back to the days when Freddy and Jason were hacking away at audiences, The Terrifier films are “Buyer Beware” type of movies. You know if they are for you. But rest assured, these films will be sleepover fare for a generation of fledgling horror fans, and the age of the slasher has returned in full force. So, if you’re up for it, join the rest of us sickos and check out what kind of yuletide abomination Art has cooking up for the Christmas season.
You’ll be glad you did.
“Terrifier 3” is playing at The Broad Theater and Prytania Theatres at Canal Place.
