BEFORE: I'm sending a Labor Day Weekend SHOUT-out today to the people who work in television production - I'd love to join their ranks but I have not been able to find a way in. I applied for some jobs at NBC and didn't hear back, so clearly they don't want me. So I've had to come up with other plans - life is what happens to us when we're busy making other plans, as John Lennon once sang.
I think the trickiest part of linking movies together in a chain is not putting the chain together, hell, that's easy, but it's knowing WHEN to tear it apart and put it back together again. I already addressed the emergency work that had to be done when I saw there was a bad link in the upcoming October horror chain, but this is different - back in early August I couldn't see past August 31. I had no idea how September was going to play out, if there was any way to fill the gap between 9/1 and 10/1, since the entry point of the horror chain was already set, and I didn't want to change it. Really I had just put "Nickel Boys" on the schedule for the last film in August and I was hoping for the best.
But something was nagging at me, and it was the fact that "Saturday Night" was going to fall on a Tuesday, and come on, I can do better than that. I found a set of nine films in August that could be flipped around, the former tail end happened to connect to another film 10 days before, and while that would put a different film on August 31, "Nickel Boys" moved up to August 19, and now my review of "Saturday Night" could fall on a Saturday, as God intended.
No lie, once I did that, it reduced the September possibilities to a set that I could really focus on, and September's programming really just kind of all fell into place after that. In fact, I came up with TWO chains for September and I got to choose between them - you know I'm going to pick the road less traveled by, because I heard somewhere that makes all the difference. Linking to horror films was kind of a snap from there, plus we all know that once the horror films are witched, it's just a hop, skip and a jump to Christmas. So moving "Saturday Night" to a Saturday was a key part of getting a chain that would take me to the end of the year, who knew?
James Logan carries over from "Paradox", and I mean, come on, who can forget the gravitas that he brought to the role of "Security Guard #1" in yesterday's film? I know that's the kind of acting work that's going to stay with me for a long, long time.
THE PLOT: At 11:30 pm on October 11, 1975, a 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".
AFTER: This is the tale of plucky upstart producer Lorne Michaels, who is having one of those days - which would be fine, when you're a producer that kind of comes with the territory, but it's not ideal when your new comedy show is going live in an hour and a half and the network censor hasn't signed off on the script, the bricks on the stage have yet to be installed, and the lights are falling from the studio ceiling. To make matters even worse, two of the hired actors are fighting, one of them hasn't signed his contract yet, and the head writer is refusing to write a script for the Muppets. And then on top of all THAT, the network affiliates are in town and want to get a peek at the new show, a dress rehearsal still needs to happen, and a network coordinator is ready and willing to run a repeat of "The Tonight Show" if he feels the new show just isn't going to work.
This is all told in the style of "Birdman" with the camera following the director/producer around the backstage area, only with fewer hallucinations and more crazy characters, much like the ones you might find in a Wes Anderson movie. I really would have loved to see the chaotic 90 minutes before the SNL premiere presented as one long take, but I realize how difficult that would have been to pull off. Though the film is about 100 minutes long (before credits) so there's a chance that it does play out in real time.
I've done my time in the producing arena, and sure, I've had days like that. Well, not exactly because I never worked in live TV - my toughest days usually involved leaving the San Diego Comic-Con with four boxes and trying to find a cab that would take me to a UPS shipping center and then on to the airport, only to have the cab drop me on the wrong side of the strip mall, then having to figure out how to get four boxes the rest of the way all by myself. Maybe the other worst day I can remember was being in charge of the studio on 23rd St. in 2001 when the landlord locked the doors because of unpaid rent during a week when my boss was out of town. Then I had to convince him to let me in JUST to get the bare necessities of what we needed to finish the next film, I mean really, who needs office furniture anyway? The accounting and the copyright files were much more important. Maybe the Academy Awards paperwork, you know, priorities.
If there WERE an Oscar for casting directors, which there is NOT, I would really say this one had a real shot at a nomination. I mean, come on, some of the casting is stunt casting, like John Batiste as Billy Preston - he doesn't really look like Billy, but he's got the musical chops, and we can all just imagine he looks more like Billy I guess. But the guy who played the Riddler in "Gotham" as Chevy Chase? That's DAMN inspired, he looks just like him, and he's got Chevy's arrogant confidence DOWN. Same goes for the guy cast as Dan Aykroyd, he nailed it, and I went right to the IMDB to figure out where I'd seen him before. A few more inspired standouts were Matthew Rhys as George Carlin, Lamorne Morris (no relation) as Garrett Morris, Paul Rust as Paul Shaffer, and of course J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle.
OK, I lied, I'm going to nit-pick here, they couldn't find actresses who looked a bit more like Jane Curtin and Gilda Radner? I mean, why come SO close on Aykroyd and Chase and then miss the mark on some of the others? Did the casting directors even check to see if Jane Curtin had a daughter (OK, granddaughter) who maybe looks like her?
I'm honestly shocked that none of the more recent SNL stars had an opportunity to get in on this, why not cameos from Sarah Sherman as a wardrobe assistant or Mikey Day or Beck Bennett as staff writers? Too real? Now I want to see the behind-the-scenes film about the making of "Saturday Night", which is the behind-the-scenes film about the making of "Saturday Night Live". Oh, sorry, is that a bit too meta for you?
Now, do I believe that the night in question went down exactly like this? Eh, yes and no - I'm sure they hyped things up a bit for the sake of dramatic tension - like I'm pretty sure they'd rig the lights in a studio the day BEFORE the show, not two hours before air. The bricks for that special part of the stage really arrived the morning of the show, also not an hour before showtime. Did Chevy Chase and Belushi throw down? Yeah, probably. Did Belushi also wander off the set before showtime? That tracks, too, but it also feels like that may have seeped in from another time or another incident. Did Billy Crystal get cut from the first show? That definitely happened, though he did eventually join the show in 1984, Christopher Guest similarly got cut before the first episode and rejoined at the same time.
It was a different time, that's for sure - back in those days you could see a guy hawking "Free Comedy" tickets on the street outside 30 Rock and get a chance to witness TV history being made. These days if someone is handing out "Free Comedy" tickets it's probably a scam where you have to fill out a form and someone then steals your identity, or you have to listen to a whole time-share presentation before the "comedy" starts. What I really wanted to know was more about the 1970's vibe, like it's clear that everybody in the cast and crew was having sex with each other, I guess they just didn't want to name any names here. Lorne Michaels' wife is a very interesting character just because of that 1970's free-love vibe. It seems like they had some kind of open marriage and she took a shine to various members of the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players at different times. Please tell me there's a tell-all book about this somewhere.
You may recall that earlier this year SNL had their gala 50th Anniversary celebration broadcast, now I know it was probably a timing thing, but if you ask me, they celebrated just a bit too early. Check the calendar, the first episode was broadcast on October 11, 1975 - to me that means that the real 50th anniversary is still coming up in two months, we're not there yet. They chose to throw themselves a party midway through the show's 50th season, hmm, that's not how anniversaries work, though. The show was only 49 years and three months old when they whooped it up, perhaps that's when Eddie Murphy and Will Ferrell were both available or something.
Sesame Street kind of did the same thing, they started celebrating their anniversary at the START of their 50th year, and nope, that's really your 49th anniversary, you have to wait until the END of that year. Some jack-off this July 4 (oh, right, it was the President) had a speech about celebrating our nation's semiquincentennial (umm, yeah, still workshopping that name, it's not going to fit on a hat) and nope, that's next year, because 2025 minus 1776 is only 249, not 250. I mathed it for you. Jesus, it's the new millennium "jumping the gun" all over again.
Well, happy anniversary, SNL, I couldn't schedule this film any closer to your 50th birthday, so I'm watching it now. Hope you saved me some cake from January because I'm ready for it now, even though I'm still 2 months early. The Season 51 premiere of SNL will air on October 4. Maybe this year they'll finally consider adding punchlines, or at least endings to the sketches - I mean, why start now but I guess there's always hope. I met this film's co-writer, Gil Kenan, at New York Comic-Con a couple years ago, and I met Cooper Hoffman (who plays Dick Ebersol) at the theater where I work because he was there for screenings of "Licorice Pizza".
Directed by Jason Reitman (director of "Men, Women & Children" and "Ghostbusters: Afterlife")
Also starring Gabriel LaBelle (last seen in "The Predator"), Rachel Sennott (last seen in "Bottoms"), Cory Michael Smith (last seen in "Wonderstruck"), Ella Hunt, Dylan O'Brien (last seen in "American Assassin"), Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris (last seen in "Desperados"), Kim Matula (last seen in "Fighting with My Family"), Finn Wolfhard (last seen in "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire"), Nicholas Braun (last seen in "Zola"), Ellen Boscov, Cooper Hoffman (last seen in "Licorice Pizza"), Andrew Barth Feldman, Leander Suleiman (last seen in "Bandit"), Taylor Gray, Mcabe Gregg, Abraham Hsu, Corinne Britti, Nicholas Podany, Rowan Joseph (last seen in "Pain Hustlers"), Kirsty Woodward, Kaia Gerber (also last seen in "Bottoms"), Robert Wuhl (last seen in "Shirley"), Drew Scheid (last seen in "The War with Grandpa"), Tommy Dewey (last seen in "Book Club"), Catherine Curtin (last seen in "Hangdog"), Jon Batiste (last seen in "American Symphony"), Brian Welch, Jef Holbrook, Willem Dafoe (last seen in "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice"), Paul Rust (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Tracy Letts (last seen in "Ghostbusters: Afterlife"), Billy Bryk (ditto), Matthew Rhys (last heard in "IF"), Naomi McPherson, J.K. Simmons (last seen in "Men, Women & Children"), Brad Garrett (last seen in "Gloria Bell"), Josh Brener (last seen in "Old Dads"), Presley Coley (last seen in "The Boss"), Parker Wierling (last seen in "Yes, God, Yes"), David Michael Brown, Colby James West, Stephen Badalamenti (last seen in "Bridge of Spies"), Peter E Dawson, John Dinello (last seen in "Armageddon Time"), Mike Platarote Jr. (last seen in "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret."), Rob Barnes, Justin Matthew Smith, Grace Barlow, Alia Guidry, Christian A. Jenkins, Raiford Jackson, Martin Garner, Aidan Patrick Griffin (last seen in "Fly Me to the Moon"), Mark Cyr, William C. Tate (last seen in "American Gangster"), John Ross, Jeff Pope (last seen in "Assassination Nation"), Jacob Berger (last seen in "A Rainy Day in New York"), Alexander Glyn Bennett, Cassidy Kahler (last seen in "Jackpot!"), Casey Nicholas Price, Caroline Raad, John Mayo, Jamie Day, Ted Williams, Brandon Niederauer, Alvin Ford Jr., Cory Henry, Nick Freeland, Max Townsley, Ava Cuturic, Sergio Duque, Justin Michael Heter, Joey Lay, Cagney Noland
with the voice of Jeff Witzke (also last seen in "Men, Women & Children") and archive footage of Johnny Carson (last seen in "Rather")
RATING: 6 out of 10 script pages set on fire
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