In the case of the recently released "Saturday Night," the above adage was never more apropos. This film, based on the 90 minutes before the Saturday night show premiered in 1975, is a particular mess. Filmed with a hand held camera, the audience is forced to follow the action to the point of motion sickness. The frenzy is so ramped up that the moviegoer has little time to focus and/or rest. If you're going to be exhausted by a film, it should be a good one.
"Saturday Night" by director/writer Jason Reitman is not.
As I wrote, this follows the production ninety minutes before premiere, which, according to the film, was seconds away from being cancelled at the last minute. The hero of the piece is producer Lorne Michaels and the real guy must be friends with Reitman because he can do no wrong in this film. Indeed, it's Saint Lorne.
From my perspective, ninety percent of what is depicted in the movie likely never happened. Did Chevy Chase replace Michaels last minute at the Weekend Update desk? Did a sofa on stage catch on fire during rehearsal? Did Johnny Carson call Lorne Michaels and tell him that he would lose the time slot if he fucked up? Did Milton Berle show up and tell everybody how big a dick he had?
Save for Belushi doing drugs, I doubt any of this happened. At the same time, we are subjected to bad actors impersonating the SNL (actually it wasn't called that till the 90s). We also see horrible replicas of host George Carlin, Billy Crystal, and Billy Preston. And why does the same actor play both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson???
You have really enough time to consider any of that because you are moved onto the next disaster on show night. Meanwhile, fifty years later, the show somehow still exists even though it hasn't been funny in decades. So, likely, this is a worthy tribute to the show. The show now stinks and so does this movie.
LEN'S RATING: One-half star.
Dinner last night: Leftover chicken cacciatore.
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