What's The Movie About?
The first episode of Saturday Night Live, how everything is going completely wrong, and how close the show got to not airing.
What I Like.
First, obviously, is the cinematography. They very effectively capture the chaos of the night, the film grain of cameras at the time, and the shaky hand held approach of a behind the scenes shoot. It's similar to The Apprentice, true, but I really liked that movie too so I don't care. There's quite a few impressive long shots in the movie as well, it give an air of a jazz melody. Actually, the music is really damn good in general. The acting is great, especially portraying wild personalities of the comedians. But the absolute best thing about the movie is it's energy of the scenes, and flow of the movie's pacing. This movie is a roller-coaster. You basically follow Lorne Michaels for the entire movie, and there are several scene of him moving through the studio, with cast and crew members constantly rushing up to present their problems and update him on constantly changing events. It's exciting, electric, keeping you engaged the entire time. I got swept up energy of the movie, which is one of my favorite things.
What I Didn't Like.
So... This movie has a million characters. I get it, the idea is all these people are the chaos that threatened the first show. I'm sure everyone who wasn't famous was real. Or at least was based on someone real. But because there are so many people running around, some of them are very one note. The best example is Dan Akroyd. He's less an actor playing young Dan Akroyd and more an actor doing a comedic impression of him. This also slips into oversimplifying plot beats as well. John Belushi and Chevy Chase are set up as parallels in the movie, but John gets several scene of Lorne trying to appeal to his sensibilities, while Chevy just get's cock-slapped into compliance. Literally. And I have to stress that I don't know for certain, but a lot of this movie smack of revisionism. The biggest thing is Lorne Michaels himself. He's too perfect, just a really nice guy who is passionate about artistry and saying yes to everyone's ideas. His character arc has to do with learning to cut things from the show. He doesn't really change as a person, he's just a nice guy throughout the whole thing. Again, I don't know if that's true or not, maybe Lorne Michaels is super cool. But I feel like it just lacks introspection.
Final Summation.
But Saturday Night has energy and style that overtakes it's flaws tenfold. I love movies that are what I imagine sex is like. A flurry of motion and chaos that build and builds until the satisfactory climax. Saturday Night is good sex, and I highly recommend it!
But y'know... Is this enough? I've been thinking recently about my style of reviewing recently, more specifically about how I review a movie I love versus a movie I hate. You may have noticed that my last negative review, the review for Terrifier 3, was longer than this and my review for The Apprentice. Combined. And I love both those movies! Why am I giving more of my energy to drive away business from art than to drum up awareness of something good? Part of it definitely because I don't want to spoil anything from movies I like. I hope the undercurrent of "Watch this movie, experience it for yourself, it'll be much better than anything I describe" comes through with all my positive reviews. I find it much harder to describe something that makes me happy as well. That sounds... Incredibly depressing, yeah, but I think it's more that I'm critical of myself and what I think when I dislike something. I kinda need to justify hatred in my head. A little peek behind the curtain, I do think out what I want to do with reviews before I see the movies. Not that I inform my opinions before sitting down in the theater, but I'll come up with some jokes, analogies, and obviously the prerelease portions of my review while waiting to watch something. Somethings come to print, like mentioning that I watched that Drew Gooden video more than I've seen actual SNL sketches, but others I drop, like doing the Terrifier 3 review as a written out parody of "Alice's Restaurant Massacre" by Arlo Guthrie. (Although that idea came closer to fruition than I care to admit.) I might be over thinking this silly review blog. I'm going to be taking some time away from movies and focusing on my tabletop gaming hobby for a few days. Maybe not thinking about film for a few days will get some ducks in a row mentally.
No comments:
Post a Comment