I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with host Sean Leathong, to talk about the musical psychological drama “Joker: Folie à Deux” and the comedy bio “Saturday Night.”
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres and streaming including the musical psychological drama “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the comedy bio “Saturday Night” and the drama “White Bird.”
SYNOPSIS: In “Saturday Night,” a new show business biography from director Jason Reitman, and now playing in theatres, tensions run high as producer Lorne Michaels and his not ready for prime-time gang of young comedians count down the minutes until the first broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” on Oct. 11, 1975.
CAST: Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun, Cooper Hoffman, Andrew Barth Feldman, Kaia Gerber, Tommy Dewey, Willem Dafoe, Matthew Rhys, and J. K. Simmons. Directed by Jason Reitman.
REVIEW: “Saturday Night” captures the anxiety, the humor and the sheer nerve it took to get the first episode of “SNL” off the ground. Chaos reigns for much of the movie’s run time as producer Lorne Michaels attempts to wrangle an unruly cast, a drug addled host (a terrific Matthew Rhys as George Carlin), indecision and a network executive (Willem Dafoe) who may, or may not, order a Johnny Carson rerun to air instead of Michaels’s disorganized counterculture circus.
Reitman captures the behind-the-scenes action with a restless camera that never seems to stop moving, rat-a-tat-tat Arron Sorkin style fast talking dialogue and meticulous recreations of the iconic “SNL” set and sketches.
Reitman’s biggest storytelling accomplishment, however, may be that he imbues the film with a sense that everything may come crashing down at any second. We know it won’t, of course—“SNL” celebrates 50 seasons this year—but the threat of imminent collapse hangs over frame.
Michaels’s high wire act is the film’s engine, but it’s the insights into the cast that provide the key to deciphering what made the original 1975 cast so compelling.
Cory Michael Smith captures “SNL’s” first superstar Chevy Chase’s comic ability, fueled by talent, ego and bluster. Dylan O’Brien’s take on Dan Aykroyd is eerily accurate vocally and physically, and Matt Wood puts John Belushi’s troubled genius routine front and centre. Lamorne Morris plays Garrett Morris, the lone Black performer in the original cast, as a searcher, looking for purpose in a show that appears to be rudderless.
The women in the boy’s club, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner, Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman, and Kim Matula as Jane Curtin, are given less to do, but each has a moment amid the chaos. Hunt gets Radner’s buoyant, sunshiny personality, Fairn is all eagerness as Newman and Curtain’s one-on-one backstage chat with Morris is a funny, yet poignant, conversation about her place in this cast. Cumulatively, they are at their best in a recreation of a sketch where the women, as construction workers, ogle and objectify Aykroyd.
The large ensemble cast is rounded out by a scene-stealing J.K. Simmons as Hollywood legend Milton Berle and “Succession’s” Nicholas Braun in the dual roles of Andy Kaufman and Muppet master Jim Henson.
The film’s soul comes courtesy of the pairing of Gabriel LaBelle and Rachel Sennott as Michaels and his wife and “SNL” writer, Rosie Shuster. “We may be married,” she says, “but I’m not your wife,” and it is their bond, in whatever form it takes, that grounds Michaels as everything appears to spin out of control.
“Saturday Night” is a love letter to show business. It’s high energy nostalgic fun, told in almost real time, that captures the tenacity of the creative mind and the beginnings of a cultural institution.
Steven Spielberg has made personal films before but none are as intimate as the semi-autobiographical “The Fabelmans,” now playing in theatres. In the film, the teenage Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) finds the power of movies and storytelling help him deal with a family crisis.
Set in the 1950s and 1960s, and loosely based on the director’s childhood, the story focusses on Sammy, played by Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord as a child and LaBelle as a teen, oldest son of post-World War II era Arizona housewife Mitzi (Michelle Williams) and engineer Burt Fabelman (Paul Dano).
On his first visit to the movie theatre he sees “The Greatest Show on Earth,” a dazzler of a picture that leaves a lifelong impression. Soon, he is making his own short films, staging elaborate scenes with his toy trains, and later making live-action war movies with his pals. He figures out how to make special effects—like poking holes in the film to replicate gun flashes—and constantly has the camera pressed against his eye, even on family camping trips.
The world of make-believe is a comfort to the youngster whose home life is showing signs of strain. As Burt moves the family cross country for work, Mitzi, an artistic soul like her son, becomes despondent, and even buys a pet monkey to keep her company in their new house.
As Burt and Mitzi’s marriage crumbles, Sammy faces antisemitism and bullies at his new school, a father who calls his all-consuming interest in filmmaking “a hobby” and an over-the-top girlfriend (Chloe East), who has pin-ups of Jesus on her wall next to the pop stars of the day.
His journey ultimately leads him to a Hollywood legend who teaches him a valuable lesson in how to make movies—which is also the film’s best visual joke—just before the end credits roll.
Spielberg is often accused of sentimentalism, so it is curious that “The Fabelmans” is not a maudlin movie. It bristles with life, love, frustration and heartbreak, all blended together to bring the family, and especially Sammy, to vivid life. Sometimes life is messy—the cause of Mitzi’s “episodes” is difficult for Sammy to understand—and sometimes it is sublime—Sammy’s discovery of his pure, unadulterated love of film—but it never feels as if Spielberg is romanticizing the past.
The 1950s part of the film has a certain glow about it, as if it’s being recounted by a Sammy, just a boy at the time. As he grows up, and his understanding of his family dynamic grows, the film takes on a different personality. The rough edges are not smoothed over as Sammy retreats into the world of make believe as a remedy for the tensions at home. The storytelling is episodic, but never less than emotional.
As “The Fabelmans” unfolds, two scenes reveal the mix and match of the effect of Spielberg’s parents, one a technician, the other an artist, on young Sammy.
The first comes in the form of a visit from Sammy’s Uncle Boris, played by Judd Hirsch in what may well be an Oscar nominated performance. In his quick in-and-out scenes, he is the truth teller who explains what it means to make art; the pain, the constant need to express yourself. It is a burden, but a beautiful one, and these scenes lie at the heart of the film, the idea of what it takes to create something extraordinary.
The second scene, near the end of the movie, sees Sammy learn an important technical lesson from a legendary filmmaker played by David Lynch. Lynch chews the scenery, clearly enjoying himself, while Sammy drinks it in. Spielberg even throws in a visual joke to ensure that we understand how fundamental the lesson was to him.
Both are fun sequences that reveal the filmmaker’s twin brain, a mix of art and science, that also echo his upbringing.
“The Fabelmans” ends with a shot that will warm the heart of any movie lover, but this is not simply a film for fans of the director. It’s a contemplative, poignant look at how art, and how it is a balm that helps sooth us in troubled times.