Posts Tagged ‘Kaia Gerber’

SATURDAY NIGHT: 4 STARS. “Jason Reitman’s love letter to show business.”

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.

BOTTOMS: 3 ½ STARS. “Unapologetically rowdy and rambunctious.”

A mix-and-match of “American Pie” and “Fight Club,” the new comedy “Bottoms,” starring “The Bear’s” Ayo Edebiri and “Shiva Baby’s” Rachel Sennot, and now playing in theatres, is a boisterous queer high school sex romp with an edge.

Edebiri and Sennot are Josie and PJ, best friends and high school outsiders desperate to catch the attention of cheerleaders Isabel (Havana Rose Liu), who also happens to be the girlfriend of the school’s star quarterback Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine), and Brittany (Kaia Gerber).

Ignored by the cool kids—there’s a rumor going around that they spent the summer in a juvenile-detention center—Josie and PJ form a plan to get cozy with their crushes. “We are literally at the bottom,” says PJ. “We have nowhere to go but up.” When the news breaks that a female student was assaulted by a rival football team member, they form a fight club.

“So, we teach a bunch of girls how to defend themselves,” says PJ. “They’ll be grateful. Next thing you know, Isabel and Brittany are kissing us on the mouths!”

Of course, an outlandish plan like this has outlandish and unexpected repercussions when a show of solidarity goes one step too far.

Unapologetically rowdy and rambunctious, but also cheerfully sweet and sensitive, “Bottoms” one of the funniest and bloodiest stories about the anarchy of adolescence to hit screens since “Heathers.” It follows high school movie tropes right out of the John Hughes handbook, but subverts each and every one of them to create something unexpected.

The idea of creating a fight club as a way to get girlfriends may be far out, but the premise is brought back to earth by Josie and PJ and their very understandable motivations. They want what every teenager wants; to be part of the crowd, to be popular and to have a special someone. In that context, “Bottoms” emulates many other teen comedies. Add some broken noses and bloodied lips and you get an off kilter, but genuine, look at life in the halls and classrooms of most every high school.

At the heart of it all are Edebiri and Sennot. Three years ago they starred in a Comedy Central digital series titled “Ayo and Rachel Are Single,” and their chemistry remains intact. Sennot (who co-wrote the script with director Emma Seligman) is brash and bold, mining the material for all its absurdity. Edebiri is more deadpan, a gentler presence who seems aware of the absurdity of the situation.

For all its bravado, attitude and heightened humor, “Bottoms” is a remarkably insightful and introspective look at high school and female friendship. That it is also an unruly good time just adds to its quirky charm.