“Saturday Night Live” is chaotic, it’s high-stakes, and it shouldn’t work… but for 50 years it has. From the ‘Killer Bees’ to the gritty edge of the new UK reboot, we’re dissecting the house that Lorne built. Is Saturday Night Live the last gasp of ‘Old Showbiz,’ or is it the only thing keeping live performance alive? Today, we’re talking the new Lorne Michaels documentary, the Canadian comedy mafia, and the time I ended up at an after-party with Paul McCartney and Allen Ginsberg. Everything is broken, but the red light is on. Let’s go.
I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Scott Hirsch to talk about the recently announced “Top Gun 3” and new releases in theatres, including the dark comedy “The Christophers,” the east coast crime drama “Little Lorraine,” the documentary “Lorne” and the Montreal coming-of-age “Mile End Kicks.”
SYNOPSIS: In “Lorne,” a new documentary now playing in theatres, Oscar winning filmmaker Morgan Neville goes behind the scenes to details the career and influence of “Saturday Night Live” creator and producer Lorne Michaels.
CAST: Lorne Michaels, Tina Fey, Chris Rock, Conan O’Brien, Maya Rudolph, Andy Samberg, John Mulaney, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Kristen Wiig, Mike Myers, Paul Simon. Directed by Morgan Neville.
REVIEW: “Lorne” attempts to peel away the shroud of mystery that surrounds the most powerful, but also most elusive, man in television. For nearly half a century—he took five years off after the show’s fifth season—the Toronto born Michaels created the template for what makes us laugh.
His influence on popular culture is immeasurable, but don’t buy a ticket for “Lorne” looking for insight into his process. Michaels is, as presented in the film, a reluctant subject. Like the Wizard of Oz, he’s the enigmatic man behind the curtain.
As a result, director Morgan Neville frames the film as a kind of comedy, an irreverent look at a serious comedic virtuoso.
Off the top Neville asks him a direct question. “What is funny?”
“It’s one of those things like pornography,” Michaels replies. “You know it when you see it.”
It’s a dryly witty line, cerebral and cryptic, and it is about as close as Michaels comes to explaining his craft.
“SNL” cast members like Tina Fey, Chris Rock, Maya Rudolph, John Mulaney, Jimmy Fallon, Kristen Wiig and Mike Myers reverentially chime in with stories about their time working with the producer.
Among the tales told is John Mulaney’s story about having dinner with Michaels when a random person approached their table with a script. Michaels takes the script with the assurance that he’d have a look. Why? To avoid a repeat of what happened in 1968 when record producer Terry Melcher declined to sign aspiring musician Charles Manson to a contract. Manson got his revenge with the infamous murders on Cielo Drive, so Michaels isn’t taking any chances.
The story has a mythological edge to it, as do many of the accounts of Michaels’s life.
Anecdotes of his calm amid the chaos of “SNL,” his resilience in the high stakes world of network television—” People come in every year and they leave,” Michaels says, “but I’m still here.”—of navigating cultural challenges, and his vampiric hours (goes to bed at 4 am, up at noon, at work by 4 pm), take on a folkloric tone.
In keeping with that fabled tone, Mike Myers uses a pastoral metaphor to explain Michaels and his knack for finding talent. On a trip through the country Michaels spots a pumpkin patch. Free pumpkins as far as the eye can see. In the middle of it is a guy selling pumpkins.
Why should I buy from you when I could just take the free pumpkins? “Because I have the eye,” the seller says, “I know the good pumpkins.”
“Lorne knows the good pumpkins,” says Myers.
The film never quite nails its subject, but it entertainingly portrays a show biz survivor whose legacy is his work; fifty years of “SNL” and countless films as a producer. By the time the end credits roll Michaels remains a mystery, but by his own choice. “All of life is reinvention,” he says. “To be understood? Not gonna happen.”
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to scream seven times. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the return of Sidney Prescott in “Scream 7,” the northern noir of “In Cold Light” and the music doc “Paul McCartney: Man on the Run.”
SYNOPSIS: “Paul McCartney: Man on the Run,” a feature length documentary now streaming on Prime Video, covers the years 1970 to 1981 as the former Beatle reinvented himself for a new era.
CAST: Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr (archival footage), John Lennon (archival footage), George Harrison (archival footage), Linda McCartney (archival footage), Wings (archival footage). Directed by Morgan Neville.
REVIEW: For music fans of a certain vintage, 2026 is already a gold star year. “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” strips the kitsch away from the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Vegas years in exhilarating fashion and now comes “Paul McCartney: Man on the Run” an up-close-and-personal look at a rarely documented and often misunderstood chapter in the career of the former Beatle.
By the time 1970 rolled around Paul McCartney had spent most of his life playing with John, George and Ringo. With the eyes of the world on him, the twenty-seven-year-old, one of the most famous people on the planet, had to shoulder the perception that he broke up the band, and find a way to move forward personally and professionally.
Millions of gallons of ink have been spilled documenting the legendary band, there have been movies and even a West End play, but relatively little time has been afforded the beginnings of McCartney’s transition from The Beatles to Wings and beyond.
As the title suggests, “Man on the Run” paints a portrait of McCartney, a restless musician in motion, searching for a new creative outlet. It’s here that director Morgan Neville digs deep, capturing the pressure that threatened to crush McCartney’s creativity as animosity regarding the Beates’ demise swirled around him, exacerbated by an ongoing business dispute with ruthless manager Allen Klein, whose dealings further estranged McCartney from Lennon.
As Lennon marshalled the counterculture in New York, McCartney, wife Linda and kids, decamped to a farm in remote Scotland, where he hid from the world, releasing albums like “Ram” that failed to satisfy fans and critics. (Although it should be said, those records have been critically reassessed in the years since then.)
Worried he wouldn’t be able to top his Beatles era work and trading musical jabs with Lennon, McCartney put together Wings, longing for the excitement of being in a band.
The altruistic blending friends and family fed McCartney’s need to feel part of a group, but, as the doc makes clear, several members complained of feeling like underpaid hired hands. McCartney, who is an executive producer on the film and is quoted throughout, responds by saying he wasn’t in charge of the accounts and didn’t realize his bandmates didn’t share his enthusiasm.
It’s a rare disingenuous moment. McCartney may well have been oblivious to the power dynamic within Wings, but his response comes across as a cop out. It’s one of the few moments that feels like a missed opportunity to shed a bright light on the band’s inner workings.
Also strange is the absence of “Give Ireland Back to the Irish” and “Hi Hi Hi,” two controversial singles banned for their political and sexual lyrics.
Still, the doc is a treasure trove of never-before-seen footage (with some cool added animation effects), musical performances and insight from McCartney and those close to him that paints a picture of a vulnerable risk taker, an artist who spent the 70s outrunning his previous work. In the film’s final moments, the musician sums up his Wings journey succinctly. “We made what seemed like an impossible dream come true.”
SYNOPSIS: “Piece by Piece,” a new fanciful documentary about musician, rapper, producer, fashion designer and entrepreneur Pharrell Williams, told through animated Lego, is a brightly colored trip down memory lane for one of the most influential musicians of the 21st century.
CAST: Pharrell Williams, Gwen Stefani, Kendrick Lamar, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Chad Hugo, Daft Punk. Directed by Morgan Neville.
REVIEW: Content wise “Piece by Piece” is a rather straightforward music biography. The story of a young music obsessed outsider who, through tenacity, talent and luck finds his way to the inner circle of the music business isn’t new, but the telling of the tale is. Shot like a regular doc, with talking heads, recreations and “archival” footage, it is rendered completely in colorful Lego bricks. “What if life is like Lego,” Pharrell Williams says early on, “except you can put it together however you want?”
The imaginative visuals will make your eyeballs dance. Williams’s early life in Virginia Beach, Virginia is vividly portrayed as a time filled with diverse influences, like Stevie Wonder, Carl Sagan and his grandmother, who encouraged him to join his school’s band club, but it is music that sparked his imagination. Literally. In one eye popping sequence director Neville illustrates the future producer’s synesthesia, the ability to see colors in the mind’s eye when listening to music.
Later the Lego is used to maximum effect when recalling incidents in Williams’s career, like getting the contact high in Snoop Dogg’s studio that resulted in “Drop It Like It’s Hot” and in a splashy sequence that sees Williams return to the neighborhood where he grew up.
By the time the end credits roll, “Piece by Piece” touches on Black Lives Matter, his brand work with everyone from Chanel to McDonalds and the dry spell that saw him briefly lose his way in the business. The talking heads provide good information, but there are holes. We never learn why his original band the Neptunes split, and while there is a great of talk about his genius at coming up with beats, the actual creative process remains mysterious.
Still, as a fun night at the movies, the Lego look and good time tunes like “Hollaback Girl,” “Rockstar,” “Frontin’” and “Happy” are a blast but it is his philosophical vantage point—the movie could easily have been called “The Tao of Pharrell”—that provides the film’s uplift. It’s mostly Pop Psychology 101, and never really digs deep into Williams’s head, but it does serve as a testament to the power of music, positive thinking and being true to oneself as key components to personal and profession success.
Richard makes a Negroni, the perfect cocktail to enjoy while watching the new documentary “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain.” Have Bourdain’s favourite drink and a think about “Roadrunner” with us!
In the opening moments of “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain,” a new documentary about the late television host and author, now playing in theatres, we hear the titular character’s voice state the obvious. “This does not have a happy ending,” he says.
For fans of Bourdain, the former heroin addict chef-turned-author-turned-television-star-turned-cultural-avatar, “Roadrunner” comes with high expectations.
The edgy but empathic Bourdain, who was 61 when he took his own life while shooting a television show in France, inspires strong feelings. A standard, hagiographic look at his life, rehashing the well-known details of his career, would be met with a collective yawn. Get too prickly and it might be seen as disrespectful to the memory of a man many still miss.
“Roadrunner” somehow straddles the line, providing a balanced overview of the scrappy chef’s personal and professional lives. Using outtakes from Bourdain’s shows “No Reservations,” “The Layover” and “Parts Unknown,” new interviews with friends and family and home footage, director Morgan “20 Feet from Stardom” Neville compiles a Russian nesting doll look of his subject.
What emerges is a deep dive into the life a complex man; a person who circled the globe dozens of times searching for meaning with every air mile point earned. “His whole personality was of a searcher,” says Alison Mosshart, the vocalist of The Kills and The Dead Weather. “He was always looking for something, and it was agony for him.”
Neville captures some of that agony, forcing the viewer to see familiar footage recontextualized by Bourdain’s co-workers and friends. With no shortage of material to choose from—Bourdain’s 250 days a year on the road were meticulously filmed and documented—Neville cherry picks moments that reveal the toll Bourdain’s schedule, celebrity and search for normalcy took.
Often the most revealing footage isn’t of the man speaking, but of the exhausted or melancholy look visible in his eyes as he performs for the camera. “Life was never going to measure up to how he pictured it,” says “Parts Unknown” segment producer Helen M. Cho. “He set himself up for disappointment.”
The circumstances of his death, of course, are investigated. His colleagues become tearful describing his last months as a lifelong addict who turned his addition to Italian actress and director Asia Argento. “Roadrunner” examines Bourdain’s final days but this isn’t a whodunnit or an exercise in pointing fingers. It’s a story about his life, not death.
“Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” provides an emotionally raw portrait of a gifted, charismatic man who travelled the world but never quite figured out where he needed to be. “You are not going to outrun or out smart pain,” comments artist David Choe, who provides the movie with a suitably Bourdain-esque ending.
Near the beginning of a new documentary called The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, world famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma tells a joke.
A little boy says to his father, “When I grow up I want to be a musician.”
“Sorry son,” the father replies, “you can’t do both.”
It’s a subject Ma knows something about. Performing since the age of five, by seven had played for Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. Since then he has appeared with all the world’s great orchestras, released 90 albums and won eighteen Grammys.
“The idea of being a musician means that you have access to wonder,” he says. “When you become too adult-like and concerned about responsibility you tend to push wonder aside. That moment where you take a step back and look at where we are and look at what the world is about. Those are decisions we have to remake every single day, to engage, to love and care for and to recommit. It’s a form of positive will and expression. If you don’t have that you can’t do anything. To me it is the ultimate antidote to paranoia, to hate, to terror is to care about things. To care about truth and be open.”
The cellist’s openness led him on a twenty-year journey to form The Silk Road Ensemble, a loose collective of international master musicians named after the ancient trade route between China and the Mediterranean. Featuring instruments from the Silk Road region, Ma mixes-and-matches his cello with the exotic sounds of the pipa, a Chinese short-necked plucked lute, a Mongolian horse head fiddle called a morin khuur and a Shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute among others to produce an otherworldly sound that blends different cultures and styles.
“It’s not so much what makes stuff different but more the fact that we work in such a connected world,” says Ma. “Part of it is that and part of it is to recognize the strength of individuality but also inherent in that strength is flexibility. It doesn’t mean that because the bagpipe is louder than the violin we should never put the two together. It’s more like, unlikely bedfellows, ‘O my gosh, there could be something extraordinary that could come from that.’”
The movie, directed by Morgan Neville, who won an Oscar and a Grammy for his 2013 documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, chronicles the evolution of the collective and the individual journeys of the players. Wrapped around those portraits is the story of the group’s most famous member. Ma is revealed to be a thoughtful man with a wandering, restless creative spirit.
“I was scared to death before doing something like this,” he says. “I’m drawn to what I don’t know versus what I do know. I think my life is kind of boring because if you ask me questions about myself you will very often get the same answers. I know the answers. What little I know I can tell you about but that is not particularly interesting. What I don’t know is, for me, the source of all knowledge, everything you know is actually very little. We are constantly trying to understand more and moving forward can actually help us reconsider old things and decisions.”
