So after talking about this movie with several different people I think I’m prepared to say that I did like it…after the fact. And that I can’t watch movies based on real people and events.
It’s not their fault necessarily, I just get so distracted wondering, “Well how close is this to what actually happened?” It’s even more distracting with something where I know a little bit about it, because then I’m looking for the things I know are true and comparing them to the things I’m unsure of.
I think that’s mostly on me and just a thing my brain decides it does now (this feels like a recent problem), but also is to some degree endemic to a project like this where A) the movie was always going to be self-aggrandizing (although I honestly didn’t see it having quite so schmaltzy an ending) and B) everyone’s doing impressions of real people but real people that we, the audience who are supposed to recognize and be impressed by the impressions, mostly know from performances. And don’t get me wrong, the impressions are pretty stellar across the board (especially when compared to, say, A Futile and Stupid Gesture), but was Dan Aykroyd actually like that all the time? Or are the writers and Dylan O’Brien basically just taking an amalgamation of his characters and sticking them into a presumably somewhat researched scenario and then heightening everything because, this is the other thing that was really distracting, there are a number of funny moments in this movie that I couldn’t laugh at because I was busy thinking “is this funny because they were funny at the time or is this funny because the filmmakers made a funny scene, like am I laughing at the people or the characters” and let me tell you my roommate who has no emotional connection to SNL and probably couldn’t name a single person from the show even after seeing this movie did not have that problem.
But then, as I say, I’ve been talking to people about this movie since, and I keep bringing up a bunch of things I like about it, like Nicholas Braun playing both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson, which not only is he very good and I absolutely did not catch it until I was looking up the cast but also it’s such an old-fashioned, stagey casting choice, like “Well, we’ve got two ridiculously tall characters and one of them has a beard, let’s save ourselves some trouble.” Or the inspired choice to cast J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle, who absolutely devours the scenery in each of his 3 scenes, including the one where he’s just dancing with some showgirls, god that man is a treasure. Or the fact that Lamorne Morris is not related to Garrett Morris, somehow, despite looking and sounding almost exactly like him. Or Paul Rust as a very under-utilized but appropriately weird Paul Shaffer. Or Nicholas Podany’s actually super grounded and completely believable yet also pitch-perfect Billy Crystal impression. Or just in general that all of the main cast (as in, the cast playing the cast) are not big name actors, which I think is a very smart choice both in that it feels in the spirit of the show and also, you know, Joel McHale was a really shitty Chevy Chase so let’s avoid making that mistake again and cast people who can actually play the part. Or the fact that they’re willing to do some weird editing stuff and play around a bit and it’s on film (or at least looks like it is) and it looks really nice.
So I think I do like it. I think they make some really smart choices and the performances are really good and there are some genuinely funny moments that aren’t just Andy Kaufman doing “Mighty Mouse” (which is always funny.) I just wish I could’ve liked it while I was watching it.
p.s. All that being said, there are some choices they make that I don’t like in a way that feels separate from my hangups described above, like classic biopic choices where they do something just for the sake of looking at the audience and going, “Eh? Get it? See? It’s the thing!” The two moments that really stick out are both from the end, which I do think is the weakest (least interesting, most predictable, schmaltziest) part of the movie, and those are 1) Lorne running into Alan Zweibel at a bar, I love Josh Berner (and, for that matter, Brad Garrett) but it adds absolutely nothing to the story (I think he’s supposed to, like, see Zweibel struggling and it renews his conviction about creating a space for young comic talent? Or something? But there’s just not enough there to get that across if that’s what they’re going for, and I would think it would feel completely random unless you happen to know the name Alan Zweibel); and 2) the bit where Chevy Chase is rehearsing Weekend Update and the cue cards fall so he looks around for something and we get this dramatic shot of the phone, you know, like how he do in the show; it’s given completely undue weight and I would’ve preferred a more casual approach so we just see Chase being funny and not portray it as like this big turning point which it isn’t even, like it’s not actually filling that function in the narrative he doesn’t even get that big a laugh for it and it’s not made clear that he’s going to do that in the actual sketch but of course we know he is if we’re familiar with the show but the movie shouldn’t be relying on that it should be telling its own story, anyway I won’t belabor the point because my roommate and I got into a 30-minute argument about that shot and haven’t talked since so I’m a bit sore about it but I still think I’m right. I did say I was also annoyed he didn’t say “I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not” but it turns out he didn’t say that in the first episode, so. (Also thank god Lorne Michaels didn’t do weekend update, Jesus.)
p.p.s. I was also a little distracted by the fact that at this point in my life, having heard various stories about him and how the show is run and also having really gotten sick of a lot of what the modern iteration of the show does (David S. Pumpkins was really funny though until they did it a 2nd time, which admittedly running funny jokes into the ground has kind of been their bread and butter from the start), and what he clearly believes about comedy and entertainment and politics and the intersection thereof, and also having seen what he hath wrought in the form of Jimmy Fallon’s entire career, I’m really not inclined to feel all that positively towards Lorne Michaels, but the movie really wants me to, and Gabriel LaBelle is really endearing.
p.p.p.s. I just remembered I’ve completely ignored the most distracting thing about this movie which is that raises and then completely ignores the question IS THERE TIME TRAVEL HAPPENING IN THIS MOVIE??? At the start of the movie Lorne Michaels is standing outside and is almost hit by flaming piece of paper; later in the film Michael O’Donaghue lights a piece of paper on fire and drops it out the window. There is nothing in that scene that implies, to me at least, that this is just something he’s been doing all night. So is this time travel? A time loop? Sloppy writing (or at least writing that is overly reliant on the audience jumping to a mundane conclusion instead of the much more interesting conclusion)? We’ll never know.
p.p.p.p.s. Was John Belushi actually that much of a weird, anti-social, Beast-from-Beauty-and-the-Beast kind of guy? Like I know I already worked through this whole “was it actually like that” thing above but this one, even if I take a step back and try to not get distracted by all of that, I’m just really uncomfortable with this portrayal. But I don’t know, maybe he was actually like that.
Certain of Eventual Failure 