Saturday Night (2024)

True greatness often comes about after things skate perilously close to absolute disaster, and that certainly seems to have been the case for the launch of Saturday Night Live. While it may not be what it once was, and while some may argue that it was never actually the giant cultural totem that others view it as, Saturday Night Live is a hell of a thing to be proud of. It's now been going for 50 years, it has given us a great wealth of comedic talent, on both sides of the camera, and it's undeniably part of any conversation about American TV.

What you get here is a look at the frantic and tense 90 minutes leading up to the very first episode of Saturday Night Live. The man trying to herd a lot of cats is Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle). The stars include Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O'Brien), and John Belushi (Matt Wood). And those thinking it could succeed are largely outnumbered by those thinking it will fail. Spectacularly.

Co-written by Gil Kenan and director Jason Reitman, Saturday Night is an enjoyable bit of sustained tension, especially impressive considering that we all know how things turned out in the end. There are a couple of main touchstones that keep being used as people rush around, ensuring they are ready for a show that is being rehearsed and timed right up until the last possible moment, and certain characters are introduced at key points to really crystallise the friction between the old guard and the new.

It's no easy task for actors to emulate some comedy icons, but I was pleased to see that the performances here seem to focus on the essence and nature of each main character, as opposed to everyone trying to do a perfect impression of who they're meant to be. The only real exception to this is Nicholas Braun, who excels in two roles, playing both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson. Smith is all of the ego and self-doubt that you'd expect from Chase, O'Brien is a jovial Aykroyd, and Wood exudes the kid of erratic energy that always seemed to be part of Belushi. LaBelle is excellent as Michaels, a graceful swan who sometimes goes through water so clear that we can see the feet speedily paddling away beneath. Rachel Sennott, Ella Hunt, Emily Fairn, and Kim Matula are rather sorely sidelined as, respectively, Rosie Shuster, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, and Jane Curtin, but that is sadly in line with a lot of the women who have been part and parcel of SNL over the years. Nicholas Podany is a decent young Billy Crystal, and the only one to disappoint me was Matthew Rhys in the role of George Carlin. Willem Dafoe has a couple of good moments as Dave Tebet (aka one of "the suits"), and J. K. Simmons almost steals the entire movie as the legendarily-endowed Milton Berle.

I was hoping to enjoy this, despite what I saw as my perceived distance from the cultural impact of the show, and I did. It hints at just some of the troubles that would come along in the few years afterward, but it's largely focused on celebrating the fact that everyone somehow managed to get the bloody thing done, and done in a way, albeit a tweaked and streamlined way, that would then be repeated week in and week out for decades. Do people still watch the full show, or do they simply check out the highlights shared to YouTube and other social media sites? I don't know, but I suspect the latter. I'm not sure it matters though. The fact remains that almost every American is aware of SNL, almost every American has their favourite seasons, or favourite skits, and anyone with an interest in comedy and/or films should be happy that a lot of talent became famous worldwide after surviving their time working for Michaels. We also got Rob Schneider, but you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs.*

*said while having to pretend that I did not at one point own both The Animal and The Hot Chick on VHS.

7/10

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Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

Ghostbusters is forty years old now. Forty years old. It is, in my view, an enduring classic, and one of my favourite blockbuster comedies. And yet . . . the fact that it IS now forty years old makes it all the stranger to see how much of it is repeated and/or repurposed in this latest release, officially the fifth movie in a franchise that has maintained a presence in our pop culture thanks to the various movies, videogames, toys, cartoons, etc.

FIRE STATION!

There is probably a right way and a wrong way to write a proper review of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, but I hope doing things in the wrong way will highlight how the film itself was so mishandled.

SLIMER!

Some time has passed since the events of the last movie. Our main characters (played by Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Paul Rudd, and Carrie Coon) are now based in New York, much to the chagrin of the current mayor (played by William Atherton, reprising the character of Walter Peck, of course). But the containment system is perilously close to being overloaded, a big new threat is looming, and the character played by Grace ends up spending a lot of her time with a friendly ghost (Melody, played by Emily Alyn Lind).

LIBRARY GHOST!

Co-written once again by Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman, with the former also being allowed to direct this time around, it’s easy to see why certain choices were made here, and just as easy to see how this film could have been greatly improved. It’s too busy creating moments that will remind you of the first movie that it forgets to make good use of most of the main characters, and the decent finale is a case of too little too late when viewers have slogged through the mess preceding it.

DAN AYKROYD!

There’s some good stuff here, much better than the return of a familiar villain we got in the last movie. The opening sequence is great, everything looks set to be spectacular and thrilling, and then it is all largely abandoned in favour of callbacks and cameos, which is all the more frustrating when you get a treat like the new character, Lars, played by James Acaster with a hairstyle not entirely dissimilar to the one sported by Egon Spengler in The Real Ghostbusters. I also have to say that Lind is fantastic as the forlorn and regret-filled Melody.

STAY-PUFT MARSHMALLOW MAN!

It is hard to give my opinion on a cast who are so often wasted in their roles. Grace remains a very watchable talent, but her sub-plot here ensures that her character is unwisely kept moody and lonely until the third act. Acaster is a fantastic addition, it’s nice to see some more of Ernie Hudson, Patton Oswalt comes along to be Mr. Exposition, and Kumail Nanjiani isn’t given a chance to be as funny as we all know he can be. As for the other familiar faces, they are all pretty unnecessary.

BILL MURRAY!

This is a series that seems intent on restricting itself to tales that are now just frames to hang a load of nostalgia on. It’s not a good approach, and this review emulated the structure of the film. You have everything punctuated by a cameo that is supposed to bring some extra happiness to the viewers, but it doesn’t work when there is no other reason for those cameos to happen. It’s the equivalent of some SNL sketch being hate-crashed by a celebrity who just comments on their own celebrity and their bemusement at being on SNL. That could be amusing, but you would soon tire of it if it was every SNL sketch. And you will soon tire of it here.

BILL MURRAY AGAIN!

Each time I think this movie series cannot get any worse I end up being proven wrong. It has become a depressing cycle of ever-diminishing returns now, and I am always sucked in by the trailer and the optimistic idea that “maybe this time they will get it right”. This is the worst yet, and actually feels embarrassingly desperate at times.

I will still watch another one, but you may as well search for my spark of hope in the ecto-containment unit, because that is well and truly dead after watching this.

3/10

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Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

It's no wonder that mainstream moviegoers are so often given the same product recycled again and again and again. It would seem that many, understandably, crave the comfort of familiarity over any attempts to strike out on some new directions. Sold on the line that "this is the sequel that the fans deserved"and "this is what fans really wanted", Ghostbusters: Afterlife is, essentially, a clumsy rehash of elements from the first movie. It relies so much on nostalgia, and has a plot that comes perilously close to simply being "evil dies tonight", that it's arguably closer in form to Halloween Kills than the first Ghostbusters movie.

I'm going to try to avoid spoilers here, but you can all rest easy in the fact that there are a number of satisfying cameos in this film. One such cameo is Egon Spengler. Well, it's the spirit of him. Due to Harold Ramis having passed away a few years ago, the writers of this film (Gil Kenan and director Jason Reitman) decided to kick things off with the death of his character, allowing for plenty of extra button-pushing and emotional manipulation throughout. With Spengler deceased, his property is handed over to his estranged daughter, Callie (Carrie Coon), and her children, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace). Things start to get spooky, old equipment is discovered (including the ECTO-1, of course), and there's a local teacher, Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd), who can provide exposition and become directly involved in the whole escapade. 

I enjoyed many parts of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and that includes many parts that worked for me by simply making reference to the first film. It's fun to see people practising their aim with a proton pack. It's great to see the engine of the ECTO-1 starting up. And a decent part of the plotting actually works well as a direct continuation of previous events. The good work, however, is undone by the feeling of laziness, smugness, and disrespect by the time everything if thrown at the screen in the third act to placate viewers who deserved much better. A large part of the problem is the reliance on the spirit of Egon, which would have worked better if it was just, as it is in much of the movie, a vague and undefined thing. There are another couple of major issues though, and they will be brought up shortly.

Cast-wise, everyone is fine. While I am not the biggest fan of Wolfhard, and he is the least of the younger players here, he doesn’t do a bad job. Celeste O’Connor does a bit better, playing a girl who catches his eye/heart. Rudd gets to play the character who is the most amusing and Coon has to simply be “the parent”, which she does fine with. But it’s the younger cast members who shine, with Logan Kim great fun as a young podcaster, imaginatively named just Podcast, and Grace being the best new Egon type since Kate McKinnon in the last Ghostbusters movie (oh stop pretending it doesn’t exist, it is a better idea overall film than this one). Grace is so good that she makes up for a lot of what Reitman and Kenan get wrong.

Directorially sound, everything wrong here stems from a script that is desperate to remind viewers of the original without the writers themselves remembering, Yes, people love the characters and the equipment, and we all want ghosts and beasties to create havoc at times, but there should also be a lot of laughs (which this is lacking). There IS, at times, a sense of fun, and it is often blended with that warm glow of familiarity, but there are very few actual laughs. What you also used to have were movies that stemmed from a legacy of films mixing chills and humour, so it wasn’t necessarily entirely original, but it felt entirely original. What we have here is a film that cannot go for more than a few minutes without repeating a well-known beat or referencing the cinematic past of the Ghostbusters business. That doesn’t seem so bad when it all feels effective (references to Shandor work well, and some returning faces feel like a logical choice for a big villain). It fails when you realise that it’s the height of laziness (cute they may be, and in the final trailers, but there is no reason for the mini-Stay Puft characters here, except for easy bonus points and merch).

It didn’t pain me while it was on. There are some nice shots, the soundtrack works well, and uses a number of familiar cues, and one or two set-pieces feel enjoyably cinematic and able to remind us all that “bustin’ makes me feel good”. It’s not a great film though, and I would argue that it’s the weakest Ghostbusters film yet. Maybe a sequel that doesn’t feel too beholden to the original film will work better. I hope we get to find out.

5/10

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Tully (2018)

Most Hollywood movies have a comfortingly optimistic view of parenthood and families that have to struggle to balance the household budget. You see mothers rushing around, usually in a montage of school runs and sporting events, and most people struggling with debt still seem to have a roof over their head, a car (which I know is more essential in America than it is here in the UK), and a generally decent selection of food and drinks.

Tully is a film about motherhood that impressively, determinedly, moves away from the sugar-coated outlook that appears in most movies. Charlize Theron plays Marlo, the mother of two children, one daughter and one son, with the latter having an undiagnosed condition that makes him behave in a way that others charitably describe as "quirky". And she's expecting her third child. Her husband, played by Ron Livingston, seems to be loving and supportive, but could probably do a fair bit more to help, and her brother (Mark Duplass) thinks that he will help out by gifting her the services of a night nanny. And that eventually leads to her receiving help from Tully (Mackenzie Davis), a bright and energetic young woman who helps to make a positive change in the Marlo's life.

Although still far from perfect in the way it depicts a struggling mother, and the way in which it depicts certain health issues, this is a film that has more for parents, and especially mothers, to identify with than usual. The direction from Jason Reitman is as capable as ever, the guy does solid work without ever really putting his own stamp on things, and the script by Diablo Cody is a nice balance of harsh truths and wry comedy, despite a couple of mis-steps that are easily forgiven once the end credits start to roll and you think over what you've just watched.

Theron hasn't put in a bad performance in a long time, and she keeps her streak intact here, showing a woman changed by motherhood in so many ways (mentally and physically) that she wonders if she can ever get back to finding herself under the layers of selflessness, tiredness, and auto-responses. Davis, another actress I have been a fan of in almost every role she has played, lights up the screen with almost every moment of her screentime. Her enthusiasm and energy come in at just the right time, and Davis does just enough to keep her character sweet and likeable when she could just as easily have seemed annoying, and even slightly creepy. Livingston has a lot less to do, although he's not painted in any kind of bad light until he takes time to look at himself a bit more closely, and Duplass is a lot of fun with his mix of bluntness and genuine care for his sister. Gameela Wright also does well as a teacher who has to break the bad news that the school can't really cope with the additional responsibility of one troubled young boy.

Some viewers may see where this is heading from the opening scenes (I am notoriously unable to foresee things in movies that others say are completely bleeding obvious) but that doesn't stop it being an interesting and rewarding journey. I think there's still some way to go before we see a more realistic portrayal of motherhood onscreen, if it ever happens, but this gets closer than most, which is just one of the reasons to give it your time.

8/10

You can buy the DVD here.
Americans can get a Blu here.