Saturday Night Live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ9O_tl5Npk

Jason Reitman movie about the 90 minutes before the premiere.

Jon Batiste as Billy Preston!

More info and set photos:
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/saturday-night-first-look

Weird that Nicholas Braun is playing both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson

Weird that people are hiring him.

aha JK Simmons as Uncle Milty

https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/66b128ddfee63a046034cd5d/master/w_1600,c_limit/SNL-First-Look-11.jpg

It doesn't fit chronologically, but perhaps they could do a sequel about Berle's episode, if only for the scene of Gilda Radner accidentally walking in on him and Alan Zweibel.

looks so bad. like a bad t.v. movie. could be a good cringey double-feature with the late night wars leno/letterman movie.

How much of the drug use are they going to depict, I wonder

it only covers the hours before the first episode so my guess is....a lot? dunno

a couple of them sort of look like the cast members if you squint, idk

xp - obviously I knew about Berle's infamous endowment, but I'd never heard that story and Gilda and Zweibel before, that's funny

Heard some Nickelback at lunch, brings me back to perhaps Melissa Villasenor's finest moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXjO8cqvNo

Speaking of Miltie ep---here's music guests Ornette Coleman & Prime Time:

what's it doin---anyway, if this don't show, it's still on Vimeo (I watched it; they're playing "Times Square.)
https://vimeo.com/20656866

Weird that Nicholas Braun is playing both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson

OK, so apparently Benny Safdie was originally cast as Kaufman but had to drop out, which is too bad because I would've liked to have seen that.

funny, because that's the only thing that's caught my interest in seeing the movie.

It doesn't appear to be produced by Lorne Michaels, so maybe it won't be 120 minutes of blowing smoke up his ass (but it probably will be)

^^Apparently it is.

https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/saturday-night-movie-review-snl-jason-reitman-1235042845/

Subheadline:

Jason Reitman's love letter to Lorne Michaels has 1,000 great actors, about 10 decent laughs, and absolutely zero interest in anything beyond itself.

Can't say I'm surprised. He seems like a nice guy with good intentions, but I've never been a fan of his work. I hope he outdoes himself some day but there's something too calculated and too safe about his films to the point where they felt really shallow and never really engaging, if that makes any sense. In this case, I was expecting a feel-good Valentine to Michaels and the show as if he was getting on his knees and thanking them for everything they've done for comedy and by extension all of humanity.

*they feel really shallow

I’m curious how his father would have rendered this

New cast members:

https://deadline.com/2024/09/snl-season-50-cast-marcello-hernandez-ashley-padilla-1236079790/

In addition to the departures of Molly Kearney and Punkie Johnson, it came out today that Chloe Troast is also leaving--which especially sucks because I liked her a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDxYe2-8sI0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5E5DkBXyfw

Yeah I’m genuinely confused why they would let Chloe Troast go so soon, she’s great.

Maybe Troast realized that the writers had little idea how best to use her except as filler in the background of skits. It's a punishing grind to work there, so why keep on going if you think you're just spinning your wheels?

Her post was “unfortunately I was not asked back” rather than “I’m leaving for greener pastures” though.

Then I think we can blame Lorne. Again.

That's a pity, I thought Little Orphan Cassidy was the best thing anyone did in the last series, the jumanji sketch was the only other thing that came close

Good lord that moon sketch! Teary hysterics right now.

man, no doubt ... based on that skit, i'd say she's too good for this show. (and i generally enjoy the show.)

I thought she was used a bunch of always singing.

Yeah, it seems like either she'd be singing or playing kinda straight but skewed roles like the girlfriend in this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVjQImP8x5s

This one and "Lake Beach" were both such killer Country parodies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLQnU63I3IQ

Mya Rudolph's Kamala isn't the greatest SNL political impression ever, but she's got the voice and the mannerisms down; just in terms of accuracy, she had me laughing tonight (especially her reactions to Biden).

Carvey's Biden was excellent if slightly mean. Show overall wasn't that funny unfortunately (including the open). I did like Jean Smart breastfeeding a monkey. I do not give one fuck about Jellyroll?

"Guess what? And by the way..."--agree. Even fish-in-barrel Trump was funny: "They're doing freak-offs with the dogs, and they're making the geese watch--it's very sad." No interest in anything else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nInAFSpw7ZQ

Newbie Jane Wickline could do very well in a Carrie Brownstein lookalike contest.

“They’re doing a Diddy”

I liked the math book sketch a lot

^^That one was good.

So, The Lonely Island came back...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8oR4DB6SAA

I watched the opening. Not bad--I liked Maya Rudolph flubbing Springsteen's name and recollecting herself, Walz marking papers (I too became fixated on his furious note-scribbling during the debate), and just about everything Carvey does and says as Biden.

In honor of the outgoing president, I'd call the November political thread "And Guess What, and By the Way."

Saw Reitman's "Saturday Night" movie last night, it is not bad. It is not 'funny' but it's not meant to be, it's more a document around the tension of getting this thing off the ground with a lot of odds going against it. High points: the guy doing Chevy Chase absolutely nails his mannerisms. Lamorne Morris is really good in his portrayal of Garret Morris, probably the only cast member who gets an in depth look. Everything looks great. It took me a while to notice Matthew Rhys doing Carlin.
Negatives: a lot of the portrayals are too caricature, namely Belushi, and the trio of women (Radner, Curtin, Newman) are pretty wasted though there is a good conversation between Curtin and Morris. I think Radner is the worst here; the actress doesn't look much like Radner and her impression rings really false and irritating.
Worth streaming when it shows up, which I imagine will be within a month.

I saw it last Saturday and I really liked it. My MVPs would be Lamorne Morris and Rachel Sennott. Between his turn as Kid Spielberg in The Fabelmans and as Lorne here, Gabriel LaBelle is becoming the Paul Muni of Boomer Jew Geniuses.

It seems too like it's less a love letter to Michaels than it's a loving tribute to the chaotic alchemy of the original cast and creatives by people who actually understand that.

oh yeah Sennott is great (as usual), forgot about her.

I found it pretty annoying for the first half, tbh, though it won me over a bit more by the end. Performances were mostly strong, and I usually like movies with this kind of pressure-cooker momentum, but this one just felt exhausting and without much to say other than "Isn't this technically impressive?" and "Hey look, it's Paul Shaffer!" (Though I did love the casting of Paul Rust as Shaffer.)

I also liked JK Simmons smirking Milton Bearle who was in the film for absolutely zero reason

his dancing scene might actually be my favorite scene in the movie