streamingmovie – STREAMING MOVIE NIGHT

2024 Sony Pictures

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 49min

Comedy ~ Drama ~ True Story

Starring: Gabriel LaBelle, Lorne Michaels. 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.

“The writers are stoned, the set is on fire, the sound system is fried, the actors are physically assaulting each other, the crew is in open revolt and they have 90 minutes to figure it all out or the network is pulling the plug.”

Saturday Night is based on the true story of the 90 minutes behind the scenes leading up to the first episode of the show now called Saturday Night Live (SNL) which aired October 11,1975 at 11:30 PM. The cast was an unknown group of comedians referred to as The Not Ready For Prime Time Players. They included Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin, John Belushi, George Coe, Michael O’Donoghue and Laraine Newman. The name was a direct reference to their main competition, Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. ABC’s program, which ran for only 18 episodes, was sports announcer Cosell’s stab at the comedy format.

Howard Cosell’s own rotating group of performers were called The Prime Time Players. That cast included Bill Murray, who’d go on to join NBC’s Saturday Night Live cast in 1977, and This Is Spinal Tap actor-director Christopher Guest, who eventually became an SNL season 10 cast member. The NBC show was renamed Saturday Night Live two years later after Howard Cosell’s show was canceled. SNL has had just under 1000 episodes and is currently in it’s 50th season. It has also featured over 170 cast members, a large number of whom went on to careers in film and tv.

I have been a life long SNL fan for as long as I can remember. I don’t always watch a season, sometimes it’s just not as good as I remember the show being so I pass. There are certain periods/seasons/cast in the show’s history that are just classic and very memorable. I love Weekend Update, that’s probably my favorite sketch. Well, that and the opening sketch is always the best. So when I saw this on Netflix I had to watch it. Wow, what chaos, it must have been quite the experience to have been involved in that first night.

The Cast of the First SNL Show posing at the foot of the stairs in a brick building. www.streamingmovienight.com — The First SNL Cast, The Not Ready For Prime Time Players: Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd.

The Cast of Saturday Night recreating the photo of the original SNL cast at the foot of the stairs in a brick building. www.streamingmovienight.com — The Cast of the Movie Saturday Night recreating the photo of the Not Ready For Primetime Players: Cory Michael Smith, Matt Wood, Ella Hunt, Emily Fairn, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula and Dylan O’Brien.

I don’t remember if I did watch that first show but I’m guessing that I probably did. I would have been a young teenager and loved staying up late. And I loved comedians, I was a huge fan of Flip Wilson, George Carlin and Bill Cosby to name a few. So I probably did see it but I have to say if you are going to watch the movie, I would check out the first show first. It is available on Peacock for free although you have to jump through a couple of hoops first. I enjoyed it, I thought it was a very interesting look at the drama, politics and resolve it took to make the show happen that first night.

I think they did a great job casting because the resemblances to the original cast are pretty good. And the actors did a great job mimicking the original comedians. The scenes in the original show look just like the scenes in the movie, so they did their homework.

If you are an SNL fan I highly recommend it. If you are not a fan but have an interest in the show and have seen some of the classics, it is worth watching. If you are not a fan of SNL or any of the comedians that have been on the cast or the show, I would say skip it. It’s just not going to make sense to you without the background of the show. So there you go, that’s Saturday Night!

NBC will be broadcasting the original episode Saturday February 15 at 10 PM. The next night Sunday February 16 NBC will air a three hour Prime Time Special commemorating SNL’s 50th Anniversary starting at 8 PM.

2022 Paramount Pictures

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hr 52min

Action ~ Adventure ~ Comedy ~ Romance

Directed by: Aaron and Adam Nee

Starring: Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Brad Pitt.

“Dulcius Ex Asperis……..Sweeter after difficulty.”

Sandra Bullock stars as Loretta Sage, a widowed Adventure Romance Novelist whose life and career has been very negatively affected by her husband’s death five years ago. Her Publisher Beth Hatten (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) has been trying desperately to save her career from going down the tubes and with it her livelihood. She has hired a younger woman to run her social media campaigns and has arranged a highly publicized book tour for Loretta. As Loretta and her publisher arrive at the first stop and public appearance on the tour, Loretta is dressed in a purple sequin sparkly jumpsuit against her better judgement. Beth tells her how important this is and that she also booked……..

Alan Caprison (Channing Tatum), the cover model who portrays the hero Dash in her Romance Novels. Loretta is horrified and wants nothing to do with it but is convinced by Beth to “Go On with the show.” The appearance ends in disaster when Loretta accidentally gets Alan’s wig caught in her watch as she tries to rip off Dash’s shirt to satisfy the female crowd yelling for Dash to do so. Alan falls off the stage and Loretta is left onstage with his wig dangling from her watch. She rushes off stage and heads outside. The doorman calls a car for her, but before it comes she is forced into a car and taken to meet……….

Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe), a billionaire who has discovered a lost city on a remote island he believes might be where the lost treasure, The Crown Of Fire is located. He believes that Loretta and her late husband had done extensive research on this subject and will be able to help him decipher the scrolls that reveal the exact location. He explains that he has kidnapped her and they are flying to the island he now owns. As they arrive and Abigail persuades Loretta to cipher the information he needs, Beth and Alan are busy trying to figure out what happened to Loretta. Alan thinks he knows someone who can help find her and calls……..

Jack Trainer (Brad Pitt), a former Navy Seal and a CIA operative. Together Alan and Jack fly to the island to free her. Jack turns out to be a complete bad-ass, a one man army. Kind of like Denzel Washington in The Equalizer Movies, using everything in the room as a weapon to quickly decimate the enemy. From here on out it is a hilarious action-filled adventure as they free Loretta and traipse through the jungle running from the billionaire and his henchmen. There is one last scene in the movie with Brad, Sandra and Channing that appears halfway through the end credits. If you’re not paying attention to the credits you might miss it, it changes what you think is the end of the movie before the credits.

I have seen it three times and still enjoyed it. It is goofy, funny, full of silly one-liners, a rom-com in the end and a great action adventure comedy. I really liked Brad Pitt as Jack Trainer, Channing Tatum is laughable and loveable as “Dash”, and you gotta love anything Sandra Bullock is in.

Two Thumbs up!