“When I first heard about the premise of Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night — the entire film takes place in the 90 minutes leading up to the late-night comedy landmark’s first episode in 1975 — it seemed like there would be a backstage let’s-put-on-a-show “What can go wrong? Everything can go wrong!” real-time frenetic bustle to the thing. And that sounded like fun.” — from Owen Gleiberman‘s “What Does Saturday Night Think Saturday Night Live Is About?“, posted this morning.

It didn’t sound like “fun” to me for I knew what Chevy Chase has recently stated, which is that the material that would consitute the first episode (skits, jokes) had been very thoroughly rehearsed and worked out down to the tiniest little detail. So the final 90 minutes before the show went on the air live couldn’t be hellzapoppin’. Nobody on the show (Lorne Michaels, writers, performers) could or would have been that improvisational or self-destructive.

So the film is just dishonest about how this NBC counter-culture comedy show came together all those years ago. It’s a phony scheme, I mean. The performers (dull-as-dishwater Gabrielle LaBelle aside) are pretty good but I wasn’t buying the premise that it was all last-minute juggling. How could anyone?

Chevy Chase quote:

They’ll be required to state the obvious, which is that there was something seriously wrong with the tens of millions who voted for Trump in ’24, despite knowing what kind of person he is and what he’s capable of, etc. Not that Kamala Harris doesn’t have issues and annoyances, but she’s at least sane and sensible and law-abiding. There are nonetheless millions of alleged adults who’ve been saying “no, I prefer the animal…I prefer the sociopath.”

Holy cow. Mark Cuban is now making his rounds on national podcasts listened to by mostly young white men who lean conservative. The latest is with Theo Von & Mark Cuban torches Donald Trump as a scam & as a bad businessman. This matters a lot. Watch. pic.twitter.com/kyfG6tuc6N

— Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) September 27, 2024

I finally sat down with Azazel Jacobs‘ His Three Daughters on Netflix, and I have very little to add to what everyone else has been saying, which is that it’s a fairly delicious ensemble piece.

It’s about three adult-aged sisters (Carrie Coon‘s control-freak Katie, Natasha Lyonnes stoned-all-the-time Rachel and Elizabeth Olsen‘s space-casey Christina) tending to their dying dad (Jay O. Sanders) inside a dreary-looking apartment — almost all dialogue, great performances from everyone top to bottom but especially from Coon.

My favorite scene is when Katie and Rachel, who routinely get on each others’ nerves, lose their tempers and come damn close trading blows, but are prevented from doing so by a huddling, freaked-out Christina.

My only problem is with Sanders’ bulky, fleshy appearance. As soon as I saw him my suspension of disbelief went out the window. Sanders’ character has been dying for months and is very close to the end, and yet he’s got a fair amount of weight on him and his facial features have a jowly thing going on. The last time I checked older men who are cancer-wracked are fairly skinny and gaunt looking. Sanders is too beefy, too heavy-set….like a linebacker or a professional wrestler.

And I didn’t iike the Three Daughters apartment, which seems to be part of a Co-op City structure of some kind (fake-brick siding, chain-link fences, spindly trees, security guard downstairs). It appears to be located within a vaguely shitty Queens neighborhood that’e near an elevated subway line. Perhaps Washington Heighte but who wants to live in a soulless Queens or Bronx apartment complex…a place without any color or personality to speak of…generally lacking in real New Yorkyness?

And I wasn’t in love with Sam Levy‘s cinematography, which mostly emphasizss one color — amber gold– and always look soft and hazy to the point of the film almost seeming unfocused.

And that sweater!

Last night everyone jumped on that Fandango report that Wicked Part One (Universal, 11.22) runs 160 minutes. And it’s a musical, mind.

Let’s assume that Wicked: Part Two (11.26.25) will have the same tone and pacing and comes in at two hours or perhaps a bit longer. 160 plus 120 = a 280-minute or a four and a half hour Wizard of Oz-adjacent thing that we’ll all need to sit through.

The applicable term or phrase, once again, is “lack of narrative discipline.”

Unless they’re on camera. Media exposure changes everything.

As previously noted on HE, widespread shock and outrage greeted a recent decision by the cultural troglodytes on the Film Federation of India (FFI) to submit a lightweight sitcom, Laapataa Ladies, over Payal Kapadia All We Imagine As Light for Oscar consideration as 2024’s Best International Feature.

Yesterday The Hollywood Reporter’s Anuska Alves reported a quote from FFI President Ravi Kottarakara that seemed to indicate a sexist or certainly a lowbrow nativist attitude in the part of FFI’s all-male selection committee.

HE to Academy members: Leapfrog over the FFI’s dismissiveness by nominating Kapadia’s film for Best Picture — it’s the only thing to do.

This is real. HE feels that these sociopathic Zoomer eco-activists should have drawn longer sentences. As in, like, “throw away the key.”

Then again what choice did I have?

From Manohla Dargis’s N.Y. Times review:

From HE’s 5.16.24 Cannes Film Festival review:

…for the great Maggie Smith, who never quite “peaked” in the HE sense of the term but kept on rolling on…from the late 1950s through the mid 20teens…I know what I’m obliged or expected to say about her remarkable career and yes, we all think of Smith of having excelled when playing middle-aged or elderly roles, but when I heard of her passing this morning the first thing that came to mind was her deeply stirred and stirring Desdemona in Laurence Olivier‘s Othello (’65), filmed when Smith was 30 or 31.