October 22, 2024
THE WILD ROBOT (Chris Sanders / 2024)
SATURDAY NIGHT (Jason Reitman / 2024)
Well, last week at the movies was a lot of fun. First up was
The Wild Robot, a very cute and very intelligent animated sci-fi wilderness adventure about an all-purpose service robot named Roz (the voice of Lupita Nyong'o) - part of the ROZZUM series - who, due to an accident, finds herself stranded on an island populated by wildlife and devoid of humans to serve. Therefore, she must find herself a purpose and develops relationships with the local wildlife, as well as serving as a foster mother to an orphaned goose named Brightbill (Kit Connor). She is aided in her efforts by a sly fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal). I don't want to drone on any further, so I'll just say that it's a very fun, very entertaining animated feature, with very funny dialogue, lots of laughs, intelligent observations about modern society as well as questioning whether competition vs. cooperation is the key to survival, and a genuine sense of poignancy. There's a little something for everybody here, and I would heartily recommend it to
anybody.
Next up, we've got
Saturday Night, the true story of the chaotic events leading up to the first broadcast of
Saturday Night Live on October 11, 1975. A very put-upon and stressed-out Lorne Michaels (a very good Gabriel LaBelle) - with only 90 minutes until showtime - is trying to deal with on-set accidents, friction between the actors, and a rebellious crew. On top of that, network man David Tebet (Willem Dafoe) has arrived on set and although the man is outwardly encouraging, it's 50/50 odds on whether or not he'll give this counter-culture longshot a chance and allow it to air live at the appointed time. For when asked what exactly the show is about, Lorne can't really give an easy answer. On top of that, he needs to encourage a very rebellious and wasted John Belushi (Matt Wood) to sign his contract before showtime. In the meantime, things threaten to get ugly between Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) and Milton Berle (J.K. Simmons), the puritanical NBC censor Joan Carbunkle (Catherine Curtin) spars with Michael O'Donoghue (Tommy Dewey) and host George Carlin (Matthew Rhys) makes his own feelings known in no uncertain terms. In short, a quite famously bad case of last-minute collective showbiz jitters. But as history has proven,
Saturday Night Live did make it to air, and has been entertaining us for the past 50 years. Very funny, very inspirational, and the actors playing the original
SNL cast are very good in their roles, in particular Lamorne Morris as a perplexed Garrett Morris (no relation).
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