Dan Akroyd

Saturday Night

11/01/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

It’s Saturday night, so this Unlimited screening of er… Saturday Night feels entirely appropriate. Directed by Jason Reitman, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Gil Kenan, it tells the inside story of a turbulent midnight production at NBC studios, New York, on the 11th October 1975. Saturday Night Live is of course, still running, a major American institution, but Reitman’s film shows how close it came to never being transmitted in the first place.

Ambitious young TV producer, Lorne Michaels (Gabrielle LaBelle), his wife and lead writer, Rose Schuster (Rachel Sennot), and their understandably nervous co-producer, Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman), find themselves trying to control an anarchic bunch of comedians and musicians. They include the assured front-runner, Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), the ever-adaptable Dan Ackroyd (Dylan O’ Brian) and the doomed, drug-raddled John Belushi (Matt Wood), who hasn’t even managed to sign his contract.

As Michaels wanders disconsolately around the studio, trying to instil some kind of order to the deranged proceedings, he’s uncomfortably aware of old hands gleefully anticipating a disaster of Titanic proportions. Sneering TV producer Dave Tebet (Willem Dafoe) and legendary presenter Milton Berle (JK Simmons) both offer scene-stealing cameos. A special nod should also go to Succession’s Nicholas Braun in the duel roles of Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson, the former weird and inexplicably funny, the latter dismayed and strangely puritanical about the ways in which his Muppet creations have been despoiled by their co stars.

There’s a terrific sense of urgency about Saturday Night. I’m alerted to the fact that time is ticking away from the opening scenes onwards and the various confrontations, problems and disasters that occur are initially well handled – but it’s hard to instil any sense of real jeopardy when the world knows that everything is going to turn out fine in the end. And, while that sense of propulsion works well at the beginning and end of the film, there’s a somewhat lumpen middle section that never seems entirely sure which direction to take.

American viewers will be invested in the story, but it doesn’t mean as much here in the UK where SNL isn’t as well-known – and audiences whose only connection to any of these stars is via the National Lampoon and Ghostbusters films may struggle to identify with it.

But that said, there’s plenty here to enjoy. I particularly relish Jon Batiste’s spirited impersonation of Billy Preston and Naomi McPherson’s turn as Janis Ian, singing At Seventeen. LaBelle’s performance as Michaels is also assured, pinning down the inner struggle between the man’s vulnerability and his soaring ambition.

This film won’t be for everyone, but for those who were enthusiastic cinema-goers in the 1970s, it’s fascinating to witness how many stellar (and sometimes spectacularly short-lived) acting careers were launched by what happened on that fateful Saturday Night.

3.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

23/03/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Back in 2021, Ghostbusters: Afterlife felt like a sizeable step in the right direction. Director Jason Reitman (son of Ivan Reitman, who created the original Ghostbusters) had somehow managed to pull off an effective reboot, introducing a new cast of players and putting two of the youngest members at the helm. This sequel, written and directed by Gil Kenan, wants to have its cake and eat it, employing the new cohort, and bringing in some fresh faces, whilst handing large dollops of screen time to the veteran cast from the first two films. The inevitable result is that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire feels overstuffed as too many characters slug it out to get their stories across.

There’s a creepy prologue set back in 1904 and then we’re brought bang up-to-date as we join the Spengler family – Phoebe (McKenna Grace), Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), their mum, Callie (Carrie Coon), and ‘step-teacher’ Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) as they pursue the Hell’s Kitchen Sewer Dragon through the streets of New York. The Spenglers now operate from the iconic fire station where the franchise began, but the team have been so industrious that they are in serious danger of running out of storage space for ghouls. Then Phoebe (who is only 15) is banned from working with the team by old adversary, Mayor Peck (William Atherton) and has to watch in frustration as the others head off on their ghost-busting duties without her.

Things take a sinister turn when new arrival, Nadeem (Kumail Nanjiani), wanders into the second-hand shop run by Ray Stantz (Dan Akroyd) and sells him a mysterious sphere which used to belong to his late Grandma. It turns out that said sphere is cursed and is the key to releasing an evil spirit called Garakka, who has laid dormant for thousands of years – and is capable of unleashing a second ice age that will turn the world into a frozen wasteland…

This plot-line seems to belong more in the realms of cosmic horror than fun-filled family entertainment. It feels unnecessarily complex and convoluted – and I’m disappointed to report that some of the main characters from Afterlife – Trevor (Wolfhard), Podcast (Logan Kim) and Lucky (Celeste O’ Connor) – have hardly anything to do here other than draw breath. Meanwhile, every actor who enjoyed as much as a walk-on part in the first film is afforded the opportunity to return and strut their respective stuff.

Comedian James Acaster as scientist Dr Lars Pinfield shows some promise as an actor but Nanjiani gets the few funny lines on offer. A promising link-up between Phoebe and teenage ghost, Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), really doesn’t have enough space to fully develop. Time and again, we find ourselves back with the original cast, who really don’t have a valid reason to be there. Bill Murray as Peter Venkman and Ernie Hudson as Dr Winston Zeddermore look like they’re acting in their sleep and, in one scene during the climactic punch up with Garakka, I count thirteen characters, which significantly dilutes the impact.

Most damning of all is the fact that long stretches of the film are just plain dull, spending far too long on exposition, striving to tell us things rather than show them.

This is a shame, because Afterlife rescued a tired formula and gave it the kiss of life. Frozen Empire makes me suspect that this franchise has now flatlined.

2.8 stars

Philip Caveney

The Blues Brothers

18/06/20

Netflix

Continuing our (very ) occasional reappraisal of classic movies, I find this beauty lurking on Netflix and immediately feel a powerful need to reconnect with it. The Blues Brothers first emerged in 1980 and I know I watched it in the cinema on its release, but, nearly forty years later, I can no longer recall exactly where I was at the time, nor which particular establishment I viewed it in. No matter.

John Landis’s film came hot off his success with Animal House and is very much a love letter to rhythm and blues. It features a whole host of celebrated performers in cameo roles: Cab Galloway, Ray Charles, James Brown, Aretha Franklin; they are all trotted out to perform a song apiece as ‘Joliet’ Jake (John Bellshill) and his brother Elwood (Dan Akroyd) go about their ‘mission from God,’ trying to raise $5000 dollars to save the orphanage they grew up in from being closed down. $5000 dollars probably seemed a lot of money back then.

The overall feel here is of a cartoon made flesh. No matter what outlandish events befall our heroes (they are shot at with bazookas and flamethrowers and, at one point Elwood’s entire apartment block collapses around them), they don’t even raise an eyebrow – and they never remove their sunglasses, even at night. Well, apart from one famous bit…

The action sequences are amped up to eleven. You want a car chase? Sure, but why use four vehicles when you can use one hundred and four? You want to destroy an entire shopping mall in the process? Go on, the budget’s right there, spend it!

Much of the fun here is in revisiting those glorious set pieces. As somebody who played in bands throughout much of my youth and who often found himself performing in unsuitable venues, I will always relish the BB’s comeback gig where they are obliged to take the stage at a country and western bar posing as The Good Ol’ Boys. When their opening number, Gimme Some Loving, causes a riot, they are reduced to bashing out a version of the theme from Rawhide, swiftly followed by a tearjerking Stand By Your Man. Priceless. And of course, who doesn’t relish the scene where the boys drive straight at a group of Nazis forcing them to jump off a bridge into a river? 

Carrie Fisher makes a memorable appearance as the woman who Jake left at the altar and who has pledged to destroy him and his brother, by any means possible.  Something I didn’t expect when rewatching this film was to notice how many great movie actors featured here are no longer with us – and how much I miss them.

Sure, you can argue that the film is decidedly rough around the edges. Many of those featured musicians can’t act for toffee and the guest appearance by Twiggy (who presumably just happened to be around) feels entirely gratuitous. Some of the special effects are very much of their time, i.e. not that special.

But nevertheless The Blues Brothers still rocks, still makes me laugh out loud and provides a perfect tonic for these troubled times. And who could ever forget that famous quote, which in the 1980s, we repeated again and again?

Elwood: “There’s one hundred and six miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes and we’re wearing sunglasses.”

Jake: “Hit it!”

4 stars

Philip Caveney