Willem Dafoe – Rating Frames

Saturday Night preview screening provided by Sony Pictures

The 90 minutes in the lead up to what is now a staple of American television culture in Saturday Night Live (SNL), was a chaotic, frantic race to deliver the goods. As anyone who has previous worked in a live television studio would know (whether seriously or recreationally), getting everything and everyone in one place at one time without missing a beat isn’t for the faint hearted, let alone when hot headed producers are breathing down your neck, hoping you slip up so they can show re-runs of Johnny Carson.

That was the case, at least, for the folks behind Saturday Night, something that Jason Reitman (known for 2007’s Juno and being the son of Ivan Reitman) tries to capture in his 110 minute feature of the same name. It’s an audacious task to say the least: how do you condense 90 minutes into a feature that tries to stick to time in the same way? The answer is, you don’t, but the intensity and scrambling is felt with every cutaway to a timer tracking the minutes.

And Reitman tries to make every minute count in the same way Lorne Michaels did that very night. The lead up to going live is a mess, something that Reitman shows by building tension through multiple tracking shots and long takes that portray the various moving parts as they interject and get in each others way.

At the centre of it all is Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) who is trying to wrangle everything while convincing TV exec David Tebet (Willem Dafoe) that all is under control. Of course, it isn’t, with contracts left dangling, pieces of the set falling apart, various egos clashing —Chevy Chase (an uncanny Cory Michael Smith) and John Belushi (Matt Wood)— and drugs being snorted. There’s a verisimilitude to the portrayal of disarray, not least because historical accounts by those involved tell a similar story.

Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle), Jacqueline Carlin (Kaia Gerber), Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) in SATURDAY NIGHT.

There’s clearly a great admiration from Reitman towards SNL, both in the haphazardness of proceedings, the wittiness he injects into character back-and-forths, and the sense of building towards something special. Yet for all Reitman’s attempts to relive the night and build up to showtime, the film feels like a checkbox exercise for actors to do impressions of your favourite 70s comedians — with jokes that you’ll get tired of in no time.

But perhaps the biggest drawback in a film about people trying to make it is the knowing that they will make it. As a result, you’re clinging to thin character threads for 110 minutes based on real people; it almost turns a film about a process into one of the bits that Michaels pulls down from the pin board because it just doesn’t quite fit.

While a tad over-dramatised for its own good, and over-reliant on throwing out average lookalikes to the original cast for a cheesy one-liner every now and then, for people like myself who aren’t SNL diehards or who weren’t aware of the backstory behind the tumultuous opening night show, Reitman’s film provides a welcome insight into something that has continued to persist to this day, even if it’s past its golden days.

Saturday Night opens nationally from the 31st of October.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice preview screening provided by Universal Pictures.

Whether you like him or not, mesh with his unique aesthetic or run the other way, Tim Burton occupies a space in modern cinema that he’s carved from consistency: in strangeness, in the casting of brilliant oddballs, and in retaining his trusted collaborators. It’s a big reason why Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024), his follow-up to the now classic Beetlejuice (1988), is such a breezy experience at the cinema, one that picks up effortlessly from where its predecessor left off, and feels just as fresh and alive as it did 36 years ago.

It’s all the better, in fact, with this sequel using the foundations established in the first film and elevating them to a level of zaniness and tomfoolery that only Burton is capable of. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice plays out like a celebration of its predecessor, one that’s well thought out and that doesn’t feel like it’s had to reinvent itself for a modern audience. That’s in stark contrast to Burton’s attempt at Dumbo (2019), a film that from the outside looked like it was marred by too much intervention and creative oversight by Disney to the point where it felt like two visions clashing, with the result being a pretty mess.

Burton’s return to his own fabled creation has the opposite effect, showing a director who’s at ease and in his element, as though he needed a reset by returning to something so beloved to find his groove again. The title sequence attests to this, with a sweeping overhead shot of the town of Winter River that’s almost identical to the one he utilised in the first film; it’s a familiar, nostalgic sight, with most of the film leaning on callbacks to the original to appeal to audiences both old and new.

(L-r) WINONA RYDER as Lydia and MICHAEL KEATON as Beetlejuice in Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE.”

From the overhead shot, we land on Winona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz who’s now hosting her own show on paranormal horrors as though this was an episode of Ghost Hunters. She’s still just as quirky as in the first film, but is also much more on edge as she’s clearly still haunted by her own encounter with Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) many years ago. It could also be that her overly sleazy TV-producer boyfriend, Rory (Justin Theroux) is right up in her business trying to solve her problems the moment she gets a bit jittery; or even that her own daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) ignores her texts and doesn’t believe her ghost obsessions.

The truth is, it’s a mix of those things, but especially the former. Beetlejuice’s presence is still felt by the characters of the first film, including Delia (an ever so comical and hilariously bougie Catherine O’Hara), but he’ll play a key part in helping them deal with the film’s wider threats, including an old flame of his, Delores (aptly played by Monica Bellucci), who’s stapled herself back from the dead and wants revenge.

That’s not the least of the backstory that Burton traces through, with the first 25 or so minutes of the film introducing and reintroducing the film’s characters. Others include Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), a dead-actor-turned-detective in the Afterlife who’s full of wits as he’s tasked with tracking down Delores, treating his job like a performance in the process. The standout of the newcomers is of course Ortega who, after her success with Burton’s hit Netflix show Wednesday, slots effortlessly into the director’s zanny world. Her chemistry with Ryder is a revelation, with their pairing singing the tune of the film and its theme around reconciliation and the bond between a mother and daughter.

(L-r) JENNA ORTEGA as Astrid and WINONA RYDER as Lydia in Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE.”

The Afterlife itself is just as teeming with (dead) life, and looks just as vibrant and charming as it did all those years ago. It’s a testament to production designer Mark Scruton’s eye for detail as he decorates this setting with even more personality and character through his whacky designs. In fact, all of Burton’s collaborators are on their A-game, especially his regulars; Danny Eflman’s score has an ethereal quality that is reminiscent of the heyday of this genre of film, while costume designer Colleen Atwood once again dresses the cast to impress, to the point where one’s eye is naturally drawn to all characters lurking in the background.

There’s rarely ever any wasted space in a Burton film which is something that all filmmakers working in tight runtimes should aspire to. Every frame feels well thought out, every gag is executed cleanly and every prop feels like it’s just where it needs to be. Keaton has more screen time this time around as well, but everyone gets a share of the spotlight. There’s even time for a Chucky-esque demon baby-Beetlejuice, a room full of awkward Bob-like, small-headed, big-bodied beings, and a ‘Soul Train’ that —befitting to its name— transports soul musicians (and has wider implications in the plot). It’s a film that feels like it was made for the 80s gothic B-movie scene, was somehow never shown the light of day, but was unearthed at the right time.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opens nationally from the 5th of September.

Tag: Willem Dafoe

Saturday Night Attempts to Relive the Night SNL Launched

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: Tim Burton Turns Back the Clock with a Nostalgic Sequel