Live From this Blog, It's Saturday Night!

SNL's original cast

Saturday Night Live and I go way back. To the beginning it's, not mine). I started watching in the first season. I was in college and SNL soon became a big talking point in many young people’s lives. Truth be told the show — originally featuring such comedy legends as Gilda Radner, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd — really screwed with Saturday nights. Prime partying time was (I imagine this still to be the case) from ten through one. That meant that right smack in the middle of the time you should be going nuts on the dance floor, or chatting up a lovely young woman or doing lines (of coke, silly) there was an irresistible comedy show on television. There were no recording devices, no DVRs, no You Tube or streaming service to allow you to catch up later. It was then or waiting for a re-run which would likewise be on when you were at a club or kegger. I remember parties coming to virtual halt as many partiers huddled around a TV set (they were generally small in those day, HDTV was years away). And it was the brightest of us who really appreciated SNL and its irreverence.

SNL was — sorry to trot out the cliche — groundbreaking. The closest we’d seen to it was the Smothers Brothers and it’s short-lived run on prime time in the late sixties. SNL was unfettered, original, sometimes political and replete with great comic actors.

The first five years or so was the first golden age of SNL. By the eighties the show had began to fade in my consciousness. Monty Python had come across the pond to demonstrate comedy that was beyond groundbreaking, more like earth-shattering. Sitcoms were starting to have a bite to them and comedy films were enjoying a revival. I only occasionally watched SNL, the big stars had left for other ventures. But then a second golden age came to the show beginning in the late nineties and extending about ten years into the 21st century. The cast had always included a superstar or two such as Eddie Murphy, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, Martin Short and Phil Hartman. But as the 2000s got rolling there was an embarrassment of riches. Will Ferrell, Fred Armisen, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Will Forte, Chris Parnell, Kenan Thompson (remarkably, he’s still there), Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Cecily Strong, Seth Meyer, Jason Sudekis, Tracy Morgan and Maya Rudolph. Those are comedy all stars.

SNL again became must-see television. I had a particular interest because Samberg and two writers (Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer) who joined the show when he did in 2005 were former students of mine. I came to honor their efforts, I stayed because they made me laugh, particularly with digital shorts always a highlight of the show.

Along with original cast members Radner and Belushi, I consider Wiig and Hader to be in the Mount Rushmore of SNL cast members and they were two of the shining stars of that era.

In the last five or so years the show has badly regressed. I’ve tried watching a couple of times a year and found the show to be unoriginal and tedious. At it’s best eighty  percent of an episode is top quality. At it’s worst, which is where it’s at today, maybe ten per cent is worth a look. Good writing is the key to  scripted material whether it is a dramatic film or a sketch comedy show. SNL does not have good writers these days, nor has it had for much of its run. But even more importantly, like great sports team, you need your superstars. When the show was flagging in the eighties, Eddie Murphy kept it propped up. Later the likes of Meyers and Carvey did the trick. When there’ve been an abundance of comedy greats the show has flourished. Easier said than done. SNL has been good for maybe twenty of it’s fifty seasons. Truly excellent for half of that.

One of the problems is that they’ll have a funny bit but will keep it going too long. Perhaps sketches need to fill a certain block of time, say seven minutes. The first three minutes are funny but we’ve got the joke and there’s nothing more to be done with it, but the sketch goes on trying our patience rather than making us laugh. This was what was so good about Monty Python. Skits lasted as long as they needed to and not a second more. Get the laugh and get out. SNL can be like a comic who has killed with a joke then keeps repeating it.

The show has also long since lost it’s originality. The political bite is long gone. That’s what made the Digital Shorts so damn good, no one had done anything quite like them before. Whether it was Lazy Sunday, Laser Cats or Dick in a Box  it was audacious and original.

One of SNL’s greatest contributions to our culture is the mega stars it has produced. Bill Murray, Murphy, Carvey, Samberg, Fey, Morgan, Murphy, Rudolph et al who have graced films, other TV shows and concert venues. Making the giant leap from obscurity to SNL can make it a much smaller leap to stardom in other places.

Sunday night NBC aired a three-hour long 50th anniversary schedule. While I was disappointed that there weren’t more of the “best of” clips that many of us love, it was a solid show. There were three notable absences: Hader, Aykroyd and Carvey. It seemed the show decided to punish Hader for his absence by including barely a glimpse of him in any retrospective footage.

I wondered about some of the celebrities prominently shown in the audience. It was great to get a quick look at Jack Nicholson, but one hardly associates him with the show. Not sure what Kevin Costner and his young trophy wife were doing there and I guess Steven Speilberg was in attendance based on his friendship with SNL’s long-time show runner, Lorne Michaels. Herein is a problem with the SNL of today, it is more about the glitz than the political satire. We get an endless run of celebrity cameos but very little controversy. A lot is self referential. It's a safe, establishment show, the opposite of what it started as.

Frankly I’m SNL’d out after watching the special and seeing all the articles about the show’s birthday, many in the New York Times.

SNL has a complicated legacy. It seems a large part of it’s import today stems from the show’s age. It’s been around from the Ford administration through Trumpy II. People are forever referencing it as if what it has to say is any more relevant or interesting or funny than what you get watching The Daily Show, Letterman, Seth Meyers, or Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. News outlets refer to what or who was on SNL seemingly out of habit. CNN will often have stories on who or what SNL has poked fun at as if there were newsworthy. Sometimes it seems SNL is still on not because we want it, but it would see weird without it. There’s little interesting or provocative anymore. 

But as Sunday's night special demonstrated there are plenty of memories. Some are pretty damn funny.

The Latest Edition of 'Films I've Watched Lately Some of Which I Loved Greatly' Includes Two By Hitchcock

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) Weir. This is a film that has been around for nearly 50 years. In that time I’d watched it once (not sure when but it was a couple of decades ago, at least) and didn’t like it. So again I ask: what the hell is the matter with me? There have been a lot of movies that I didn’t like the first time but discovered after a second viewing such as L’Aventurra, Cries and Whispers and The Exterminating Angel. Picnic at Hanging Rock can be added to that list. A masterpiece. Maybe like a lot of viewers I was bothered by the fact that there was no answer to the film’s central mystery.  An all girls school goes on a picnic in Australia in 1900 at a place called Hanging Rock. Four go missing along with a teacher. One is later found with no memory of what happened. What the hell happened to those picnickers? In watching the film again I realized that not only do we not require an answer to that question, we’re probably better off without one. The story is in the survivor’s reaction to what has gone on and how they react to it. Picnic is also beautiful to look at. Images from the film linger long after watching. It is powerfully evocative. Somehow in watching it I was reminded of Sofia Coppola’s Virgin Suicides. I subsequently read that Coppola admitted that Picnic greatly influenced two of her films, including Virgin Suicides. Sounds like a great double bill.

Elevator to the Gallows (1958) Malle. There have been few women who’ve looked lovelier on the silver screen than Jeanne Moreau did in this, Louis Malle’s first feature. It is surely the greatest French noir ever made. It is tightly plotted, lovingly shot to emphasize Moreau’s stunning features and features an excellent score done entirely by Miles Davis. Most of Moreau’s scenes are of her walking around Paris at night wondering what became of her illicit lover and whether he killed — as planned — her husband. Little does she know that he is stuck in an elevator. Of all the rotten luck. Complicating matters is the theft of her lover’s car and identity by a young couple who go on to commit the most serious of mischief. Elevator is much much more than just Moreau’s pretty face, but if it wasn’t that would still he a helluva picture.

Young and Innocent (1937) Hitchcock. Whenever I think of Young and Innocent one indelible scene immediately comes to mind. A car drives into an old mine and starts to sink. The heroine desperately tries to get out and the hero manages to reach for and barely pull her to safety. It’s an extraordinary moment from Hitchcock who directed many such memorable scenes. Young and Innocent is one in a long line of stories he directed in which an innocent man stands accused of murder and as in other of these type of pictures he’s on the run but benefits from the help of a lovely young woman who initially doubts his innocence. Just because he trots this same theme out all the time doesn’t mean it isn’t always successful. It is always successful. This iteration is set in England and features a cast that would be mostly unfamiliar to even a rabid cinephile such as myself. In any event it’s a good cast and an excellent film. With a stunningly shot conclusion. 

Nobody’s Fool (1994) Benton. It’s a really nice movie in which Paul Newman gives a very nice performance. It’s based on a Richard Russo novel of the same name. He writes nice books. Newman is a crotchety old man in a small upstate New York town. It is a cold winter, which adds to a certain gruffness and a certain coziness. Newman’s son, a college professor, reconnects with his dad after many years then spilts from his wife and pop and son get to know each other. Blah, blah, blah. There are characters in the film who are “real characters” who wear their personalities on their sleeves. Newman, who works occasionally for a contractor played by Bruce Willis is the center of everyone’s attention because he’s more interesting than anyone else. Melanie Griffith as Willis’ wife flashes her tits to Newman and that’s a nice moment in a nice movie that ultimately goes nowhere and does nothing original but again, it’s nice.

Blackmail (1929) Hitchcock. If I’d seen this film before it was a long time ago and I somehow didn’t fully appreciate it. Simply put it’s Alfred Hitchcock’s first masterpiece. It was also both his last silent and first talking picture as he made both versions of it. I’ve now watched both versions and both are criminally underrated. I prefer the silent one. A woman who is dating a Scotland Yard detective kills a man in self-defense and as the title suggests she is blackmailed. The story is fine and moves along nicely with a satisfactory denouement (ending at the British Museum the first time Hitch used a well-known place for a climactic scene) but it is all the little touches throughout that make Blackmail special. The seconds after killing (which we don’t see) are remarkable in large part owing to the facial expression and movements of Anny Ondra. Indeed it is from that point on the film that Hitch emphasizes key points with camera angles, highlighting sounds, camera focus and trickery. Utterly compelling.

Nazi Agent (1942) Dassin. It’s World War II propaganda and pretty effective at that. Conrad Veidt (best remembered as Col. Strasser in Casablanca) plays twin brothers. One is a bookish philatelist (is there any other kind?) who has emigrated to the U.S. to escape the horrors of Nazism; the other is quite the opposite, a dedicated Nazi who is German Consul and is also involved in espionage against the allies.

Reunited after many years they struggle, they fight, a gun goes off, one is dead and the other assumes his identity. It’s an interesting film capably directed by Jules Dassin. It was only his second feature in a career that would span forty years and it evidenced his great promise. The ending seems implausible but was clearly designed to stir up wartime audiences and I’d wager it succeeded.

The Union President: A Day in the Life

Salvatore Toscani wanted another glass of wine. Everyone had had one or two with their meal, Salvatore had four. Now he wanted a fifth. One more would be really good. He’d feel just great with one more glass. He had a slight buzz now, another glass would give him a nice high. No more after this last glass, he didn’t want to risk getting drunk around his colleagues. After all this was a business dinner. The top brass of the teacher’s union were gathered to discuss strategy for upcoming contract negotiations. No, it wouldn’t do for Salvatore to get too tipsy, he was the union president and had earned the respect of not just teachers, students and parents, but administrators. Salvatore had even been an administrator himself, serving as principal for two different schools before returning to classroom teaching and subsequently being elected union chief. Salvatore was a well-known figure in the school district in particular and the city as a whole. Thirty five years in education, all in Berkeley. Salvatore had earned a sterling reputation. But he had to have another glass of wine.

The closest carafe was in the middle of the table. Salvatore wasn’t going to ask anyone to pass it to him. Too obvious. So he stood as if to stretch. “That lasagna was delicious, Betsy,” he said to their host Betsy Connor. Betsy was a middle school math teacher. She was married to a big time lawyer and they had a huge house that included a large enough dining room to host the union’s executive committee.

Salvatore made like he was studying a painting as he edged over towards the carafe. Finally he picked up the carafe in a motion that suggested the most natural act in the world but made Salvatore feel as though he were common criminal stealing something. There was a bit of a shake in Salvatore’s right hand as he filled the glass to the brim. The union president felt that every eye in the room was watching and that they were appalled that he was drinking more wine.

In actuality no one paid much attention to Salvatore pouring himself a glass. Betsy and union vice president Cathy James noticed. Cathy was well aware of Salvatore’s weakness for alcohol but didn’t think too much about it since it never seemed to infringe on his work.

Everyone was still chatting socially as Salvatore re-took his seat. He took a long gulp of his wine and the inner warmth spread throughout Salvatore’s body and caused a feeling of elation. Salvatore did not think he had a drinking problem. Not at all. Alcoholics were people who spent long nights in bars getting stinko or drank alone for hours on end. Alcoholics lost their jobs, passed out in gutters, got the DTs. Nope, none of that was me, Salvatore would think. He just enjoyed drinking  — sure maybe a little more than most people — but he had it fully under control. Salvatore would wonder why such thoughts as a drinking problem would even enter his mind. Silly.

There in fact was a situation at the middle school — Cady Stanton Middle School — that Betsy represented, in which someone did have a serious drinking problem. There was a science teacher there,Vida Jones, who frequently had booze on her breath during teaching hours. One day she even showed up to school sloshed. A school safety officer had to take her home and helped cover up the incident with the school’s principal, Mrs. Lane who just so happened to live with Vida and was her lover. Mrs. Lane had left her husband for Vida. Any other teacher would have gotten the sack but Mrs. Lane sent Vida to rehab and told everyone that she had taken ill. No one believed it.

Mrs. Lane had transferred a Vice Principal to another school who had made a stink about Vida’s boozing. Lane and Vida were a lesbian couple who were securely in the closet so no one dared to mention the impropriety of it all.

Salvatore thought: now there was a situation with an alcoholic. Plus the whole business of Lane being Vida’s boss was unethical as hell but again we’re talking lesbians who weren’t officially a couple. Nod, nod. Wink, wink.

Salvatore was brought back from his musings by a question from Reid Thompson the high school rep. Before he could answer Betsy suggest they all repair to the living room where they’d be more comfortable. Salvatore saw another chance. As everyone got up to go to the other room he dawdled a bit pretending to look at some framed photos. Then when he was alone he re-filled his glass. Easy as pie this time. Salvatore ignored the fact that he’d promised himself that the previous glass was the last of the night.

Sarah Steiner was the newest and youngest rep at the gathering. She was a twenty-six-year old first grade teacher. Sarah took a good look at Salvatore as he sat down because something was bothering her about him. No, it wasn’t his flirting, that was all innocent enough, clearly he didn’t mean anything and she could handle the likes of him if it got serious. But something…than she figured it out. His nose. It was just like her dad’s nose. Sarah’s dad was a raging alcoholic. Her mom had finally kicked him out of the house when Sarah was fifteen. She still saw dad from time to time. Anyway, both her dad and Salvatore Toscani had unnaturally large, red noses. Sarah had also picked up on the way Toscani snuck an extra glass or three, just like dad. It wasn’t information she intended to use in any way, it was just there.

The execs chatted and argued a bit and mused and laughed and eventually made some firm decisions about how they were going to approach the difficult contract negotiations that were forthcoming. Ultimately the voice of wisdom had been Salvatore’s. He had known exactly what to say to shed light on vexing situations and had managed to bring everyone together. Salvatore was a natural leader and facilitator and everyone loved him.

It was almost 10:00 when the meeting broke up and people headed home. There was more to do but it was a school night and anyway they’d made significant progress. Everyone felt good about the evening. Everyone also further admired Salvatore Toscani for his leadership and wisdom. Salvatore was a truly humble person and gave himself no credit at all. In his own mind Salvatore was just one of the team playing his specific role, no more important than anyone else. His humility was evident to all who knew him, even if only casually.

Salvatore had only a five-minute drive to his house. For some reason his mind drifted back to Stanton Middle School and what he considered the fiefdom that Ms. Lane was running there. Bad enough that she protected her alcoholic lover when by rights she should have been fired or at least given a healthy suspension and a red flag in her personnel file, but Ms.Lane lied and manipulated people in other ways. Unlike any other principal Salvatore had come across, Ms. Lane had a well-earned reputation for harassing her teachers, constantly threatening them with more or poor evaluations, or more committee work or letters to their files or not honoring their classroom or course requests. She was particularly adept at playing one teacher against an another. Ms. Lane didn’t just listen to the gossip spreading around her staff, she spread it to suit her needs. Sometimes she had a specific purpose, other times she was just trying to make trouble. She loved the action. Salvatore knew all this, a lot of people did, but it seemed no one could do anything about it. As far as the district administration was concerned, Lane was an excellent principal running a top notch school. Lane was positioning herself for a job in central administration with an eye on some day being a district superintendent. Ms. Christine Lane was the grand master of self promotion. “She should have gone into politics,” someone once said. “hell, she probably will,” Toscani had responded.

By the time Salvatore walked through his front door he was good and angry. He’d been the principal at Stanton just before Lane. She’d come over from an elementary school (bringing Vida Jones with her) when Toscani went back to teaching. Toscani had resurrected the school after a series of bad principals had rendered it the worst school in the district. Lane was given a lot of credit for its current ranking as one of the area’s best middle schools, but as far as Toscani and others were concerned, she was just utilizing the programs her predecessor had put in place along with the personnel he had hired.

Salvatore’s wife, Addie was asleep. He was too worked up to go to bed. Maybe a nightcap will settle me down, he thought. Toscani liked the idea — hell he loved it — and dashed over to liquor cabinet and poured himself a brandy. Then another. He relaxed in his easy chair and soon began to doze.

Giuliana Toscani was holding her grandson Salvatore in his lap. She was singing to him. Little Salvatore was five, he spoke Italian as well as English but didn’t understand his grandmother’s song what with her throaty voice and some of the strange words in the song. But it was comfortable sitting on her spacious lap. But then she grew wings and flew out the window up, up, up above the clouds. It was exhilarating, until little Salvatore fell. He was falling to his certain death. The little boy screamed and that is when the sixty-three—year-old union president awoke with a start. It was 3:30 in the morning and he was still in his easy chair.

Salvatore shuffled off to bed and had three hours of sound sleep before it was time to get up.

Addie was already up and in the kitchen by the time Salvatore had finished his morning shower and shave. She greeted her husband of thirty-five years with a kiss. Addie loved her husband totally and unconditionally. They’d had two children together. Boys who had gone on to good universities and good jobs and in one case a marriage and two children. Addie didn’t think she’s spent a bad day in all her years with Salvatore. Yes, he drank a bit more than perhaps he should, but who cares? Her Salvatore was a great husband and had the respect of all who knew him.

Addie and Salvatore sat and talked as they ate their oatmeal and grapefruit and toast and drank their coffee. He filled her in on union matters and she told him about her work volunteering at the community center.

An hour later Salvatore was back at his desk at union headquarters. There was a lot to do today, besides union negotiations there were several teachers facing disciplinary actions. The union generally defended them to their utmost ability although one of them was in hot water so often that it hardly seemed worth the time. Salvatore decided to look at his case first curious as to what the latest mess was. He was a history teacher at Stanton who kept running afoul of Lane. His name was Penhall. This time Lane had charged him with insubordination for supposedly cussing at her under his breath after a staff meeting. Because of the volume of complaints against Penhall the district was looking to move for his dismissal. Penhall maintained his innocence in virtually every complaint filed against him though he did admit to kicking a waste paper basket once in a pique during class. Attached to the file on Penhall was a note from him to Salvatore sealed in an envelope. He hadn’t noticed it before. It read: “Salvatore, Lane is coming after me hard. I think someone ratted to her that I tipped the central administration off about Vida’s drinking. They didn’t touch it downtown but any effort to smear Vida is essentially a smear on Lane. She is seeking vengeance. The swearing under my breath claim is bullshit and Lane knows it. She figures it’ll stick because of how she’s muddied the waters against me. Call me at home to discuss further. I’m determined not to go through an attempted dismissal just because a principal plays dirty. Thanks, Matt Penhall.”

For the first time since he’d first encountered Penhall, Salvatore felt sympathy for the guy and in fact believed him. Salvatore had heard the Penhall was actually an excellent teacher. Not easy for colleagues to get along with and prone to long digressions in the classroom, but revered by students. The union president suddenly had the idea that there was now a wedge against Lane. Maybe she could be brought down a notch. Maybe instead of being on the fast track to bigger and better things she could be put in her place. Maybe even pushed out of Stanton. Toscani was thinking big, he’d learned in life that the impossible was often merely the untried.

Salvatore Toscani smiled. There were so many exciting challenges, so much to do, so much action. He was excited about another full day of work. He was also already anticipating a pleasant evening at home with Addie. A nice dinner with a good bottle of wine. He loved his life.

My Top 30 Films of the First Quarter of the 21st Century

Match Point

The title sums up this up. I don't know if I'll be around for a list of my favorites for the first half of the century and barring remarkable medical breakthroughs I won't see the end of this century. So on that morbid note here are my favorite films released between 2000 and 2024. Exactly half are in English language films and half in foreign tongues. There are two Woody Allen and two Quentin Tarantino films in the top six and two Coen brothers movies in the top seven. But the director with the most films here is Finland's Aki Kaurismäki with three. The only other director with two pictures on this list is Pawel Pawlikowski. There were four films from last year on the list, nor surprising given that I've ranked 2023 among the better years in cinematic history. The next closest was  2011 with three pictures. All told twenty of twenty-five years had a film in my top thirty. I was surprised that there was nothing from Wes Anderson though if I'd expanded the list to forty both The Royal Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom would have featured.  Two more Coens' films, A Serious Man and O Brother Where Art Thou?, also just missed.

1. Match Point (2005) Allen

2. Once Upon a Time .... in Hollywood (2019) Tarantino

3. In the Mood For Love (2000) Kar-Wai

4. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) Coens

5. Inglorious Basterds (2009) Tarantino

6. Midnight in Paris (2011) Allen

7. No Country For Old Men (2007) Coens

8. Requiem For A Dream (2000) Aronofsky 

9. Mean Girls (2004) Waters

10. Drive My Car (2021) Hamaguchi

11. Y Tu Mama También (2001) Cuarón

12. Le Havre (2011) Kaurismäki

13. Fallen Leaves (2023) Kaurismäki

14. Zodiac (2007) Fincher

15. Oppenheimer (2023) Nolan

16. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Gondry

17. Zone of Interest (2023) Glazer

18. Habla Con Ella (2002) Almodóvar

19. Personal Shopper (2016) Assayas

20. First Reformed (2017) Schraeder

21. A Separation (2011) Farhadi

22.  Cold War (2018) Pawlikowski

23. Des hommes et des dieux (2010) Beauvois

24. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2018) Gan

25. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) Iñárritu

26. Ida (2013) Pawlikowski

27. Godland (2023) Pálmason

28. Anora (2024) Baker

29. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2012) Ceylan

30. Lights in the Dusk (2006) Kaurismäki