J.K. Simmons

SATURDAY NIGHT: chaos as entertainment

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Photo caption: Cooper Hoffman (kneeling), Lamorne Morris, Cory Michael Scott. Ella Hunt, Emily Fairn, Kim Matula and Dylan O’Brien in SATURDAY NIGHY. Courtesy of Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Entertainment.

It’s hard to imagine, but fifty years ago there was no Saturday Night Live. There wasn’t much edginess on TV – All in the Family and M.A.S.H. were controversial -and a live performance telecast was unthinkable. Saturday Night depicts the first telecast of Saturday Night Live on October 11, 1975, and it’s quite a story.

Television network executives, always trying not to upset sponsors and affiliate stations, constricted creativity. By 1975, American music, movies, literature and fashion, had all moved on to reflect the turbulence and societal revolution of the 1960s and the Vietnam/Watergate Era of the early 70s. TV was still too square for the culture. There was nothing on TV like Portnoy’s Complaint, Midnight Cowboy, Frank Zappa or The National Lampoon. There was an opening for edgier content that would appeal to then twenty-something Baby Boomers.

As Saturday Night tells it, the timeslot was only available because NBC was in a contract dispute with Johnny Carson and needed a temporary replacement, a show that would be disposable when The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson returned. Into the breach stepped twenty-something showrunner Lorne Michaels (Gabriel Labelle) with an idea for a sketch-comedy show with musical guest performances, to be broadcast live, which the NBC’s Radio City complex was not set up for.

Saturday Night captures the chaos and risks of SNL’s debut. There were staggering technical issues with live television broadcast. The human challenges were more imposing – network suits were ready to pull the plug, the blue collar crew was in revolt and the network censor had never seen a script so transgressive. And Michaels had to wrangle a a group of artists, many whose egos and drug use were out of control.

Saturday Night’s cast members have the challenge of playing figures with whom the audience is extremely familiar – John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris and Laraine Newman. They’re all good. Dylan O’Brian kept making me me think I was watching the real 1970s version of Dan Ackroyd. Nicholas Braun captures the off-kilter talent of Andy Kaufman, and also plays a comically earnest Jim Henson.

Two performances stand out. Sennott is a revelation as SNL co-creator and head writer Rosie Shuster. Sennott’s Shuster is bright, sexy and charismatic; her command of situations, leavened with playfulness, is exactly what Lorne Michaels needs, as he is ever more confounded by unexpected crises.

J.K. Simmons is brilliant as Milton Berle, still feeling the entitlement of his TV superstardom, which, in 1975, was over 15 years in the past. Simmons dominates two of the greatest scenes in Saturday Night, the first as Berle cruelly dispenses a deserved comeuppance to Chevy Chase. In my personally favorite scene, Berle is taping an insipid variety show and mailing in his performance; just watch how Simmons’ Berle knows precisely how little effort he needs to put into a dance number.

Director Jason Reitman has delivered some the best movie comedies of the century. Saturday Night doesn’t have the depth of Reitman’s best (Juno, Up in the Air, Young Adult), but it’s entertaining. Saturday Night, a pretty good movie about a pivotal moment in our culture, is streaming on Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango.

DVD/Stream of the Week: WHIPLASH

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Miles Teller and JK Simmons in WHIPLASH
Miles Teller and JK Simmons in WHIPLASH

J.K. Simmons deservedly won an Oscar for his performance in Whiplash , the drama about the line between motivation and abuse and the line between ambition and obsession. A young jazz drummer (Miles Teller of The Spectacular Now and Rabbit Hole) attends an elite music academy (think Julliard) and comes under the attention of a drill sergeant-type of instructor (J.K. Simmons). The teacher-tormentor pushes the kid toward perfection through tough love and, ultimately, abuse. To what extent is the teacher trying to get the kid to excel? And how much of the teacher’s behavior is just sadistic bullying? And how will the kid respond? (The movie’s title reflects both a jazz song and the teacher’s instructional technique.)

J.K. Simmons is a guy whose name you may not recognize, but whose face you will. He has 143 screen credits, most memorably as the of the ironic and supportive father in Juno and Vernon Schillinger, the Aryan Brotherhood leader in the prison series Oz. This is Simmons’ movie; it’s an exceptional performance, that will probably land Simmons an Oscar nomination.

How good a movie is Whiplash? It’s a very good one – taut, and intense. The fact that it’s extremely focused on the two characters and the fundamental questions about their characters is a strength, but also limits it from being a great movie. Still, Simmons, Teller and the unrelenting tension makes Whiplash definitely worth seeing.  Whiplash is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and Flixster.

WHIPLASH: motivation and abuse, ambition and obsession

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Miles Teller and JK Simmons in WHIPLASH
Miles Teller and JK Simmons in WHIPLASH

The big hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the drama Whiplash is about the line between motivation and abuse and the line between ambition and obsession.  A young jazz drummer (Miles Teller of The Spectacular Now and Rabbit Hole) attends an elite music academy (think Julliard) and comes under the attention of a drill sergeant-type of instructor (J.K. Simmons).  The teacher-tormentor pushes the kid toward perfection through tough love and, ultimately, abuse. To what extent is the teacher trying to get the kid to excel?  And how much of the teacher’s behavior is just sadistic bullying?  And how will the kid respond?  (The movie’s title reflects both a jazz song and the teacher’s instructional technique.)

J.K. Simmons is a guy whose name you may not recognize, but whose face you will.  He has 143 screen credits, most memorably as the of the ironic and supportive father in Juno and Vernon Schillinger, the Aryan Brotherhood leader in the prison series Oz.  This is Simmons’ movie; it’s an exceptional performance, that will probably land Simmons an Oscar nomination.

How good a movie is Whiplash?  It’s a very good one – taut,  and intense.  The fact that it’s extremely focused on the two characters and the fundamental questions about their characters is a strength, but also limits it from being a great movie.  Still, Simmons, Teller and the unrelenting tension makes Whiplash definitely worth seeing.

DVD of the Week: The Music Never Stopped

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Here’s a crowd pleasing movie.  Parents find their long lost adult son in a hospital, suffering from a brain tumor that has erased his much of his memory (and all of his short term memory).  A speech therapist discovers that the son’s personality is sparked by music that he remembers from his teens.  The father and the son have been estranged since the son left after an argument between them.  The father finds that he can reach over the memory disability and re-connect by learning the son’s music.

The son’s music is all from the period 1964 to 1970 – and this music is another character in the film.  Dad leaves behind his Big Band sensibilities to embrace Bob Dylan, Donovan, Steppenwolf, Crosby Stills & Nash and, especially the Grateful Dead.  Baby Boomers and Dead Heads will really enjoy this movie from the music alone.  Indeed, the Dead’s Bob Weir and Mickey Hart have been out supporting the movie.

The film is a showcase for the excellent actor J.K. Simmons, who plays the father.  Simmons is always very, very good (Juno‘s dad, getting fired in Up in the Air and on TV’s Oz and Law and Order).  Here, he plays a guy who is secure in his own righteousness, but then sees and accepts his own responsibility for the estrangement, and whose love for his son motivates him to make some big changes.  Lou Taylor Pucci is excellent as the son.  Julia Ormond does a good job playing the speech therapist.

Now I generally hate “disease of the week” movies.  Really hate them.  But here the real story is about the relationship between father and son, and the rebuilding of the bond between them.  The memory disability, along with their past and the father’s initial stubbornness,  is just another obstacle to their communication.

The story is based on an actual case described by Oliver Sacks in his essay The Last Hippie.

Other recent DVD picks have been Source Code, Potiche, Step Into Liquid and Riding Giants, and Another Year.

The Music Never Stopped: sentimental movies can be good, after all

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Here’s a crowd pleasing movie.  Parents find their long lost adult son in a hospital, suffering from a brain tumor that has erased his much of his memory (and all of his short term memory).  A speech therapist discovers that the son’s personality is sparked by music that he remembers from his teens.  The father and the son have been estranged since the son left after an argument between them.  The father finds that he can reach over the memory disability and re-connect by learning the son’s music.

The son’s music is all from the period 1964 to 1970 – and this music is another character in the film.  Dad leaves behind his Big Band sensibilities to embrace Bob Dylan, Donovan, Steppenwolf, Crosby Stills & Nash and, especially the Grateful Dead.  Baby Boomers and Dead Heads will really enjoy this movie from the music alone.  Indeed, the Dead’s Bob Weir and Mickey Hart have been out supporting the movie.

The film is a showcase for the excellent actor J.K. Simmons, who plays the father.  Simmons is always very, very good (Juno‘s dad, getting fired in Up in the Air and on TV’s Oz and Law and Order).  Here, he plays a guy who is secure in his own righteousness, but then sees and accepts his own responsibility for the estrangement, and whose love for his son motivates him to make some big changes.  Lou Taylor Pucci is excellent as the son.  Julia Ormond does a good job playing the speech therapist.

Now I generally hate “disease of the week” movies.  Really hate them.  But here the real story is about the relationship between father and son, and the rebuilding of the bond between them.  The memory disability, along with their past and the father’s initial stubbornness,  is just another obstacle to their communication.

The story is based on an actual case described by Oliver Sacks in his essay The Last Hippie.