Coming to theatres today, Friday, June 12: LIVE FROM NEW YORK!
Bao Nguyen’s exploration of the pop cultural phenomenon of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE made its debut as the opening night selection of this year’s Tribeca. Other fest screenings have included Nashville, Maui, Hot Docs, and the upcoming Provincetown.
Nguyen’s film debuted in the midst of SNL’s 40th anniversary season – and in fact was made specifically to tie-in to that milestone – which ends up being both a blessing and a curse. It’s a boon because the anniversary lends a certain gravitas, as well as a logical motive for a retrospective consideration of the program, complete with some occasional gems of archival footage, like some of the screen tests of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players. On the other hand, however, the film comes after SNL’s own multi-hour anniversary special, which, unfortunately for Nguyen’s project, already utilized that choice archival footage, as well as other more familiar clips, in addition to generally addressing the same terrain. Even excusing this, Nguyen would always face a difficult task in trying to summarize, lionize, and even kind of criticize a still-running series in less than ninety minutes – while appealing to the show’s core fanbase and the casual viewer at the same time. Though he makes something of an attempt to contextualize his film as a study of how the program evolved over time from subversion to institution, this never feels fully formed or developed, making fairly obvious points about sexism or lack of diversity in television before quickly retreating to familiar sketches and laudatory talking heads. As a result, while the doc makes for a diverting enough reminiscence of SNL’s highs and occasional lows, it’s unfortunately fairly generic and not particularly memorable in itself.
what (not) to doc 