Joey Magidson
Welcome back to my Home Movies! This week, we kick off 2025 with one of my favorite films of last year leading the charge in Saturday Night. Today also features another quality movie from 2024 hitting shelves with We Live in Time, as well as a classic in Se7en getting a 4K release. Plus, the Criterion Collection section is back! Read on for more…
Joey’s Top Pick
Saturday Night
Back at the Telluride Film Festival, I fell hard for Saturday Night. Jason Reitman‘s ode to the making of Saturday Night Live, warts and all, is full of love, but also kinetic, vibrant, and as much fun as I had with any movie last year. I spoke to Reitman about it here, as well as cast members Gabriel LaBelle (here), Dylan O’Brien (here), and Matt Wood (here). My rave review from Telluride here began like so:
For the amount of work that goes into making a film or a television show, it’s a literal miracle that anything gets completed. That there’s also live television in this world speaks to talented men and women doing the impossible. Jason Reitman‘s Saturday Night is a loving tribute to that, looking at the creation of the first ever Saturday Night Live episode in near real-time. High energy, hilarious, and full of the spirit of creativity, this is one of the Telluride Film Festival’s best and most fun movies not just this year, but in several years.
Saturday Night perfectly captures the insanity of putting on SNL. The lunacy of the production, as well as the cast and the crew, is depicted with love, but also without pulling punches. The comedy obviously comes together by the end, but there’s no shortage of drugs, egos, fights, and setbacks that should have kept the show from ever airing in the first place. The affection Reitman has for Saturday Night Live is clear, but he’s not afraid of the warts that came with night one being produced.
Recommended Viewing
We Live in Time
When done well, a tearjerker gets me good. Now, I’m often paying close attention to see if the emotions are artificial or not, so when We Live in Time wore me down, I know they were properly hitting me in the feels. Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh are very good in the flick, which never became more than a solid financial hit for A24, but that’s okay. The work still speaks for itself. Back at the Toronto International Film Festival, I had the following to say in my review here:
I’m a sucker for a tearjerker when the emotional manipulation is done well. When it’s too artificial, I can revolt, but if it feels natural and earned, I almost always roll a tear when intended to do so. As such, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that We Live in Time made me cry. It may surprise you to learn that I resisted for much of the runtime, though when the serious sad moments hit, I was knocked over. As one of the higher profile world premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival this year, I don’t think it’s entering the Oscar race in any notable manner, but I do think that the movie is going to find an ample amount of fans.
We Live in Time tells a very conventional romantic drama in a very unconventional way. By not following any sort of a linear timeline, we sort of drift in and out of the lives of our couple, seeing the early and later days of their love. Initially, it feels like a random storytelling device just for the sake of being different, but by the end, the power of it all does land with effectiveness.
Also Available This Week
Armor
Drag Me to Hell (4K)
Naruto: The Complete Series (TV)
Se7en (4K)
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Criterion Corner
Yojimbo / Sanjuro: Two Samurai Films by Akira Kurosawa
From The Criterion Collection: “Thanks to perhaps the most indelible character in Akira Kurosawa’s oeuvre, Yojimbo surpassed even Seven Samurai in popularity when it was released. The masterless samurai Sanjuro, who slyly manipulates two warring clans to his own advantage in a small, dusty village, was so entertainingly embodied by the brilliant Toshiro Mifune that it was only a matter of time before he returned in a sequel. Made just one year later, Sanjuro matches Yojimbo’s storytelling dexterity yet adds a layer of world-weary pragmatism that brings the two films to a thrilling and unforgettable conclusion.”
Stay tuned for more next week…
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