It’s a sentence no serious cinemaphile wants to hear. “I just love the ‘Saturday Night Live’ movies.” That’s worse than hearing the doctor say, “We saw something unusual in your lab work.”
“Saturday Night Live” hasn’t been relevant since the ‘70s. The movies have never been relevant. I haven’t seen all of them, but I’ve seen enough to make a judgment. I won’t watch any new ones, either. They are garbage, and people who like them should be sterilized and then sent into forced labor camps. We need somebody to bend all those crazy straws.
If you are a fan of these films, I need to tell you something: You are being taken advantage of. You are being exploited. You are being played for a sucker by people who don’t respect you. What you think is funny on television does not usually translate well to the big screen. A three minute skit is not a ninety-minute movie. The powers that be, however, assume you can’t tell the difference. They believe you will pay good money to see these things, and they are right. Stop being a victim.
I never understood the appeal of these films, and I’ve never gone out of my way to see one, though I have been with friends who insist that our evening of entertainment will involve watching one or more of them. Of course, I also don’t understand the appeal of the television show, which I think is still on the air solely because of tradition. That tradition doesn’t really explain the movies, however.
The skits the films are based on are sometimes amusing. That’s being pretty generous, though. The Coneheads were never that hilarious, and those club guys who bob their heads were never funny. That Catholic school girl who sniffs her hands after burying them under her arms? Also not funny. Wayne and Garth? Stupid. So, if comedy and tradition aren’t the reasons these movies are being made, that leaves one other option: greed and the exploitation of the show’s fans.
The people who like these films are borderline mentally disabled. Oh, let’s face it. They’re over the border. If you bleed out five dollars or more to sit in a darkened theatre for ninety minutes to watch “Superstar,” you are mentally disabled. You need SSDI and a public guardian to manage your money. You should not be driving a car, and people have a right to be impressed if you hold down a job for more than a week. It’s easy to take their money, and these films have proved it.
“Saturday Night Live” is respected only by those who don’t know any better. People who think it is funny don’t really know comedy; they are settling for “good enough.” The cold hard fact is that the show should’ve been off the air decades ago. I know it. Most other people know it. Hell, I think NBC knows it, too, but has nothing it can put in its place. And Lorne Michaels is not the comedy genius people have made him out to be. He is the equivalent of an iron lung, and he’s too dumb to know the patient expired quite some time ago. No studio should be giving the greenlight to the films that have spawned from the show, either, but Hollywood is run by parasites desperate for new hosts, so it’s almost a given that any skit that gets a few laughs be optioned to suck dry the easily entertained.
Next time someone tells you they “love” these films, you need to say (in a slow, loud voice), “That is really, really nice. Can you count to three? Do you know your name? Are you lost?” Treat them like the mental midgets they are. You may seem like an a*****e, but I guarantee it’ll be way funnier than their favorite movies. They just won’t get it … but then again, they never do.
