I just, like half an hour ago, took out time from work to watch the Saturday Night movie on Amazon Prime. I didn't like it at first. I have a problem with movies where actors impersonate recognizable people. As I watched the movie in which Renée Zellweger played Judy Garland, I sat there noting all the moments when she did and didn't act or sound like Judy Garland. Saturday Night is filled with dead-on impressions that could not possibly be deader-on…but in a way, that made me more aware of the few that weren't.
I also, I guess, know too much about how TV shows are made and the history of Saturday Night Live. For the first half of the movie, I sat here thinking, "That couldn't happen on a network TV show…that didn't happen on SNL until the third season…that wouldn't have been written fifteen minutes before air time…"
But then about halfway through, something clicked in for me: This was a fantasy, not a documentary. I started accepting the film on its own terms and enjoying it a lot. One of these days when I can do so without paying Amazon Prime another twenty bucks, I intend to watch the movie again with the proper mindset from the beginning. I'll stop thinking, "They couldn't have been deciding that or that or that an hour before a live broadcast" and I'll enjoy it a lot more then. I think.