This is an interesting historical film to see in regards to the pipeline of comedians from the Saturday Night Live machine. Some are winners. Let’s be honest, most are losers. This one? Some funny stuff. Not great. But it doesn’t suck either, and has a little heart to it. Plus, it doesn’t totally make fun of carnies, so I’ll give it some credit there. That’s a hard job. A thankless job. But it gets done anyways, all for your amusements.
Navin, having his birthday. How old? Old enough to wonder why in a family from the south, he still don’t have a lick of rhythm. Sad, really. But then when he finds a beat he can understand, he’s off into the world, to see what else is out there. He works his way through life and love and Shithead dogs. And becomes an accidental millionaire in the process. How about that!?!
I always associated Steve Martin with SNL’s early days, but he wasn’t an actual cast member, just hosted a lot given his comedic prowess at the time and his comedy ‘records’ and live shows he did at the time. The Jerk was his first film though, putting him on a different level. Obviously it was a well that many drew from for comedy movies going into the 80s, with many of the early SNL cast helping define a new era of comedy on film like The Blues Brothers with John Belushi and Dan Akyroyd, Chevy Chase in his blundering everyman roles, to Bill Murray’s pretty decent success as a funnyman before he got so serious. Then the next gen of SNL copied that template, unfortunately to usually less than stellar results. Overall this has some funny stuff throughout, with Martin being a great physical comedian on top of the written stuff. While not the funniest, he does have a lot of amusing material from over the years, between his stand-up, TV and film roles. Fucking cat juggling. Comedy, my friends, is not pretty.
