Lorne (2026)

Director: Morgan Neville

Cast: Lorne Michaels

Have I Seen It Before: Well, that’s the real trick. Between all of the documentaries launched for the show’s 50th anniversary last year, to say nothing of his almost-hagiographic depiction in Saturday Night (2024), all the way to the recent semi-comprehensive biography, I feel like I’ve seen quite a bit from Lorne over the last couple of years.

Did I Like It: But do I know him any better? The film confronts the question of whether or not one can know the mastermind behind Saturday Night Live,  and eventually lands on the answer that one probably can’t, truly, but that there might be something there to know.

Landing somewhere in the middle of such a question in the middle of a documentary, but the failure to launch is presented entertainingly enough—largely via comedic half guesses by the people who might be in a position to know—that the film is not a bad experience. The film goes a step further when—in trying to fill in gaps—depict Michaels not as a talking head, but the Robert Smigel animated curmudgeon who chased after errant dogs at the top of TV Funhouse cartoons. The entire film seems geared to the crowd who grew up with Will Ferrell and Tina Fey, and less the ones who were coming of age when Michaels tried to re-unite the Beatles on the show.

What’s more, Neville manages to avoid the pitfalls of Saturday Night and doesn’t turn Michaels into some kind of plucky hero dancing to the beat of his own drum. The failures, prejudices, and the ever-increasing awareness of time passing permeate the proceedings. Losing Norm McDonald at Michaels’ nadir in the 1990s is re-litigated. His finger was best on the pulse of America when our parents were younger than we are now. And, ultimately, Michaels someone who withholds what he’s thinking, right up until the moment he either fires or hires you. In that sense, the film does reflect its subject.

They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (2018)

Director: Morgan Neville

Cast: Peter Bogdanovich, Oja Kodar, Orson Welles, Steve Ecclesine

Have I Seen it Before: Pieces of F for Fake (1973), The Other Side of the Wind (2018), and The Battle Over Citizen Kane (1996) abound, so ultimately, if you’ve seen one (or in this case, three) documentary about or inspired by Orson Welles, then you’ve probably seen them all.

Did I Like It: I’m on the record not thinking much of The Other Side of the Wind. I’m prepared to write most of it off to the film being just too experimental for its own good, and even more prepared to write off the parts of the film that don’t work to the fact that the finished product is only partially Orson’s. It also doesn’t help that a the cavalcade of egos haunted the film long after Welles’ “death*” and the byzantine path the film took to release may have diminished any true auteur quality the picture might have hoped for in a world when it was released in Welles’ lifetime.

And so I come to this film with a lot more interest than I did in that which inspired it. There’s much more drama in the failing of the film than in the film itself. Fusing Fake and Wind, this film comes together much more coherently than either. As a byproduct, It becomes it slightly less magical than Fake, but a little easier to swallow than Wind.

What’s more? It makes me want to watch Wind again. If this is truly the way to understand Welles in his own voice, then it might be necessary. Maybe that makes this movie nothing more than an extended trailer for Wind, but if that is the beginning and end of its ambition, then it more than ably attained its goals. 

*What one of my books presupposes is… Maybe he didn’t? #stayonbrand