Cocaine Bear (2023)

What's scarier than a bear on the loose? One that stumbles upon a cache of cocaine, with the usual predictable results. This one was a whole lot of fun, full of mid-'80s vibes and some pretty brutal kills. It's very dumb at times, but passable for this kind of raucous horror-comedy. I just didn't want it to end.

Inspired a whole host of "animals on drugs" direct-to-streaming B-garbage (including Meth Gators and Crackcoons), but this one was the first and best.

3 kilos out of 5

Saturday Night (2024)

It's 90 minutes before the very first episode of Saturday Night Live is set to premiere on October 11, 1975. Lorne Michaels frantically struggles to keep the cast's larger-than-life personalities in check, as he deals with snarky writers, cranky technicians and know-it-all executives coming down on him from all sides. It's a clash of egos between divas and assholes, and it's exhausting to say the least. I give Jason Reitman props for handling this source material which has become the stuff of legend at this point, although at times it feels more like an excuse to showcase a bunch of celebrity impersonations (as good as they may be). It seems like they took a lot of the stories and lore from the first year of SNL and crammed as many as they could into a two-hour time frame. It ends right where the first episode begins, so I guess seek that out afterwards to see how it all turned out. 

2½ bee costumes out of 5