at the movies

What was on TV? Sat, March 12, 2005

Constantine welcomes you to hell, and it looks so good. Plus SNL.

Grace MacLaine

12 Mar 2025 — 3 min read

20 years ago, the ACLU uncovered evidence that US troops held children as young as 11 at Abu Gharaib prison. Let's see what was on TV in America, supposedly the greatest nation on Earth.

At the movies: Contstantine

Doing this project really brings it home: everything looked better 20 years ago. Even schlocky TV movies and crappy network dramas were shot on film, and everything just looks so much nicer. I've seen a lot of bad movies since debuting this At the Movies segment: awkward rom-coms, talking animal movies, and shitty superhero movies. Even those look better than a lot of critically acclaimed movies released today.

So it is a true pleasure to behold Constantine. Like most movies from 20 years ago, it looks great. But it also has style and vision up the wazoo. The story doesn;t matter, I utterly failed to understand Constantine's powers or the mythology of this very Catholic universe. But every shot, every scene, looks totally spectacular and distinctive, and totally of its time in the best possible way.

I understand why this became a cable classic. The best way to experience this movie is probably in ten minute segments. At two hours, the visuals become overwhelming, and the lack of a coherent story starts to grate. But If you catch it on cable, you can appreciate a series of spectacular images and an exciting performance or two, and then go about your day.

Also at the movies

New releases included the Sony animated movie Robots and the Bruce Willis thriller hostage. They both did OK, and are forgotten today. The real story was Diary of a Mad Black Woman. It had won the previous weekend, and with $45 million dollars in grosses, it was already a massive success. This was a movie from a grassroots playwright that was totally uninterested in playing to white audiences. It's success was a true shock to Hollywood and most of the press.

11:30 SNL on NBC

with host David Spade and musical guest Jack Johnson

I don't love this season of SNL, but you can tell the head writer was a woman (we didn't know it until Harper Steele came out a trans, but both head writers were women). And it's really nice. Tonight, we get a classic commercial for "Woomba, the robot that cleans your lady business" without you having to think about it. The concept, the visual language, the approach, it could only have come from a woman, and it's hilarious. This carries over into the Weekend Update, anchored by two women for the first and so far only time in SNL's history. The jokes come from a female point of view, but so do the odd indulgent bits where Tina and Amy do things like play with Barbie dolls. We're so used to seeing male comedians and celebrities indulge their peccadilloes and nostalgia, seeing women do the same can be refreshing.

What Else Was On

Tonight's Sci-Fi original movie was Mansquito. But if you search for it now, it's called Mosquito Man. Shame! Shame! This is like when they tried to change the title of Snakes on a Plane to Pacific Flight 121.