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MacGruber: The Laughter Will Be There Waiting For You

Let’s see their rabid bunny defense system handle this little snack… filled with C4!!!

Rating: 8 out of 10

It seems to be the hidden goal of every idea in the universe to end up in movie form. Whether it started as a TV show, comic book, video game or an action figure (possibly featuring kung-fu grip); everything strives to be blown up and projected to a captive audience. Many of them fail, in extraordinary fashion (ahem… McHale’s Navy, Steel, Double Dragon and Masters of the Universe, respectively), but some break through the barrier of novelty and succeed as memorable theatrical experiences (the recent J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek deserves mention, along with the gothic wonderment of The Dark Knight). In the particular world of translating comedy skits, Saturday Night Live takes center stage as the longest running live comedy show with a continually growing treasure trove of material, but they are equally challenged with bringing about quality movies. While many will celebrate the original Wayne’s World and The Blues Brothers, we also hope beyond hope to block out train wrecks like It’s Pat. The newest effort to come out of the SNL think-tank, after a decade-long hiatus, seems primed to ride the wave of 80′s nostalgia, but will it catch hold? Read on…

MacGruber is an absurdist parody of the 80′s adventure show starring the jack-of-all-trades namesake, MacGuyver. In the original SNL skits, each one only ran thirty seconds while MacGruber would ask for random knick-knacks in order to build a bomb-defusing device and save everyone trapped inside a repeatedly locked room. He never fails to distract himself past the point of detonation, killing everyone. The feature length version finds MacGruber yanked out of seclusion into the armed forces as the only one who can track down his arch-enemy, Dieter Von Cunth, who gains possession of a nuclear warhead and plans to reduce Washington D.C. to tiny piles of radioactive dust.

I’ll fully admit the first time I heard they were pushing forward with the idea of a MacGruber feature film, I thought it would be a waste of time, space and celluloid. Yet, months later when that first trailer rolled out I found myself shocked to actually be chuckling and thinking it actually had a shot at being something worth watching. Many people believed it couldn’t be done, that an absurdist parody born from a 30-second skit could never last for over 80 minutes, but writers John Solomon, Jorma Taccone and co-writer/star Will Forte succeeded at just that. As numerous film business outlets have reported by now, the opening weekend box numbers were dismal and some are already calling it the ‘bomb of the year’, a moniker I strongly feel is undeserved, at least not in terms of quality. One of the keys to triumph was pushing each and every joke just a handful of beats past the point of normal, ‘safer’ comedies. Both of the main SNL alums, Will Forte and Kristen Wiig held on doggedly to drain each moment of the last possible chuckle, which for some audience members actually makes it even funnier. I felt Ryan Phillipe was an odd choice for the straight man because I didn’t think he could hold the screen against Forte, but he grew on me during the film and in the end proved that he was indeed willing to ‘go there’ to get the laughs. As for the villainous Val Kilmer and his portrayal of Von Cunth, he’s at his best when his characters are smarter than the rest of the people on screen, and the crowd, and the writers (see Real Genius or Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang). While Kilmer doesn’t come near that level of comedic ownership, he does balance out nicely with the rest of the cast and digs into the second-grade humor when it’s called for.

The End of the Page Recommendation: While it may play out to be one of the year’s biggest box office disasters, MacGruber will ride on and gain a solid life on DVD as a cult comedy, not unlike Hot Rod, starring Andy Samberg, another SNL superstar. No matter what happens, they can always rest easy knowing it’s still better than It’s Pat.

The Moment of Truth: For Us or Them?

From the moment I heard about the idea for this show I knew that we as a society fell one more notch down the evolutionary ladder. For those who don’t know, Moment of Truth is a game show on the hypocritical right-wing Fox network (do I sound biased?) where people go on and answer questions for money. The contestants are hooked to lie detectors and the more questions they answer honestly the higher amount of money they win. Obviously the questions are made to be embarrassing and awkward to answer in front of a live television audience, but wait, there’s more! They also bring on special guests from that person’s life, their whole family is there, best friends, basically anyone and everyone who could possibly be emotionally harmed by these skeletons in the closet. All those people are front and center so the contestant feels the pressure of destroying their relationships and we get to see it all in crisp clean high definition.

The original few episodes that went by were reported online to be rather tame and the viewing audience didn’t get their dose of permanent emotional scarring, but that all ended last night. Needless to say, I don’t watch it and I want even post the clip up here because it makes me nauseous, but you can find it on YouTube if you’re so inclined. The clip from last night shows a woman admit in front of her husband, family and best friend, that her ex-boyfriend is the person she thinks she should really be married to and she has cheated on her husband in the past. After all that, she is riding high on the possible winnings she accumulated, but she fails the last question when she answers “Yes” when asked if she thinks she is a good person. The lie detector set that straight.

So to recap, her marriage is over, her family is embarrassed and disappointed in her, oh, and she walks away with no blood money.

This is the one time in my life that I am praying a scandal breaks and we find that this is all scripted, but in the end, does it really matter? How high do we predict the ratings will spike after last nights dissolution of marriage? How many more people will rush to the set to ogle over someone tearing away their very morality for a quick buck? The Fox network, who politically stand behind the banning of gay marriage because it erodes the sanctity of marriage, should be ashamed of themselves, but so should the millions and millions of viewers that put heaping amounts of cash in that Fox executive’s pocket.

Please, for the love of human decency, find a rerun of Touched by an Angel or just read a book.