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MacGruber (Script) – Review

MacGruber (Script) – Review

You have probably heard by now about the Saturday Night Live sketch entitled MacGruber (a parody of MacGyver).

Wiki describes it best:

The skit sets MacGruber, Vicki, and another assistant (typically played by the current SNL host) in a life or death situation. The sketch always occurs in three parts. The setting is always the sort that stars of action shows find themselves in (an abandoned mine, a warehouse, and so forth), and they always find themselves trapped in the control room (no matter the setting, there is always a control room.) They need to disarm a bomb which is about to go off, and Vicki will call out that there are twenty seconds left, ten seconds, and so forth. MacGruber calls for his assistants to pass him ordinary objects, like rubber bands or bubble gum wrappers (a parody of how MacGyver would typically devise some way of getting out of a jam with typical household objects). Unfortunately, MacGruber is always dealing with some sort of personal issue, and always becomes distracted by this issue, ignoring Vicki’s notices about how much time is left, and the bomb always ends up going off.

So they’re adapting this one-gag 30-second sketch into a 90-minute movie, and it’s going to be the first SNL-based and Lorne Michaels-produced movie in almost a decade (not counting Harold).
Looks like Michaels thinks SNL is again more popular than ever (yeah, right).
MacGruber has also been used as a Pepsi vehicle during this year’s Super Bowl.

The cast will mainly include Will Forte, Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph reprising their respective role (Grubes, Vicki and Casey).
It’s still being written by Forte, John Solomon & Jorma Taccone. The latter of which is directing the pic.
Regarding the new characters, Ryan Phillippe is playing the brash Lieutenant Dixon Piper, and Powers Boothe I’m assuming will be Colonel James Faith. As for Val Kilmer, he’ll be portraying the evil Dieter Von Cunth (you read that right).
And, yes, there’s a bunch of lame jokes around his name, mainly MacGruber repeating over and over again:

Time to go pound some Cunth.

Ha ha, that was a really clever pun to make…not.

Now, at this point you’re probably wondering how one can make a movie out of a sketch. The answer is simple: instead of parodying the same scene over and over again (being locked in a control room with a ticking time bomb), the movie parodies 80’s action films in general.
In that sense, it begins to be very different from the original MacGruber sketch.

The story is also really basic.
Grubes is pulled out of retirement to defend his country from Cunth, a man with a nuclear warhead. And this time, you guessed it, it’s personal. Cunth was actually the one that killed MacGruber’s former assistant (and bride to be), Casey.
Shit doesn’t blow every 20 seconds unfortunately. There’s probably like three or four “real” explosions occurring in the entire 90-minute movie.
The famous countdown sequence (by Vicki) is where you’d expect it to be. It’s however longer (three minutes instead of a few seconds) and is overall pointless (do you really expect MacGruber to die?).

In case you’re wondering what the rating will be like, it’s definitely a “Hard-R movie” as Bill Hader put it.
I was actually very surprised at how gory and crude the film was.
For the gore part, we have various head-shots, lots of blood and body parts everywhere. And the opening scene features young soldiers getting mercilessly killed one by one. Not really a funny opener.

As for the crude stuff, you can count on tiny penises and a hairy ass…with a carrot inside it.
Sorry for the image now stuck in your head.
In any case, the crude jokes seem to only be here to add a sense of ridiculousness to the whole movie, but what might have worked for, say, an Apatow production, isn’t necessarily something an SNL movie should base its jokes on. I’m not going to spoil anything but how the movie ends epitomizes this utterly pointless humor. I doubt even South Park would resort to such puerile jokes, and that’s saying something.
The drastic change of tone is even more evident once you look at the original MacGruber skits. They’re not as dark or as stupid (or at least not full of “below the belt” crude jokes).
And this leads me to the main character, obviously Grubes. Turns out, he’s a massive douche, and I don’t mean the good “it’s funny when he’s being an asshole” kind. I’m here talking about the bad “shut up you stupid, stupid man” kind. Saying he’s an egomaniac doesn’t cut it. For half the movie he’s basically insulting people. It’s so bad that you end up almost hating the guy and rooting against him. I was this close to virtually bitch-slapping him. Given that he’s supposed to be our hero, that’s a problem to say the least. Sure, he’s supposed to be this idiotic person that is ready to sacrifice himself for the good of his country, but he turns out to be the complete opposite of that. At one point, he even uses a “good guy” as a human shield! Way to prove your valiantness MacGruber.

But my biggest problem with this movie is probably the fact that it mainly relies on clichés for its jokes.
First, there’s an over-use of “stock footage.” This might be funny for a few explosions here and there (again, check out the old Grubes skits), but when all your expositions shots are only stock, the joke cancels itself out.
The same can be said about all the other clichés used throughout.
Stereotypical scenes and plotlines abound for an hour and a half. You’re obviously not surprised by anything, because you’ve seen it all before a thousand times. If the joke is supposed to be that I’m able to predict a mile away what’s going to happen, then I’m not laughing.
Five pages in, you already have your military general convincing a retired hero “to go back in the game”. Said hero (Grubes) has retired to, wait for it, a monastery in the middle of nowhere (or rather Rio Bamba, Ecuador). If that’s not enough for you, MacGruber is also surrounded by kids speaking in Spanish (though surprisingly not playing soccer/football). I almost forgot to mention those nightmares/memories he’s having about the villain killing his fiancée the day of their wedding (and the various “Noooooooo!” and “Aaaaaaaaah!” that ensue).
Again, a cliché in itself isn’t a joke, it’s just a cliché.

Despite all those numerous flaws, there are a few good scenes here and there. For obvious reasons, I’m not going to enumerate what they are but there’s at least one in a night club that made me smile. There are as well, sometimes, hints of good jokes in the dialogue amongst the ludicrous one-liners. Unfortunately, those moments lead back to the non-engaging storyline.

Overall, despite the lack of any decent plot, I’m confident the cast will pull it off. Forte for one (who shaved his head for the wig) will undoubtedly nail the dialogue and the character. The rest of the cast is also comprised of great actors (what the hell is Powers Boothe doing here?).
That said, I still can’t get past the fact that some of the jokes/scenes are just too absurd.
MacGruber wrapped shooting yesterday (on the 12th) and is scheduled to come out on April 16, 2010.

Medium: Can’t You See?

Medium: Can’t You See?
For this blog, I will talk about a veteran show that will return on CBS on September 25th. A show that mixes crime and paranormal elements, that garnered the lead actress an Emmy win in 2005, and was produced by arguably one of the greatest showrunners of the past 20 years.

That little show, you’ll have guessed, is called “Medium”, and was saved from cancellation by CBS, whose sister studio, CBS Paramount, also produces the show.

“Medium” is one of the rare shows that is barely recognized by critics, yet makes solid ratings and performs well in the key demographics. Even in France, where network M6 airs it, there’s barely any talk about the show. Granted, on the surface, it deals with familiar territory: a medium start having visions and helps the local district attorney to solve crimes and murders. Notice I didn’t elaborate on the visions. That’s because, at first, it was only dead people trying to communicate with her, either by showing them minutes before their murder, or actual clues about the identity of the murderer. But over the episodes, the creativity of Glenn Gordon Caron-who created one of the great comicbook-inspired shows of the last decade in “Now And Again”, and of course “Moonlighting”-is to play with the visions, and have them in a bunch of different ways: in a noir-from-the-50s way, in 3-D, in cartoon….The real treat is to see where those visions lead Allison, and how she interprets them. And even if the viewer can quickly expect some kind of routine, as Allison finds out soon she’s wrong about the visions, and someone is caught at the end of the episode, the show finds a way to defy expectations.

In a recent interview, Glenn Gordon Caron said: “This may look like a crime show, but it’s really about an American marriage”. And the heart of the show is the DuBois family. Actually, as other writers would introduce cheating, betrayals and other soapish devices to give drama and scandal to the DuBois life, Caron makes a point about keeping the DuBois family very much together and maintain their cocoon of joy they call “home”. One of the reasons may be to balance the depressing and scary visions perturbing Allison. But the show is kept realistic thanks to a honest portrayal by the tag team of Patricia Arquette and Jake Weber, who does a consistently great job every episode. Weber, and Joe DuBois, don’t look like the tanned, well dressed husbands with a good haircut, but he’s believable as an understanding and levelled father without sounding corny or plain weak. Actually, “Medium” may be pleasing to Denny Crane given how effectively the Republican values are portrayed in the show. But it never hammers the point home, no matter how the crazy family crises get solved. When focusing on the couple, “Medium” has released one of their best episodes, “Twice Upon a Time”, a beautiful take on alternate realities and a great exploration of what glues Allison and Joe together.

It boggles the mind to see that, in the span of a few months, two great shows watched by people over 50 were taken off the air of their networks: one being the cancelled “Boston Legal”, and “Medium” was fortunately rescued by CBS. In a TV world obsessed by young and sexy characters, “Medium” offers a couple who are grown and mature, with no troubles in their relationships, raising three adorable children despite consuming jobs. How boring, right?

So, “Medium” succeeds on three plans: the crime mystery, who actually manages to keep one guessing without falling in procedural traps- yes, there are investigations, but they are paramount to solving the mystery of the visions themselves-; the paranormal aspects, who give creepy, eerie visions in a variety of visual styles-what other show can give the viewer the impression that he’s choking in a plastic bag this convincingly?-; and the family aspect, which gives fuel to heart-warming scenes and entertaining banter, as well as a few choice zingers from Joe DuBois. But those three aspects are misunderstood by the critics, who’d rather see a routine crime show full of independent episodes, and no discernible or lasting character arcs. Let’s hope that the sixth season with a decent promo budget, and a good lead-in (in terms of ratings, of course) in “Ghost Whisperer” will solve those problems.

PS: The title of this post was brought to you by R&B group Total feat. The Notorious B.I.G.

Why the hell do you have an iPhone?

Why the hell do you have an iPhone?

Nifty, the second post in a row starting with a “why.”
I wonder…

Anyways, this was a provocative question for a provocative post as, today, I will try to challenge some misconceptions about what makes the iPhone so great.

Spoiler alert: it sucks.

The iPhone, like any other Apple product, is extremely expensive. You’re also tied down to that AT&T contract. This amounts to almost a thousand dollars a year.
Don’t you have better things to invest your money in?

It’s sleek, it looks cool, it’s gorgeous, but what does this mean exactly?
A beautifully-carved stick isn’t a knife.
A beautifully-designed iPod isn’t a phone.

And because a picture is worth a thousand words, take a look at the following chart:


3G compatibility wasn’t introduced to the iPhone until earlier last year. Prior to that, it was EDGE-based.
The (literally) 4-year old phone I owned (Samsung Z-500) before my current one (Samsung i900) already had 3G speed, and it’s from 2005, not 2009.
It also had a whole lot of functions that even the current iPhone still does not have as you can see in the chart, including video call capability thanks to a second camera situated on the front of the mobile phone.

All of this begs the question:
With such a hefty price tag and such low technological assets tied to it, why do you have an iPhone?

The first answer that pops into your mind will probably be linked to its incredible touchscreen.
Granted, it’s hands-down one of the best currently on the market. That said, its only superiority to other touchscreen phones is the multi-touch function. And not for long. The Palm Pre for instance already has multi-touch technology.
Also, think about it, are you really using actual multi-touch rather than standard touchscreen on a day-to-day basis? Double-tapping is more widely used for Web surfing or Google Maps. And I think that the primary appeal of the multi-touch technology when it was introduced, because it was so brand new, was that it’s cool to “show off.” But now that everyone has either seen, touched, or owns an iPhone, it’s getting pretty old.
There’s also the fact that the screen is far from the only thing that matters in a phone, especially on a smartphone.

And with that, let’s see what other important features you might need.
I’ll try not being too technical.

First, the hardware.
Save for the screen, it’s almost a decade old.

The iPhone camera is extremely limited with only 3 Megapixels (today’s phones can easily attain the 8MP).
Also, you couldn’t even make videos with the iPhone until a few months ago!
I mean, come on, even the most basic camera phones can do that but you’re telling me that for a few hundred dollars more I must have less?

As stated above, another 3G advancement was the ability to make video calls via a mobile phone.
Problem is, you need a camera at the front of your handheld device (let alone it having a decent quality). This little bonus has now widely spread throughout the smartphone landscape.
Not to the iPhone though.

You don’t really own the phone either, certainly not its hardware since you can’t do anything with it.
Try changing the battery.
Sorry, you can’t, the back is sealed shut.
Oops?

Now on to the software.

Regarding the iPhone’s, it’s also pretty weak.
Customizability is virtually nonexistent compared to its competitors, starting with the most used feature on there, web browsing.
Safari is far from being the best mobile browser. I suggest you compare it to one of the many others available such as Opera Mobile.
That’s right, I said “one of the many,” as elsewhere you can select which one you want to use.
You can’t pick and choose on the iPhone. And Safari can’t even handle Flash content. Sorry about that.

Hey, but good news, MMS is finally coming to the iPhone later this month!
Oh, but wait, it will only be available to 3G users.

Technically, this is only a software limitation, not a hardware problem. An EDGE phone can send an MMS given the opportunity. It just takes two lines of code to fix this (hell, there even have been several apps allowing MMS available for months).
Yet this seems to be way too complicated for Apple.
I wonder why.

It would take way too long to list all the basic functions lacking.
What’s more revolting is that the iPhone is considered by many as a “smartphone,” similar to a Blackberry. More and more businesses have actually started using the iPhone. And yet, there’s so much missing.
You can’t even do data tethering (use your phone as a modem for your laptop)!
A phone from the last decade could do it, why not one introduced only three months ago?

But you can read movies you say?
Did you check if you could read non-MP3/MP4 files, such as DivX AVIs or Lossless FLAC?
The answer is no, you cannot read those on the iPhone (or any iPod for that matter).

Regarding third-party applications, that’s a whole other story.
They were not even officially supported until the release of the second iPhone OS last year!
At the end of the day though, unless you “jailbreak” your iPhone, you’re entirely dependent on Apple’s goodwill via iTunes.
Case in point with Google Voice. Sadly, it’s not coming to the store.

With other phones, like Windows Mobile-based ones, you don’t have to “jailbreak” them since you’re not dependent on the one store to get your apps.
And, unlike with Apple, no one is looking over the developer’s shoulder to check if the app is “good enough” for the phone (read: doesn’t compromise the manufacturer’s evil master plan).
Sure, the World Wide Web is less “cool-looking” than iTunes, and it takes more time to find the perfect app, but they’re usually cheaper, do a better job, and can even be, wait for it, open-source.

The worst part in all of this is that if you look at the iPhone objectively, it doesn’t suit anyone’s needs.
If you’re a professional businessman that can afford such an expensive contract, then in that case you’re better off looking at other, more professional, phones (Blackberry-types).
You might also be a technogeek, and, if you really are one, then chances are you either don’t own an iPhone, or if you do, don’t know what you’re missing.
And in the rare case that you’re an average customer, then, again, go check out the competition.
Compare.

The iPhone is not only overhyped and expensive; it is also very limited and limiting.
Sure, it’s probably the best iPod player there is, but since it’s supposed to be a smartphone, it’s far from being enough.
I suggest you either look into an iPod Touch if you’re only interested in the iPhone’s multimedia capabilities. And if you want a true multi-task phone, go take a look over at some of Sony Ericson’s, or better yet Samsung’s, most recent mobile phones.

Unfortunately though, you’ll have to trade your cool “pinch to zoom out” feature…