There are movies that disappoint, there are movies that underperform, and then there are movies that flat-out bomb. In May of last year, the action parody MacGruber earned the distinction of bombing spectacularly – opening in ninth place for with just $4.1 million, dismissed by the public as another crappy Saturday Night Live spinoff movie.
And that was supposed to be that Will Forte and Jorma Taccone’s demented sendup of late ’80s action cheese – the kind that starred Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal, and reveled in their own clichés with none of that annoying ironic distance you get from 21st century action heroes – was deemed a failure, swept under the rug and never spoken of again. Until the DVD came out in September, and people could make fun of its box-office misfortune all over again.
Well, screw that noise I refuse to give up on this movie. And if you drop into the Toronto Underground Cinema tonight (Friday) at 7 pm, you’ll find me and a small coterie of fellow MacGruber supporters doing our best to honour the little movie that couldn’t, but should have.
MacGruber is the latest feature in the Underground’s ongoing Defending The Indefensible series, in which Toronto critics do their best to restore unjustly ignored or slandered films to their proper pop-cultural status I was honoured to present Alien Resurrection as the top half of last month’s inaugural double feature, and I think I made my case. (I also think I was vindicated in my loathing of the night’s other selection, Tom Green’s Freddy Got Fingered.)
Tonight, I take my place alongside Metro’s Adam Nayman, Exclaim’s Will Sloan and Torontoist’s John Semley as we attempt to teach our city to laugh again. At Forte, mostly, but also at Kristen Wiig, Val Kilmer and Powers Boothe. And even at Ryan Phillippe a little. Won’t you join us? Tickets are $10 at the door, and proceeds will benefit Sick Kids Hospital and the Canadian Red Cross, so it’s not like you’d be totally wasting your money.
C’mon, you know you’re curious.
