TV Review: CHECK IT OUT WITH DR. STEVE BRULE

Don't ask why, but I love Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job. I say don't ask why because I honestly don't know why. Neither do any of my friends that are fans. There's something about their show that is just funny for no particular reason. Maybe it's the production value, the absurdity of their sketches, or how they spoof 80's and 90's public television. Yeah, that's it. Is it? Moving on...

The "Awesome Show" is a oddly delightful collection of bizarre sketches and bizarre characters. One of their characters is the inept reporter and "doctor" Steve Brule, played by one of my favorite actors, John C Reilly. I still wonder how they got him.

Steve Brule is a fictional TV personality whose shtick is he is inept and seems to have a mean case of Autism. Napoleon Dynamite could kick his ass. And yet he's respected enough as a doctor to get his own show on Channel 5. Which brings us to the new spin-off series "Check It Out! With Dr. Steve Brule".

So what is this show like? Kind of what you expect: a parody of public access TV with bad editing and poor production quality. The "Awesome Show" has pulled this style off with great finesse. The show's a mess. Often times a beautiful mess. The pilot begins with what Channel 5 looks like at four o' clock in the morning. A waving flag so an awful rendition of the Star Spangled Banner before it gets cut off with a slideshow to promote a swap meet. Finally we begin the 11-minute program.

So what's good and what's bad? What I like about it is that the show was seemingly shot on VHS tape (if not, they did a damn fine job making it look so). Not only that, but it has the look of being edited on tape, and the technical director is either extremely drunk or just lazy. The technical glitches bring a smile on my face. One, because it's the Tim & Eric shtick, and it kind of hits home to me, as I've had experience editing on VHS tapes for public access.

Unfortunately this is not a character who can (by looking at the pilot) hold his own series. The show kind of runs long for eleven minutes, and that's a bit of a problem. The first half works, but then the second half lags. It runs out of steam pretty fast.

It's not a horrible pilot. There's enough to remind you of the "Awesome Show", but I don't see this show running too long. I'm a Tim and Eric fan, and I think John C Reilly is an incredibly talented actor. But when your eleven minute show runs out of steam midway through, maybe we have a problem. Hopefully the show picks up after an episode or two.

MACGRUBER REVIEW.

SNL movies usually don't go over well. With the exception of The Blues Brothers and Wayne's World, they haven't been very successful or memorable. Sadly, to me, SNL has gone in that direction as well. I stopped watching SNL around junior high school, with the exception of some reruns. Occasionally, I'll see somebody I know watching it and I'll peep in, or something on the show will become popular on the internet. Some of it would be really funny and make me wonder what I've been missing. Other times I'll see something that makes me think "Oh, that's why I stopped watching." I recall a There Will Be Blood parody skit that had Mad TV-like suckitude, turning the "I Drink Your Milkshake" catchphrase (which I love) to a punny documentary show for the Food Network. Lame.

One of the skits that'll occasionally bring me back around are the MacGruber sketches. Simple premise, but they make me laugh. So when I read there was a movie being made of the character, I was skeptical. I thought "how could they take a simple series of sketches like MacGruber and make a movie out of it?"

To a degree, they actually pulled it off. Unlike most of the movies based on SNL skits, they don't have a series of sketches sewn together loosely by a so-called plot. The movie actually tries to be a standalone movie, and I can respect it for that. So much so that when they bring back jokes from the skits, it doesn't make you groan. It feels more like "OK, you deserved that one."

But that's not to say this is a great movie. There are some decent jokes and the story holds up okay. But there are some juvenile jokes that gets reactions ranging from "Wow, that was a misfire," to "I wonder if it's too late for a refund." But then a joke or plot point comes up that turns me back around with a good laugh.

What really attracted me to the skits and the movie is the fact that I like Will Forte. I'm even one of those guys who thought The Brothers Solomon was okay. He makes me laugh. Not so much on Saturday Night Live, but more-so on shows like Clone High and Sit Down Shut Up. His character on SDSU turned out to be my favorite on the whole series. He may be a better voice actor than a regular actor. This movie further proves so because there are times where its obvious he's having way too much fun to really act. I'm not saying he's horrible by any means. There are times where he just has too much fun.

In the end, there's good things and bad things about the movie. Good? Occasional big laughs and it doesn't try to be a 90-minute skit (I'm looking at you, Night At The Roxbury). The negative? With every good joke in the movie, there's 2 that are a misfire. The Blues Brothers and Wayne's World are still the best SNL movies. But MacGruber places behind them. And not like "Well, I guess this movie's the next best, but it still sucks." If you like action comedies, this movie is more of a rental.