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.

Those Kooky Liberals and Their Baby-Killing (NSFW)

Before I begin with the NSFW Tomfoolery, some quick updates:

-Website is updated. www.mj-mcallister.tk
-New DeviantART Profile with Artwork.

Now, for something amusing that occurred on Facebook. Not for the easily offended.











It's what I do sir. Though I should thank Bob Odenkirk for that line.

Coming soon: My thoughts on parental supervision on television (based on a study I read).

Klaatu Barada Nikto, Bitches.

So for April Fool's Day, a lot of websites went under make-overs or issued prank videos. I wanted to do something but didn't have the time to create something really killer. So I decided to just make over my Facebook...just for the hell of it.

First idea was to prank people into saying I'm a born-again Christian. Some may fall for it, if they know my stand on religion. But when I started writing ideas, I thought it wouldn't be so much as playful but mean. So I'm saving it for another year. Went for something more fun.

So here's some screenshots.






















































Not, by a longshot, the most awesome internet April Fool's prank, but I still had some fun with this, and thought it was worth sharing.

Later, kids.

Video Game Contradiction

Saw this at The Exchange at McKnight Road in Pittsburgh today.

Kind of amused me, so I had to share this:
















Hardly makes sense.

Chat Roulette

"The internet is a communications tool, used the world over, where people come to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another."
-Ben Affleck,
Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back

Well, the internet's come a long way since 2001, when the film was released. Don't get me wrong- it's still mostly about movies and porn, but now there's so much more. Much more of an emphasis on "communication." With Twitter, we can share articles that amuse us, tell everyone what we're doing now. MySpace and Facebook allow us to keep in touch with family and current/former classmates. Skype allows us to do so, but face-to-face. It's like The Jetsons is coming closer to reality in some ways.


















I remember when the only way to stay in touch with people on the net was ICQ. Anyone remember ICQ? Anyone still *use* ICQ? Didn't think so.

One new site takes the face-to-face communication a step beyond. The site is ChatRoulette and it's become quite popular. And with good reason. The idea is simple yet it makes the site addictive. Christ, the first time I've used this site- I was on it for two and a half hours straight.

You get paired up with a random anonymous person from any part of the world. You could engage in conversation, or reject (or be rejected). The latter is quite common. Most "conversations" on the site last about 2 seconds.

However, the problem with the site comes back to Affleck quote I threw above. More often than not, you're bound to run into a guy waxing his weasel for all to see.

Of course, it's not all about rejections and indecent exposure. Sometimes you'll see something creative. Yes, a lot of it is just guys making signs asking women to "show (them) your tits!" Sometimes people get interactive in different ways. So let's look at some of the ways I passed the time. Because really, conversation can be boring. I prefer to get a reaction from people from bizarre behavior.

Experiment #1

I've always loved the idea of a whimsical image with an offensive caption. Or an offensive image with ironic background music. I decided to take a crack at both. First was this picture:

















... set to the delightful sounds of the Ren & Stimpy soundtrack.

Reactions:

Mostly postive, oddly enough. There was a mix of laughter and many people giving me the "Hail Satan/Heavy Metal" hand gesture. The only negative was (surprise, surprise) an old man who shook his head, covering the camera and shortly disconnecting.


Experiment #2:

This one was my girlfriend's idea. Like many folks on Facebook, she likes to subscribe to weird "fan pages." Which I've always been generally against. I mean, I will re-do a high five if I screw the first up, and I enjoy sleeping in, but I wouldn't say I'm a fan. But I digress. One of the many pages she joins is for "The Face Spongebob Makes When He Realizes Squidward Likes Krabby Patties." If you've seen SpongeBob, you may know what I'm talking about.

On the Facebook page, there are some photoshop jobs done in the screen grab where he says sexual phrases such as "I Have A Boner" or "I Came." So my girlfriend and I printed one out and showed it on Chat Roulette, set to the SpongeBob SquarePants theme playing in rotation.


















Reactions:

Not as effective as "Hail Satan set to Ironic Music". Some laughs here and there, some quick rejections. The funniest, though, was an African American man going "Oh HELL naw!" then pressing "next" in haste.

I should note, the pictures above are not as they were seen on Chat Roulette. I actually held these print-outs up to the webcam.

I found this more fun than engaging in chat with people, though I did converse with some interesting people.

So what's good about Chat Roulette? Mostly the prospect of fucking with people anonymously. But not only that, but you can (if you're lucky) chat with someone from another part of the world. You can learn more about foreign culture. The creator of Chat Roulette, who is a 17-year-old kid from Russia, should seriously looking into some kind of screening process. That way you can only chat with people from certain parts of the world.

I would love that, to be able to meet new people from places like Japan or France or the UK. Mostly because I'm fascinated with the cultures (especially Japan), and I've been trying to learn French.

The negative, obviously, is the plethora of perverts you run into on the site. Definitely makes the site NSFW and NSFS(chool).

Sites like this make me curious about where else the internet can go. What will the net be like in 10 years. I remember when I started using the internet in 1997, and the only thing I really did was read about movies on IMDB. Nearly a decade later, I was able to watch movies on my computer. Now I'm in college, and there's so many things to do that I never thought were possible. Now I can chat with random strangers... or weird them the hell out.

For a humorously accurate video depicting the Chat Roulette experience, click here.

For a more serious look, click here.

New Blog.

I've decided to start over with a new blog to go with my new website.

This blog will contain articles either published or not published in the La Roche Courier, some archived stuff from Spill.com, some thoughts on current matters, and then some.

The new blog page is pretty barren, but I do plan to spruce it up a little at some point.

You can still see my older writings here.

Smoke if you got 'em.

-MIKE JM