MacNificent

“MacGruber”, the most recent Saturday Night Live skit to turn film, is a one-note comedy, but it hits that note hard.

Rogue Pictures took a 90-second recurring skit and blew it into the most over-the-top SNL film to date. The television skit is comfortably within the show’s TV-14 rating, but the film’s humor is relentlessly crude. If you don’t appreciate juvenile jokes about sex and excrement, you probably won’t like this movie. But if you appreciate MacGruber’s sophomoric brand, the film will bring you to tears in laughter (as it did for me, but to qualify that: the last two films to do the same were “Team America” and “Brüno”).

But “MacGruber” is more than a mere string of gags. Unlike “The Brothers Solomon” (the last film Will Forte starred in and wrote), which dragged between jokes, “MacGruber” moves very briskly. Credit Director Jorma Taccone, who also fills the film with surprisingly impressive action sequences. Not bad for a guy whose biggest previous productions were SNL Digital Shorts. “MacGruber” achieves a big-budget action film feel, which really heightens the satire

“MacGruber” also deserves props for finally delivering a big screen roll that allows Kristen Wiig, arguably the funniest SNL performer, to show her stuff. If you don’t laugh at her coffee shop scene, you probably need your funny bone checked out. The rest of the movie is certainly not for everyone, but for those who do appreciate it, it’s explosive.

A Dumb Heart

Behind all the outrageousness and all around hilarity of the Farrelly Brothers’ classic “Dumb and Dumber,” is a rather tender heart. Lloyd is a professional chauffeur who becomes infatuated with one of his customers, Mary. Lloyd picks up a briefcase that Mary left behind before flying to Aspen, CO. He wants to travel to Aspen to return the briefcase and, more importantly, see Mary again, but his roommate, Harry, doesn’t want to. Lloyd convinces Harry with this speech: “You know what I'm sick and tired of, Harry? I'm sick and tired of having to eke my way through life. I'm sick and tired of bein' a nobody. But most of all I'm sick and tired of havin' nobody.” That quote sparks the cross-country road trip that propels to the story forward, but it is also key to the emotional core of the movie.

Lloyd is in a position familiar to many, he likes someone who doesn’t like him back. He decides to take a chance on her though. He travels across the United States for her only to have his best friend betray him. Lloyd witnesses Harry cavorting with her in Aspen and it breaks his heart. In the end, the two friends get over the bad blood and are portrayed as very content. They didn’t gain anything. Neither one got the girl. They just had each other and that was enough. The story is very representative of the human cycle of dissatisfaction.

Lloyd was convinced that Mary would improve his life. When he considered his life without her, he said that he had “nobody,” but he really had somebody. He had Harry. The audience understands that having Harry was enough all along. So often, we convince ourselves that life would be better if only a certain thing changed. But if even we achieve that change, we eventually find something else to make us dissatisfied. As the late Michael Crichton wrote, “As a rule, nothing you lack now will make you happy when you get it.” But realizing that rule doesn’t stop our feelings of dissatisfaction from causing distress. “Dumb and Dumber” very accurately portrays both Lloyd’s conviction in his belief that he needed Mary and the pain and heartache it caused him. We already have everything we need to be happy and we must hold fast to that belief. It is so easy to feel dissatisfied and struggle to see the good in life, but it is especially those moments that require great faith. We already have everything we need.

Writing A Great Song

I wonder what it’s like to write a great song.

I wonder if Tracy Chapman knew what a beautiful thing she had created when she was hammering out “Fast Cars” on acoustic guitar for the first time. Did she feel empowered to have written something so wonderful? I wonder what Primitive Radio Gods felt like after recording “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand.” Were they afraid that they may never write anything that good again? Does an artist give up because they feel they’ve already done their very best?

At which part of the process does that artist realize how great the song is? Johnny Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls admitted that he never thought his song “Name” was anything special. He just stuck it in the middle of “A Boy Named Goo” to take up space. Now it is one of the band’s most beloved songs. I wonder if the process was different with “Iris” (gag all you want, but it’s moving). Did he have a hunch that he might have something great on his hands while the song was still in its premature stages? Did that feeling not come until the grand string sections has been added?

Perhaps an artist never really knows that something is great unless the audience gives its blessing. But what if that artist-audience communication never exists? It’s possible that a musician’s song is moving someone in the world and he or she will never know about it. An artist may write a song off without ever knowing that it’s someone’s favorite.