If there’s one good thing that will come from this, it’s that no producer in his right mind will go through with an actual MacGyver movie after audiences suffer through the SNL-based parody MacGruber. Sadly, New Line has been developing an adaptation of the action series for a 2011 release, but the comedic knock-off is set to begin shooting next month and will likely arrive in theaters sometime in 2010. Many people would probably prefer the “real deal” version, so maybe my silver lining isn’t theirs. But I’ve actually never seen MacGyver nor the spoof sketches starring Will Forte, so I don’t really care which movie is made or which is better or which is more successful.
Honestly, I haven’t been interested in anything adapted from an SNL character since the disappointing Coneheads, so I was perfectly happy to ignore the announcement of a MacGruber movie altogether. However, it seems to be striking a nerve with the rest of the film blog community today. So I present you with their mostly negative reactions after the jump:
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Stop Loss - or UKPP as most locals call it around here in Austin (short for The Untitled Kimberly Pierce Project) – was easily one of the most anticipated films of SXSW 2008. Written by a native, shot in and out of town and pertaining to residents of the area, the film generated so much interest that when festival producer Matt Dentler introduced the film as being, “the movie I got the single most calls about saying, ‘You have to play this.’”
The title comes from an unfair clause in a soldier’s contract that acts as a loophole in wartime that states the army can keep you even after you’ve served your tour of duty. This clause has been commonly exercised under the George W. Bush regime and has, in some ways, been the lifeblood that allows America to stay at war in Iraq.
The story is simple. A group of friends comes back home from war and reunites with their loved ones, for better or for worse. When memories of their final, particularly painful combat mission send them all mentally into different dark tortured places, their home lives fall apart and they desperately try to help each other out. But when the leader of the pack Brandon King (played by Ryan Phillippe) is stop-lossed and faces the decision whether to flee his country and his army, their lives might never be the same.
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MTV has the exclusive trailer for Stop-Loss, Kimberley Pierce’s long-awaited follow-up to Boys Don’t Cry. The film–which has already been the subject of much partisan bickering, sight unseen–stars Ryan Philippe as a decorated Iraq War veteran who resists a loophole that would send him back into combat after his tour of duty is up.
