Onion Movie, The (2008)

Rated: R for everything.
Length: 80 minutes, which is about 73 minutes too long.
Grade: DHFF=F
Budget: Perhaps a hundred and fifty bucks?
Box Office: $0 million (Directly released to DVD)

Written by: Todd Hanson and Robert D. Siegel, which so far is the zenith of both their careers.
Directed by: Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire, which sadly means they have yet to direct a real movie.
Starring: Len Carious, with a few appearances by Steven Seagal.

Summary:

Originally shelved due to poor focus group testing in 2003, this attempt at adapting the famously irreverent and sarcastic newspaper to the big screen with a series of fake news stories meant to poke fun at American life.

Comments:

Out of 35 or so vignettes, three or four are funny. The thing just doesn’t work, mostly because it’s not really clever. It would have made an excellent four-minute stand-up routine or even SNL sketch, but over the course of an hour and 20 minutes? Mind-numbing. Oddly, several of the unfunny bits were funnier if you watched the extended versions which didn’t make the final cut. One interview I read said that the producers just couldn’t see how to make the thing work, which was why it was shelved for 5 years. And, had I been a little luckier, would have been lost on that shelf or behind the microwave, even better. Don’t test me on this one, and don’t watch this movie.