And From The Onion

I'm sure that most of us are familiar with The Onion....
You know, it's a news satire service. I first stumbled across The Onion website one evening around 1999, and was hooked at first read. Stories like "US Ambassador to Bulungi Suspected of Making Country Up" and "Clinton Writes Fan Letter to Joan Jet" kept me awake that entire night. I didn't want to navigate away because I felt as though something so hilarious couldn't possibly last; I had to read everything The Onion had ever produced before it disappeared for good (things that I enjoy tend to fail or be canceled quickly). As a news junkie myself, I was deeply impressed with the skill of The Onion's writing staff. In terms of style, its stories could easily have passed for REAL reporting, and I could tell that whoever was behind them really did spend a lot of time reading newspapers and listening to NPR. In order for satire to work, it has to come across as genuine, and only someone who pays attention could have gotten something like this so right. It was brilliant.


Fortunately, The Onion has not disappeared in the ensuing years, and has even grown quite a bit. It's been reassuring for me to learn that there is at least enough good taste left in this country to sustain a website and cult newspaper for a decade. Instead of publishing a new edition only on Tuesdays, the site is now updated almost daily, and it recently added a video service, The Onion News Network. I'm impressed by the quality of its fake video reports -- once again, The Onion nails it, producing segments that perfectly mimic what one might see on CNN or Good Morning America. I wonder how much this stuff costs....

Over time, I have come to be perhaps one of The Onion's most dedicated fanboys. I've read every story ever posted to its website, and own all of the books published under The Onion banner (Our Dumb World, a fake world atlas, is the best one). Heck, on most days, I'm wearing an Onion t-shirt underneath my work clothes, and was at one time able to FURTHER incorporate The Onion into my job by reading its Newsbriefs during the half-hour breaks on the John Jay afternoon show. Now, that was always a refreshing step away from monotony. Of course, none of those things top the time I paid a personal visit to The Onion's world headquarters in New York. At the tender age of 22, I traveled to where the magic happens:

Unfortunately, a little green address label with The Onion's logo was the only sign of the organization's presence outside that securely locked Hell's Kitchen office building, and I never got past the door. A guy who looked like he might work for The Onion did come out for a smoke at one point, but he seemed annoyed at the very sight of me, so I left him alone. Whatever. I regret nothing!

Jesus, was that really eight years ago?

Anyway, the folks behind The Onion also made a movie. Can you guess what it's called?

The Onion Movie (2008)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0392878/



Netflix description:
Venerable newscaster Norm Archer (Len Cariou) reports the latest news in politics, health, culture and entertainment -- such as an automotive recall of decapitation-inducing "neckbelts" and a study finding that "depression hits losers hardest." The compilation of bogus news stories, celebrity profiles and movie trailers comes courtesy of the ace satirists at The Onion. The film's most intriguing credit? Steven Seagal as C*** Puncher.


I waited a long time to get my hands on this baby. The Onion Movie was actually made around 2003, but languished in a studio vault for several years due to poor test audience reception. Thankfully, it was granted a low-key DVD release in 08.

Taking a news satire website and turning it into a feature-length film must have been a daunting task. I mean, how could such a translation be made smoothly? Well, the writers here did manage to come up with a decent concept: The Onion News. It's a cable news network around which this film is based. See, we watch The Onion Movie as if we're watching The Onion News, complete with parody commercials and all. Eventually, however, the film breaks out of that mold and brings us behind the scenes. We learn more about head anchor Norm Archer. He's being pressured by the corporate bigwigs at TON to include more product tie-ins and news of the dumb on his broadcasts, and doesn't like it. Norm hatches a plan for revenge somewhat in the tradition of Network.


The Onion Movie weaves in and out of the two concepts -- watching The Onion News network, and following Norm Archer's doomed battle to protect his program's integrity. It works quite well for the first hour or so, but falls apart when the jokes start to run out of steam later on. The news parodies we get in the beginning are excellent -- segments about ill-conceived seatbelts that only restrain a driver's neck, and internet outages that lead to a spike in worker productivity -- but the longer, more parody-oriented bits that come later feel rather tired. Like a lengthy action film spoof starring Steven Seagal about a martial arts expert whose sole tactic is to punch guys in the groin. Sure, it SOUNDS funny, but the sketch is simply too long. It feels like something out of The Kentucky Fried Movie. Not that there's anything wrong with The Kentucky Fried Movie, mind you. Far from it! I'm just saying that The Onion Movie would have been better off sticking to what The Onion does best -- NEWS satire.

And that's the basic problem. This film should have rolled with what worked so well in the first half. Certainly, The Onion would have no shortage of hilarious fake news content with which to bombard us for a full 90 minutes; why throw in all of that extra stuff? Had the entire film been comprised of NEWS segments, with the Norm Archer sidestory included so as to frame it all, The Onion Movie would have worked. I don't understand the need for so much filler.

I supposed it's for the better that this picture never got a theatrical release, as it really doesn't provide an accurate introduction to what The Onion is all about. I'd rather the uninitiated viewer stumble across one of the website's short video segments somewhere on YouTube than see this movie first. Although The Onion Movie does provide some good laughs, it just doesn't FEEL LIKE The Onion. I'd recommend this one only to fans.

3 out of 5.

b.