Is it better to be appreciated in your own time, or later discovered for your unacknowledged brilliance? This is something I can’t help but question in the film box office as of late. I was driven to examine this very question after a recent screening of the film “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”.

“Pilgrim” felt like the film people had been wanting for quite some time, and yet when finally released it underperformed; why? When a film has a poor box office gross it could always be a number of things. Sometimes it could be timing, competition, or, in some cases, a scandal involving the film’s cast or crew. The reason why I find this subject so alarming is it feels that lately the films I enjoy the most are the ones that take the mass audience a long time to appreciate.

Now granted this isn’t always the case, but I analyzed every movie I have seen this year and besides two (“Inception” and “Shutter Island”) these films were largely ignored by the public. It started early this year in April when I saw “Kick-Ass” and “Macgruber” at both festival and theater screenings, then later continued when I looked back at other films I enjoyed but no one else saw.

The strangest thing, and definitely the most annoying, was the ignorance of the people who hadn’t seen these movies to begin with. The biggest complaint I heard from people who DIDN’T see “Kick-Ass” was that they said they don’t like superhero movies. While this is a valid complaint when it comes to a film like this, if they had actually watched it they would see the film addressed this very issue.

Normally I would chalk this up to mere ignorance, but there seems to be a growing epidemic of film preconceptions. This happened just a month later with “Macgruber” where people simply just wrote the film off entirely even when it had some surprisingly good reviews.

To put my own movie preconceptions to the test I screened two films against my will. My roommate’s girlfriend had previously recommended two films to me and I scoffed at both. She told me to give them a chance because I was being too cynical and I replied with just more cynicism. To make amends, I told her I would watch the two films with her and give my honest opinion. What were these two films you ask? “The Ugly Truth” and “The Last Song”, yes I know, bad, right? I swallowed my pride with a big, nervous gulp and went where few men have boldly gone before.

When it came to “The Ugly Truth”, I knew the film would be bad by both my standards and that of the general public. Katherine Heigle is a “1-note actress”, she has only proven herself in one role (“Knocked Up”) and has simply replayed that same sassy yet slightly annoying character in different shades since. I also knew by the bad acting and atrocious dialogue in the trailer that I had a pretty good idea of how the film would play out. So what happened after I was done viewing the film? Was I surprised? No, of course not! Because, SPOILER ALERT, the two characters who “hate” each other by the end fall in love just as I predicted and yes Heigle’s shades of Grey acting were all the same. The sad part about this is, I fell asleep halfway through the film because I knew this very thing would happen, so I had to wake up and endure the finale.

By the time I finished “The Ugly Truth” I simply did not have it in me to finish the “The Last Song”. I watched the first half of the film and after realizing the similarities between the two, I knew I would not be fooled twice in one night. So while I gave the films that I had preconceptions about a chance, I’m sure you are asking, what did I learn?

Well to be honest, not a whole hell of a lot, sadly. What I did scrape by with however, was this; when you decide whether or not you want to see a movie, do your research. Now I know that sounds like work but it’s really not. The reason why I knew “Knight and Day” would be an enjoyable film was because both the director (James Mangold -  “Walk the Line” “3:10 to Yuma”) and it’s star (Tom Cruise) have proven track records. The reason why the film failed at the box office however was simply because people are unwilling to forgive Mr. Cruise for his past transgression in the tabloids.

So stop basing your opinion of a movie on a trailer or a man’s religion, but maybe see what the film is about and who the writer or director was instead. To compare, the films the director of “The Ugly Truth”  had made previously were “Legally Blonde” and “Monster-in-Law”, yeah ’nuff said. It’s not too hard to detect the bad films of the world out there, but occasionally you can be fooled. Although when it comes to bad movies I’d much rather watch “Dinner for Schmucks” again instead of watching Miley Cyrus try to act.

I had the chance to see Macgruber while I was at SXSW and it was the longest line I had seen for any of the films there. Macgruber is definitely one of those guilty pleasures where the more stupid it looks, the more you want to see it. If for any reason you need any more confirmation that the 80′s are officially back, the release of a film inspired by the 80′s television show Macgyver should be all you the proof you need. However, Macgruber is not a parody of Macgyver, but rather a mockery.

Macgruber is based on the SNL sketch about an “Ex-special operative” that spends more time whining and moaning than he does diffusing the bomb that is seconds away from going off. This usually always ends with a mid-sentence cut to a huge explosion. How he was awarded “16 purple hearts, 3 Congressional Medals of Honor and 7 presidential medals of bravery” I will never know. It’s definitely funny, especially if you grew up watching Macgyver. Although, like I said above, the film as well as the sketch, don’t really have anything to do with Macgyver outside of the silly wardrobe, bad mullet, and similar sounding name. And unlike Macgruber, I don’t remember Macgyver having awesome lyrics to its theme song… or an excessive amount of “throat-ripping”.

I’m not going to get too much into the specifics of the plot here because um, it’s Macgruber. If you’re going to see this film for the plot, you probably shouldn’t go. In fact, if you are in an irritable mood or just irritable in general, do not see Macgruber.  However, If you’re ready to watch something that’s pretty mindless and you want to have a good time and laugh, Macgruber does the trick. A couple pre-show beers wouldn’t hurt either.

The last SNL movie made based off of a sketch was Ladies Man, that was over 10 years ago. SNL movies have a bad reputation of being well, horrible. Sometimes a sketch should just remain a sketch. Macgruber seems like it should be one of those SNL sketches that should remain just that, but surprisingly, it’s not. Macgruber succeeds as a feature length film, and a lot of that credit goes to co-writer/director Jorma Taccone. Taccone (of the comedy trio The Lonely Island) does a good job of never pressing on the breaks, he never even slightly reaches for some underlying “message”, but really just continues to push the absurdity of this film and keeps delivering on big laughs throughout. He also does a good job with directing some fairly big action sequences.

Obviously Will Forte does a good job of carrying the film, otherwise it wouldn’t work, but you really don’t want to give much credit to Macgruber himself, because frankly, he’s an asshole. The tagline for this film couldn’t be more fitting “the ultimate tool”. Macgruber is definitely that, and if you see the film and still need further proof, check out his twitter @Grubes69. Kristen Wiig also does a great job here in probably her biggest role to date. Val Kilmer, Ryan Phillipe, and Powers Boothe basically play the straight men, sort of parodying a lot of the same roles they’ve played before, but this time for intentional laughs.

With the humor in this film being as lowbrow and crass as it is, I’m sure you can imagine it’s a hard R. A lot of the jokes are drawn-out almost to an exhausting extent, but luckily the jokes are funny enough that you continue laughing before they wear thin. Also, don’t go into the film thinking Macgruber is someone you’re going to root for, he has to be one of the worst protagonists ever put on screen. He’s a complete moron, a lowlife, and there is no real redeeming value about him whatsoever.  The only thing Macgruber would probably take a bullet for is his car stereo that he never leaves without. You can probably relate more to the villains in this film than you can Macgruber. The main villain is named Dieter Von Cunth by the way. That should give you a good idea of the type of humor in this film.

This is probably the dirtiest film SNL has ever released, it is from the guys that made “jizz in my pants” a household song though, so it’s no real surprise. If you like The Lonely Island humor and are a fan of the SNL digital shorts (the only thing good about SNL these days), this is in that vein. The Lonely Island crew also had a big part in the hilarious, and also lowbrow comedy, Hot Rod. That film was directed by Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer who serves as an executive producer on Macgruber. But due to the fact that Jorma was a a co-writer on Macgruber I would say it has more of their stamp on it than Hot Rod, even though the third member of the trio, Andy Samberg, had nothing to do with it. Most devoted Lonely Island fans (people that know what “Awesometown” is) will more than likely enjoy this film.

Macgruber, the man and the film, is obnoxious, crude, annoying, inconsiderate, psychotic, ignorant, irritating, and pretty funny too. There are many memorable scenes in this film, many of which you’d probably wish you couldn’t remember, but you’ll laugh nonetheless. Without spoiling anything I will leave you with this warning: Do not bring celery as a snack when you go to see this film and expect to not have an appetite for celery for a while after viewing it. You’ll thank me later.

Macgruber will be released in theaters on May 21st, 2010. You can view the trailer here

For more SXSW news, reviews, pictures, and videos, click on the SXSW tab in the above bar.