"If only
Entourage hadn't had that right-on episode set at Sundance," writes Virginia Heffernan in the
New York Times....
"If only Ricky Gervais hadn't made
The Office...
"If only the Sundance Channel weren't now broadcasting
Slings & Arrows, the poignant Canadian comedy about a Shakespeare theater festival...
"If only the
This is Spinal Tap/
Best in Show school hadn't turned the tragicomic mockumentary into an art form...
"Then, and only then, and then only maybe,
The Festival -- the latest offering from IFC, which begins tonight -- might be considered funny, or a decent effort, or something. A fake documentary about a Telluride-like convocation [called the Mountain United Film Festival, or M.U.F.F.],
The Festival has its comic heart in the right place, but the six-part series is derivative in every aspect, and it's not up to what have become the genre's exceedingly high standards."
If only
The Festival had been produced by a major studio and had lowered its standards to compete with the summer's other unfunny "laugh out loud" comedies, it may have been better received by critics with thumbs.
If only the series' producers had opted to include a Greek chorus and to stage it Off Broadway. Together with
Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy (a satire of
Fatal Attraction starring Corey Feldman) and
Silence! Silence of the Lambs: The Musical (featuring a chorus of lambs),
The Festival might then have been hailed as a landmark in contemporary theater: the final installment in the first Greek trilogy since Aeschylus'
Oresteia.
If only
The Festival were half as funny as
Eowyn's Secret -- a video clip which purports to be an excerpt from
Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King that was deemed "too explicit" to be included in the extended edition of the film -- it could have truly earned its status as
PARODY, the gold standard of cultural relevance today.
.
# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 8/19/2005 03:25:00 PM
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