Mister America
Mister America, in keeping with its associated web series On Cinema at the Cinema, treats the feature-film format as no more inherently worthy of respect than any other. In part this is owed to the accidental origin of the movie, which was conceived and shot in only three days as an extended segment of On Cinema, and later edited into an 88-minute feature and shopped to distributors. Magnolia Pictures acquired it for a series of one-night-only bookings around the country before releasing it to VOD, where a wider audience would have the opportunity to stumble across this entry point to the broad and perhaps intimidating On Cinema canon.
stars comedians Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington as Tim and Gregg, two opposite and often antagonistic characters bound together by their movie-review (2012); Heidecker then was best known for his acting and directing work with Eric Wareheim on Adult Swim, while Turkington had spent decades performing stand-up as the character Neil Hamburger. Their differing backgrounds are reflected in Gregg’s unwavering commitment to the show-within-the-show while Tim, the main host and creator of , is often frustrated in his attempts to hijack the platform for his pursuit of the moment (alternative medicine, conservative politics, electronic music, etc.) by his partner’s one-track devotion to a particular idea or segment. The show lampoons in part the hellish occupation of the beat critic, obligated to hold forth on whatever contemptible studio product is in theatres that week.
