By Peter Covino

Entertainment Editor

You’ve got to wonder why complete throwaway trash such as The Expendables can drum up fairly decent numbers at the box office, while a similar action-comedy like MacGruber died at the cinema just a few short months ago.

MacGruber is not ingenious comedy, but this crude, lewd and sometimes funny film, definitely does have its moments.

Still another film from the Saturday Night Live stable of sketches turned into full-length films, Will Forte and Kristen Wiig, both of SNL, are teamed with Val Kilmer and Ryan Phillippe in this Universal Blu-ray/DVD release. It arrives at retail outlets Sept. 7.

Released without much fanfare in June, MacGruber managed only a paltry $8 million at the domestic box office. It should find a bigger and more receptive audience on the home screen.

Think Austin Powers meets MacGyver and you pretty much have all you need to know here. Forte plays MacGruber, a top-notch gadget kind of American hero with 16 purple hearts, three Congressional Medals of Honor and seven presidential medals of bravery, and one pretty awful mullet.

He also has been presumed dead for ten years, killed by his top adversary (played by Kilmer, who has a coarse name that sounds like a female body part that can’t be printed here).

Ordered back into service by a Pentagon colonel (played by Powers Boothe) because his country desperately needs him once again: the bad guy with the bad name has a nuclear weapon pointed at Washington, D.C.

So MacGruber quickly reassembles his old team from the 1980s and is ready for the new assignment. His vehicle is ready. His team is ready in his vehicle. Unfortunately, before they head off to the save the world, all of his homemade explosives in his vehicle explode, killing off his team.

Time to form a new team.

MacGruber, the film, actually works better than you would think. It is right on target when it mimics the worst of the Jerry Bruckheimer movies and has the perfect, if you can call it that, 1980s soundtrack.

If you can stand the site of a naked Forte with a celery stalk up his butt (a diversionary tactic he likes to use) and Phillippe (with similar if not the same celery stalk up his butt because the diversionary tactic works) you are probably going to like MacGruber.

The Blu-ray DVD features both the original theatrical version and an unrated version as well.

Bonus features in the Blu-ray version include pocket Blu the application for iPhone, Android, PC and Mac that works seamlessly with a network-connected Blu-ray player for features such as advanced remote control, video timeline; mobile-to-go and more.

Bonus features for both Blu-ray and DVD include feature commentary with writer/ director Joma Taccone, co-writer/star Forte and co-writer John Solomon; a deleted scene and gag reel.

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If you have the Documentary Channel (sorry Brighthouse Cable users, and that includes me) make sure you tune in each Saturday in September for Primetime Premieres which will be screening eight eclectic works directed by the filmmaking duo DA Pennebraker and Chris Hegedus.

Next Saturday’s premiere is The War Room ( 8 p.m.), a documentary that looks at Bill Clinton’s campaign center in Little Rock, Ark. The media was not granted access to the center, but Pennebaker and Hegedus got partial access and filmed some 35 hours including footage of James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, two key players that helped Clinton ascend to the presidency.

Other films premiering in coming weeks in the series include Town Bloody Hall (Sept. 11 at 8 p.m.) a look way back at author Norman Mailer grappling with a panel passionate feminists at New York City’s Town Hall on April 30, 1971 and DeLorean (Saturday, Sept. 18) a documentary focusing on John DeLorean, who quit General Motors in 1973 to start the DeLorean Motor Company. The film was shot from 1979-81 and features an inside view of DeLorean and his team as they take his vision of a stainless steel gull-wing-door car from board room to assembly line.

The Documentary Channel is available through DISH Network and DIRECTV.

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Through the years, humans certainly have come up with more and more creative ways of killing off each other.

You can watch our progress, in fascinating style, with the new PBS Explorer Collection Weapons of War.

The three-disc set (which goes on sale Sept. 14) explores the technological advances in three areas: Ground War; Warplane and Warship.

It’s a lot of viewing (about 12 hours) but well worth the time and effort.

Ground War, for example, looks at how mankind advanced from the catapult to the armored tank in Iraq. Thoughtfully told, the series takes a look back at how the latest advances would take an opponent off-guard dating back to Roman and Egyptian times to the Nazi’s use of tank warfare in World War II.

Warplane looks at the relatively short history of war making machines in the 100 years since the Wright Brothers first took to the air.

Warship traces the evolution of the warship including the latest nuclear aircraft carrier and submarines.

The collection is available at select retail outlets as well as online at shopPBS.org. The PBS online site has a 20 percent discount on all orders.

The series is presented in widescreen presentation and looks great on HD screens.

Also new from PBS is Unforgettable: The Korean War.

The single disc DVD features Korean War veterans recounting their memories of America in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when young men from all over the country were being shipped off to defend South Korea against the advancing Red Army in the north.

The so-called un-won war that never ended, killed tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers.

The DVD is also available at shopPBS.org.