Rooting For Those Betting Against The Market: How The Big Short Works!

The Good: Engaging story, Decent performances, Direction and pacing
The Bad: Light on character growth/development
The Basics: Smart and worthwhile, The Big Short is more than just Oscarbait.


Over the last year, I have been a bad movie reviewer. The truth is, there have not been a lot of movies I have been excited about seeing and, as a result, I have not bothered with the rest. That said, my commitment to my Best Picture Project (That's Here!) has led me to break out of my apathy and get on seeing some of the Best Picture Oscar nominees in preparation for next week's big ceremony. So far, all I have done for the Oscars is write about the OscarsSoWhite Movement (article here!) and, long before the nominees were announced, see The Martian (reviewed here!). Tonight, I start with the Best Picture nominees with one of the few nominated films I was actually interested in watching: The Big Short.

The Big Short is a film that instantly garnered my interest - even if I did not rush right out to see it - because it was about the housing bubble crisis and it was directed by Adam McKay. My first thought was, "a comedy about the housing crisis?!" Then, I learned that The Big Short was a drama and I thought, "Adam McKay is doing a drama?! How will that work?" As it turns out, it worked out painfully well . . . mostly because McKay smartly blends the most horrific story of mismanagement with some incredibly funny lines.

Opening with the introduction of Lewis Ranieri, who created the mortgage-backed security bond, The Big Short educates and then entertains as it informs people of how the financial crisis of 2008 was precipitated. The film is based on a true story, but it is incredibly important to note that The Big Short is a film and this review is based on the movie, not the historical events it depicts. So, when I talk about characters, it is entirely specific to the film version of The Big Short.

Lewis Ranieri created the mortgage-backed security, a bond that pools the risk and debt for mortgages. In the 1970s, he sought to create money by making a long-term bond based on mortgages. Thirty years later, banker Michael Burry begins to investigate the mortgage-backed securities, based on the notion that the tech bubble burst in 2001, but the housing market in the tech corridor did not appear to be affected. After putting together data, Burry goes to the investment bank Goldman Sachs to create a bond to bet against the housing market. Meanwhile, investment banker Mark Baum - who is shaken by the effects of his brother's suicide - becomes outraged by bank overdraft fees and corruption. Baum learns about Burry's scheme when Jared Vennett's wrong number pitching the trade . . . to bet against the housing market.

Baum's team investigates some of the properties that are part of the mortgage bonds and discover that Burry's and Vennett's theories are likely true. In January 2007, mortgage loan default rate skyrockets and the market fails to adjust, which alarms Burry and Baum. The failure of the bonds created that bet against the housing securities market alerts most of the key players to the institutional fraud or outright stupidity of those at the top of the securities industry. As the truth comes out, the money flows in the direction of the four small groups that were smart and connected enough to bet against the housing market and the effects on the individuals in the groups are profound. Burry outs the mortgage industry to his investors and by April 2007, the housing bubble is collapsing and the entire economy is thrown into free fall by July.

There are few movies that so effectively manage to captivate when the subjects of the film are people profiting off the suffering of others. What The Big Short does so well, in addition to educating viewers to the biggest financial calamity of our generation (and the criminal enterprise that perpetrated it), is humanize those who made obscene amounts of money on it. The banking institutions might be made up of individuals, but the investment bankers who profited from the housing collapse are a much smaller group and The Big Short manages to illustrate well their humanity. While some of the profound effects of profiting from the financial market's collapse are only shown in the closing text montage, both Michael Burry and Mark Baum illustrate their understanding of the human cost of their financial profit.

Steve Carell entirely nails the frustration Mark Baum feels as he does the investigative work that proves Burry's theories are valid. Carell is given the film's deepest performance role and Baum is the film's most tormented and interesting character. Baum's sense of loss and disillusionment sets him up to profit from the investments he is making, while Burry's sense of being an outsider merely makes him determined in a somewhat monolithic way. For sure, Christian Bale is wonderful as Burry, but anyone who has seen Bale as Bruce Wayne has seen him play determined before!

The Big Short breaks the fourth wall to explain important financial terms and concepts. Adam McKay and writers Charles Randolph and Michael Lewis (who wrote the book upon which the film is based) tie the seeming complexity to the financial markets with pop culture in a brilliant way. In that fashion, they illustrate how major institutions bamboozle the populace by getting them to look in an entirely different direction from the calamities that are falling upon them.

Describing The Big Short is like trying to draw out a description of Argo (reviewed here!) - "It's a film about the rescue operation for the Iran hostages." - The Big Short is an explanation of the financial crisis of the mid-2000s . . . and how a few people made a lot of money off it. Of course, both films are deeper than that, but both are explorations of nuance, lines and studies in how the known can be made entertaining. Much of the credit for the power of The Big Short comes from the direction of Adam McKay. McKay has a great sense of timing for the cuts and cutaways and keeps the pace of The Big Short tight and flowing in a way that makes one almost instantly forget that the people who are the subjects of the film are hardly magnanimous.

The Big Short does not browbeat the humor or the humanity of the people who suffered to make the profits of the films protagonists. In fact, the simplicity of seeing one man - who paid his rent on time - evicted when his landlord defaulted on the mortgage makes the human statement that the ironic voiceover at the end glosses over.

As I begin my sojourn down films specifically for my Best Picture Project, it is hard not to imagine that I might have started high and picked the winner right off the bat. The Big Short has a lot of the key elements for a Best Picture, so long as one looks at the somewhat dated and specific systemic problems as an allegory of the larger corruptions of an institution that shows no signs of reforming. The Big Short is smart and complicated, even if it is not the most character-driven story.

8.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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More Of The Same: Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues Still Entertains!

The Good: Very funny, Decent performances
The Bad: Predictable plot and character arcs
The Basics: Cameos and incongruently hilarious lines (along with a surprising amount of social commentary), make Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues a worthwhile sequel!


As we reach the end of the year, I find myself catching movies I missed over the last year. I was actually surprised to discover that Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues came out a whole year ago! I guess that illustrates how excited I was about the Anchorman sequel. My wife, however, is a huge fan of Will Ferrell, so with the release of the trailer to Get Hard, she’s been eager to catch up on the Ferrell films she’s missed over the last two years. We started with Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. We opted for the extended edition of Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues because what the hell is the point of the theatrical version when you can have half an hour more of Ron Burgundy?!

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues picks up right after Anchorman (reviewed here!) and for those who have not seen the first film, there is almost no humor in the movie that depends upon the first film. In fact, outside the introduction of Brick Tamland, the humor in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues stands entirely on its own. But for those who are fans of Anchorman, while Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is enjoyable, it is largely a continuation of what came before without much new . . . other than the lines. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is funny and continues the humor of Anchorman which worked best as a collection of hilarious lines, more than a humorous narrative. Like the first one, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is the funniest when it is just playing with funny lines as opposed to moving the film in wacky directions.

After the success of Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone working on the nightly news in San Diego, the pair moves to New York City. There, Veronica is offered a position as a major network news anchor and Ron Burgundy is fired. Six months later, Ron Burgundy is working at Sea World, getting drunk, fired and then unsuccessfully trying to kill himself. Offered a position at GNN, a new 24-hour news network in New York City, by Freddie Shapp immediately after his aborted suicide attempt, Ron Burgundy reunites his old news team to take the job at the cable news company. After getting Champ Kind, Brian Fantana, and Brick Tamland out of their current situations, the quartet goes to New York City where they meet their new boss, Linda (where they are shocked by working for a black woman).

Ron Burgundy adapts poorly to working at the cable station where the primetime anchor, Jack Lime, is better-looking and more popular than he is. While Brick falls for a secretary working for GNN, Ron ends up in a fight with Jack. Challenged to beat Jack’s ratings, despite being at the 2 A.M. timeslot, Ron creates soft news (infotainment) in an attempt to win. When infotainment makes Burgundy a national hit, his formula leads him to unprecedented success. He begins to present his own stories – like smoking crack on the air – and the results are awards, women, and even more success. But Burgundy’s new relationship with his boss and his attempts to keep his old family (winning them back) leads him to real conflict that puts him at odds with his oldest friends. When sweeps week puts him at odds with his ex-wife and his news team,

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is, at best, a series of hilarious lines strung together by a thin plot involving Burgundy’s attempt to dominate cable news. As such, the film includes a pretty time-consuming subplot involving Brick and Chani, musical numbers, and otherwise incongruent comedic exchanges (condoms, horse piss, and the shock of working for a black boss). The film is funny, but is actually quite a bit smarter than one might expect.

Loaded with a social commentary that actually explores the degradation of journalism. While Burgundy creates feel-good pieces and ratingsbait, the commentary is actually impressive. Burgundy sinks a hard-hitting piece on how airplane parts are falling off planes and killing people because the corporate sponsors of GNN have a major stock interest in the airline that is criminally negligent. But, to appease the corporate owners of GNN, Burgundy eagerly jettisons the significant story in favor of a car chase. That Ron witlessly does the wrong thing is one thing, but as an audience able to evaluate the work, it is clear that writers Will Ferrell and Adam McKay had something to say.

It’s easy to overlook the commentary in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues amid troublingly blatant jokes surrounding Ron Burgundy’s racism and the ridiculous plot development of Rob going blind. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues starts to feel repetitive for those who have seen the first Anchorman as Ron refocuses his life on Veronica and his son. The film loses some of its focus as it transfers from being a story of an ambitious idiot working his way up the cable news ladder to achieve popularity when it takes a right turn with Ron and his son Walter rehabilitate a shark they find washed up on the shore of the lighthouse Ron moves into after he goes blind.

The performances in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues are exactly what one expects from a Will Ferrell film that utilizes the strongly comedic cast that was assembled for the first film, along with newcomers (to the franchise) like Kristen Wiig, James Marsden, and Meagan Good. Even Dylan Baker, who usually plays straightlaced, powerful dramatic characters, plays Freddie as goofy and hilarious which is unlike any other performance of his I have seen.

The leads in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues: Will Ferrell, David Koechner, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd each reclaim their roles from the first film and they manage to make their characters distinct and funny. The film is funny, entertaining, and has more substance and commentary than the first, though it is more repetitive and familiar than it is audacious and originally. Still, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continued is worth watching!

For other works with David Koechner, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Cheap Thrills
Piranha 3DD
Paul
Extract
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
Sex Drive
Get Smart
Let’s Go To Prison
Farce Of the Penguins
Thank You For Smoking
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Waiting . . .

5.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Arguably The Best Of The Dr. Seuss Movies: Horton Hears A Who!

The Good: Wonderful themes, Good voice acting, Character stuggle
The Bad: Somewhat predictable, Moments of forced humor
The Basics: Horton Hears A Who! might well be the most underrated of the Dr. Seuss film adaptations as a story of an elephant struggling to save a microscopic world, despite social pressure against him.


There are very few Dr. Seuss books that I actually remember. It has been such a long time since I was a child and was read the stories, so whenever I have seen one of the films based upon the works of Dr. Seuss, I have been able to do a very pure review of the movie for what it is, without the comparative analysis to how the movies stack up against the books. In the case of Horton Hears A Who!, I have no memories of the book and I was very surprised when my wife excitedly bought the movie on Blu-Ray when it was dirt cheap on Black Friday.

For me, the surprise was how mature Horton Hears A Who! was when the movie commits to its more adult themes. Horton Hears A Who! is essentially a piece that argues a liberal perspective and contrasts reality and faith. The result is a movie that is occasionally geared to children that educates them on both the value of life, the importance of imagination, and the power of one person to stand up to the hive mind for a principle that is right (as opposed to going along with the crowd).

Horton is an elephant living in the jungle who is imaginative, clever, and very active in the jungle community. While Horton mentors the children in the jungle, the community is actually controlled by the fearsome and socially repressive Kangaroo. While taking a bath one day, a speck finds its way to Horton and he hears the voice of the Mayor Of Whoville coming from it. Putting the speck on a flower, Horton listens to the Mayor – who has more than ninety daughters and a single, asocial son (named JoJo). Looking around the jungle, Horton realizes that there is nowhere truly safe for the tiny world of Whoville, so he commits to saving the people living on the speck.

In Whoville, the Mayor works to convince the town council that the Whocentennial should be postponed until the town is safe, though no one believes they are all living on a speck and he is being spoken to by a giant elephant. While Horton makes a journey to a mountain, where he believes the speck will be safe, he tells the children about the Speck and Whoville and the children begin to emulate Horton, carrying around flowers which they claim have speck worlds of their own. Kangaroo is outraged by the influence Horton has and she hires the vulture, Vlad, to destroy Horton’s flower and the speck. As Horton tries to save Whoville, the Mayor works to protect his people despite being utterly powerless.

Horton Hears A Who! features two protagonists who are combated largely by social pressure. Even Horton’s allies push for Horton to give up the flower and the speck – to which Horton declares he made a promise and he has to protect the people of Whoville because “people are people, no matter how small.” The Mayor is terrified about being ostracized when Horton advises him to get the people underground and he has to tell everyone that they are living on a speck and he has been talking with a giant elephant.

Horton Hears A Who! is rich in allegory and metaphor and the messages of the film are smart and worthwhile. The writing team uses the source material to create one of the most compelling films to advocate for imagination and social rebellion to come along in years. Both Horton and the Mayor are characters with deep convictions. Horton is loyal and determined in addition to being imaginative. The Mayor might spend most of the movie hampered by fear of social ramifications to his standing up to reveal the truth of their existence, but when he makes an impassioned case based on reason and science, he does so with great courage (albeit rather problematic plot twists at the same time).

The adversaries in Horton Hears A Who! are largely monolithic. The leader of the town council of Whoville and Kangaroo are solely interested in power and control. Kangaroo uses children as an excuse to be repressive and mean to Horton and in that way the film adequately exposes the way fear is used to manipulate people (perfect for a Bush Era movie!).

The voice acting in Horton Hears A Who! is homogenously wonderful. Carol Burnett is appropriately snooty as Kangaroo and Jim Carrey gives an impressive performance filled with (alternately) energy and determination. Steve Carell is funny as the Mayor, though he is not given much in the way to do where his character could ever have credibly been a mayor had he not essentially inherited the role.

The animation in Horton Hears A Who! looks incredible even on the small screen. Because the flower is so essential to the plot, the fact that on a decent HDTV, one may see every hair of pollen on the flowers is absolutely incredible. Horton Hears A Who! has a fantastic sense of physics which contrasts the heavy and realistic themes in the movie. Even better, the sense of movement is very manic in the Jungle and comparatively much more still in most of the Whoville sequences, which helps to clearly differentiate the two worlds in the movie.

Ultimately, Horton Hears A Who! is fun, funny, and smart enough to entertain children and adults alike!

For other works works with Jim Carrey, please check out my reviews of:
Kick-Ass 2
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
Nantucket Film Festival’s Comedy Roundtable
A Christmas Carol
I Love You Phillip Morris
Yes Man
Fun With Dick And Jane
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
How The Grinch Stole Christmas
The Truman Show
Batman Forever

7.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Particularly Disappointing Sequel, Despicable Me 2 Fizzles.

The Good: Moments of character, Voice acting.
The Bad: Overbearing soundtrack, Forced 3-D, Forced humor, Formulaic and predictable.
The Basics: While Despicable Me 2 might have opened strong, it lacks the spark of the original and the real cuteness of a successful animated film.


As Summer Blockbuster Season is now in full swing, it is hard not to see how the various movie studios hedge their bets and calculate their releases to make winning opening weekends for their companies. In fact, more than any Summer Blockbuster Season in recent memory, this year seems like a season of gamesmanship and the movies released by the major studios have been anything but inspired. Only two weeks after the release of Monsters University, Universal Pictures releases its big animated sequel of the summer, Despicable Me 2. Unable to simply cede the weekend, Disney went unsuccessfully up against it with The Lone Ranger. But the idea that Summer Blockbuster Season has just become a ridiculous game between the major studios should not be lost on the Despicable Me 2 audience; the release of the film during this season at all shows just how petty the studios have become.

At its heart, Despicable Me 2 is a Mother’s Day movie. Universal, however, did not seem to want to go up against Paramount’s two big May movies (Iron Man 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness) and instead released the sequel now. And while Despicable Me 2 had an admittedly awesome first weekend at the box office, it is not hard to predict that this will come to be viewed (more objectively with time) as one of the least impressive sequels in recent memory. And, it is worth noting right up front that I thoroughly enjoyed Despicable Me (reviewed here!) and I was excited to see Despicable Me 2 with my wife.

Gru is happily raising Margo, Agnes, and Edith (starting with a birthday party for Agnes) and avoiding his busybody neighbor who tries to set him up with other people when he is kidnapped by a secret organization. The Anti-Villain League wants Gru’s help in tracking down the supervillain who has stolen an entire Arctic research facility, a facility where a dangerous mutagenic serum has been created. Gru rejects their job, though Lucy (one of the agents) is persistent and pushy enough to force herself upon Gru as his partner. Gru’s desire to stay on the straight and narrow alienates his longtime assistant, Dr. Nefario, who abandons Gru and the Minions. After that happens, Gru reluctantly accepts the assignment with the AVL and goes to their secret facility in the mall with Lucy to hunt for the mad scientist responsible for stealing the Arctic facility.

Unbeknownst to Gru, his Minions have been abducted from his house en masse (using a cleverly disguised ice cream truck) and Margo has become infatuated with a boy at the mall. Despite Lucy’s attempts to get Gru to focus elsewhere, Gru believes that the owner of Salsa Y Salsa is none other than the (supposedly) dead supervillain El Macho and he sets out to prove that Eduardo has the mutagenic weapon. As Lucy and Gru become enamored with one another, the villain sets his diabolical plan in motion and it is up to Gru and his daughters to save the world.

Fundamentally, the problem with Despicable Me 2 is that virtually everything in the movie is forced. The humor is not particularly funny; it does not resonate very strongly and none of the jokes resonate in a memorable way. Having just seen the film, only one of the movie’s final jokes remains in my head and that does not say much about the ninety-six minutes that preceded it. Most of the humor in Despicable Me 2 is exceptionally juvenile and based on physical (slapstick) humor as opposed to situational or referential jokes. In fact, outside a lone Alien joke and the subtle allusions to Attack Of The Clones (reviewed here!), most of Despicable Me 2 seems geared entirely toward a children’s audience.

But even there, the film fails to land. Despicable Me 2 tries to capitalize on the cuteness of Agnes, the wide-eyed youngest adopted daughter of Gru. While her role in Despicable Me led to some of the most memorable cute lines of that film (“He’s so fluffy, I’m gonna die!”), in Despicable Me 2 the writers seem determined in a most desperate way to try to recreate that cuteness. And, outside the last joke by her in the movie, it falls flat. Virtually all of her lines seem tailor-made to be another cute catchphrase and until she mentions making toast, they all fall pathetically short of being memorable or genuinely cute.

Also forced are the visual effects. First, the soundtrack is entirely intrusive. Throughout the film, various pop and dance songs start playing and they drown out all plot momentum, lines or reason at the point they pop up. As for the 3-D, I hailed Despicable Me for its innovative use of the 3-D animation. Unfortunately, in Despicable Me 2, the same cannot be said. Despicable Me 2’s 3-D effects are a distraction from the story and plot. Indeed, the film has random stops (not just one, but multiple) for scenes of Minions having parties that seem much more deliberate in their attempt to present layered 3-D sequences than actually advance the plot or characters of the film. The 3-D here is as gratuitous as in any super hero film where the 3-D was done in post production to try to ramp up the grosses on the otherwise mediocre movie.

As for the voice acting, Despicable Me 2 is fine. Steve Carell is good as Gru, Ken Jeong and Russell Brand give good supporting performances and Kristen Wiig steps up with a sizable role as Lucy. But Wiig’s performance had a strange sense of typecasting over real acting. For sure, Lucy is just as animated as any of the other characters in the movie, but Wiig’s performance of her seems entirely familiar and like any number of characters she has already played.

In the end, Despicable Me 2 might kill an afternoon, but its obsession with trying to combine marketable elements makes for a sloppy, predictable and blasé film that might well be summer’s best bet for flash-in-the-pan entertainment.

For other animated films, please check out my reviews of:
Hoodwinked
Disney's Frozen
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters

4/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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One Hundred Laughless Minutes Later . . . The Incredible Burt Wonderstone!

The Good: Jim Carrey’s performance
The Bad: Not funny, Boring and predictable plot progression, Canned character arcs, Derivative performances.
The Basics: A rare miss by Steve Carell, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is not funny or clever or worth anyone’s time.


When I first saw the movie poster for The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, I was a bit miffed; the poster said Steve Carell, but it sure looked like Will Arnett (in his magician role from Arrested Development, no less!). And where I saw Collin Farrell, it turned out the film had Jim Carrey. Beyond that, I don’t think I gave the flick much of a thought . . . until today when I saw it.

That’s an hour and a half of my life I will never get back.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone falls into the rare category of dismal films that leave me with remarkably little to write about because there is not much to them to begin with. Billed as a comedy, I kept waiting for The Incredible Burt Wonderstone to actually land a joke. Unfortunately, it only hits one or two in the entire film and the ones that are cute, are cute, not actually laugh-out-loud funny. Fans of Steve Carell are bound for disappointment with The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.

Opening in the early 1980s, Burt is bullied on his birthday and neglected by his mother (he has to bake his own birthday cake). He takes solace in watching a video of magician Rance Holloway and the next day, he befriends Anton. Burt and Anton grow up together as best friends doing magic tricks and eventually becoming a hit in Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, though, Burt is bored with performing the same old act thousands of times over and over again. Relentlessly hitting on his assistant, Jane (whom he constantly, insultingly, calls Nicole), Burt is somewhat relieved when Anton is injured out on the street.

Burt’s feelings of liberation quickly turn into horror when he realizes that he cannot do the familiar banter and tricks without Anton’s help and that there is a hot new magician on the scene, doing more painful and gross tricks than actual magic. Feeling threatened by the magic of Steve Gray, Burt finds his work for Doug Munny ending abruptly. When the only gig he can really get is doing magic at a nursing home, he thinks he has hit an all-time low. Fortunately, he is performing magic at the very home Rance Holloway ended up in and between a pep talk from him, a heart-to-heart with Jane, and the offer of performing at Doug Munny’s ten year-old son’s birthday party, Burt has reason to try to get back in the game. But, with Steve Gray vying for the same opportunities, Burt’s attempt to reclaim the top will be harder on his own.

There was only one truly positive aspect of The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and that was, so help me for saying this because I never thought I would in my life, the acting of Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey’s acting talents usually seem to slip into his familiar niche of manic and ridiculous, but he keeps his performance unusually tight in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. Instead, he manages to be flamboyant without ever seeming like the familiar Jim Carrey. There is not a moment where his performance of Steve Gray seems like something from one of his sketches from In Living Color.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the other major performers in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. Steve Carell performs like the egotistical magician Tony Wonder, Ben Stiller’s character, from Arrested Development, more than anything unique, interesting, or compelling. Olivia Wilde, in a somewhat unfortunate turn, seems like she is trying to be Gwyneth Paltrow in the role of Jane. I swear, several times during The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, I closed my eyes and just listened and Wilde sounded – beat for beat – like Gwyneth Paltrow! Steve Buscemi does not play Anton with his familiar slouch and buggy-eyed weirdness, but he is not given a lot of opportunities to actually be funny, either. In fact, his best jokes come late in the film when Anton goes on a mission to bring magic to the starving people of the world (who, as it turns out, would rather have food and clean drinking water).

Ultimately, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is a predictable buddy comedy that starts off early with the best friends breaking up, forcing one of them to realize just how good he had it and there is nothing remarkable about the way the film tries to tell the story. In fact, it has been a long time since I saw a film where so many wonderfully funny people failed to make me laugh . . . or even remotely entertain me.

For other works works with Jim Carrey, please check out my reviews of:
A Christmas Carol
I Love You Phillip Morris
Yes Man
Fun With Dick And Jane
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
How The Grinch Stole Christmas
The Truman Show
Batman Forever

1.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Hope Springs Is A Marriage Counseling Movie Filled With Clichés And Lacking In Spark.

The Good: Moments of realism, Good casting
The Bad: Predictable, Nothing extraordinary on the acting front, Set-up with all of the obvious elements for a troubled marriage.
The Basics: Hope Springs is intense and real, but hardly entertaining and not terribly original.


Marriage is a complicated thing. Marriage is complex and there have been problems in marriage since the institution was formed. I have news for you: with the proliferation of information, greater communications options, and a rise of technology without any corresponding psychological growth in the human animal, marriages are only going to get more complicated. As Baby Boomers age, Hollywood is working to find works to get their dollars and aging marriages are one of the topics for films competing for Baby Boomers’ money. The Brits beat Hollywood to the punch with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (reviewed here!), but last year was a good year for the first big push toward courting mature viewers. The biggest release in that regard was Hope Springs.

In courting Baby Boomers, the major studios seem to have forgotten that Boomers have seen and experienced a lot, especially in cinema, and have had more outlets than the prior generations. So, Hope Springs might have been audacious a decade or three ago, but it seemed far more formulaic and predictable now. Hell, the Boomer crowd had the money and interest to keep In Treatment on the air for several seasons; did Vanessa Taylor think Boomers hasn’t seen or known about it? Even without actually watching episodes of In Treatment, with my cinematic and television history, Hope Springs seemed more familiar than fresh to me.

Kay and Arnold have been married for thirty-one years and they now have adult children, an empty home, and separate beds. Kay is extremely sad about that fact, while Arnold seems to accept the relationship with indifference. Kay dips into the couple’s CD to buy tickets to Dr. Feld’s intensive marriage therapy in Maine. When it becomes clear that Kay will leave without him, Arnold gets on the plane with Kay and, following her first victory, they begin the difficult process of marriage counseling with the straightforward Dr. Feld.

Over the course of the week that follows, Arnold and Kay begin talking about all the things they never actually talked about, spending time together, practicing all the things they used to do, as well as trying to do the things they always wanted.

Hope Springs is not bad, but it is nothing special and certainly nothing original. Arnold is characterized as an emotionally-reticent man, whose sex with his wife was pretty much limited to the missionary position. Kay is a sexually-repressed housewife whose inexperience and lack of communication contributed in part to the disintegration of their marriage. And so much initially changes when Dr. Feld just has the two start talking honestly. Communication, of course, being a cornerstone of a healthy marriage, it is usually the element that is most damaged in a relationship in decline and Hope Springs wisely starts with that.

But, as the film goes on, Hope Springs seems less impressive on that front. Dr. Feld never pushes Kay and Arnold so hard that they actually develop a willingness, desire, and ability to communicate with one another. In fact, for an “intensive therapy” experience, Dr. Feld’s office is incredibly safe, unthreatening, and (ultimately) unchallenging. He addresses the surface problems – the effects – instead of the causes of the problems in the marriage and those who have a lot of experience in psychotherapy will find Hope Springs far less impressive than writer Vanessa Taylor and director David Frankel might want. When you’re trying to appeal to the generation that invented “self-help books,” this seems like a critical flaw.

On the acting front, Hope Springs is cast well within the ranges of each of the main three performers. Steve Carell, whose casting as therapist Dr. Feld might have seemed audacious right after he came off The Daily Show, but given works like Dan In Real Life (reviewed here!) where he has played much more dramatic roles, this is not at all surprising for him. Similarly, Tommy Lee Jones playing a grumpy older man who is efficient at his job, but is emotionally reticent has been done to death. In fact, it was done in 2012 prior to the wide release of Hope Springs with Men In Black III (reviewed here!).

As for Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence had nothing to worry about before the Golden Globes; the role of Kay is not one of Streep’s more impressive roles. In fact, it is reminiscent of some of her earlier roles where she was relegated to the supporting wife character who did not have the chance to shine, like The Deer Hunter (reviewed here!). For someone who has played big, dramatic, thematically complex roles, the mousy, reserved role of Kay seems like a huge step back for her. In other words, the role of Kay is well within her established range and she does not surprise the audience with her performance or her mastery of the character.

Now on DVD, Hope Springs has alternate takes, a gag real, and the like. They are fair bonus features for a fair movie. Hope Springs is not bad, it is just nothing new, exciting, or even particularly entertaining.

For other relationship movies, please visit my reviews of:
The Family Stone
Letters To Juliet
About Schmidt

5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Oh Judd Apatow, You (Sort Of) Make Me Laugh! Knocked Up.

The Good: Moments of humor, Interesting enough characters, Good casting
The Bad: Nothing extraordinary on the DVD bonus features, Very predictable
The Basics: In a just-funny-enough-to-recommend movie, Judd Apatow uses Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl to tell the story of a stoner and a successful woman who have sex, then work to fall in love.


Culturally, it does seem like the United States is at a place where pop-culture is rather preoccupied with the whole concept of movies that start with sex and let the love come later. This was a pretty weak concept in Juno (reviewed here!), but it makes for a very simple and direct premise for Knocked Up. Knocked Up is another young stoner comedy film from writer and director Judd Apatow. I became familiar with Apatow's work when he was half of the creative genius behind the one-season-wonder Freaks & Geeks (reviewed here!). Since then, Apatow had been a writer and director who seems to have gone for some of the most obvious comedies and there has been a slight sense of disappointment from those of us who began our appreciation of his works with what appears to have been the high point in his career.

Knocked Up does not change that; while far funnier than many of Apatow's other cinematic attempts, it is still far too obvious and less well-developed than it could be. This makes for good, casual viewing for a night when one needs a laugh from something they do not have to think too much about, but it's a tough sell to argue in favor of buying the DVD. This movie has pretty limited appeal outside the target demographic of young college students who might well get drunk at a club, have fairly anonymous sex and end up pregnant. One hopes that is an ever-shrinking demographic, but I'm not holding my breath.

Ben Stone is a slacker who is living with his four friends and living off money from a lawsuit, money which is rapidly drying up. Ben and his housemates spend much of their time getting stoned and watching movies to find what celebrities get naked and at what point in a movie they are shown naked to make a website with that information. One night, after being promoted at work to on-air talent at E!, Alison Scott goes out to a club with her sister, Debbie. After a few too many drinks, Alison takes Ben back to her home - the pool house at Debbie's - and the two have sex.

Eight weeks later, Alison realizes that she is pregnant and decides to keep the baby. She informs Ben of the pregnancy and - despite his limited means and his initial freaked out reaction - Ben decides he wants to be there for Alison and his child. As a result, Ben and Alison begin dating in earnest to try to prepare for parenthood and in the process, they try to fall in love.

Knocked Up is a remarkably formulaic romantic comedy. Two people who have no real connection and few shared values begin to see the value in one another's lifestyles. There are the usual predictable events including attraction, repulsion, acceptance, misunderstanding and then resolution. This could pretty much be one of the defining films for following a formula for romantic comedy. Like many romantic comedies, Ben and Alison's relationship is set opposite a more obvious and loving relationship, that of Pete and Debbie. Pete and Debbie have their own fallings out which contrasts with Ben and Alison's and allows Ben to make a more normal and likable companion than his four stoner buddies.

The friendship between Ben and Pete allows Apatow to actually say something useful with Knocked Up, though, even if it is only one line in the entire movie. Pete's issue with Debbie has him sneaking around with his friends at odd times just to have some "me time," which is - of course - uncovered in the course of the movie. In trying to resolve this pseudo conflict, Pete realizes that the biggest problem in his marriage is that he has a wife who wants to spend more time with him. This is a concept too infrequently realized in any type film and it is refreshing to see it be realized in Knocked Up.

This also contrasts with the relationships of Ben's friends. Rarely has a more pathetic collection of miscreants been collected on film and while the sheer pointlessness of their attempted business venture eventually becomes revealed, far too much of their screentime is dumb jokes performed by post-teens who ought to know better. The peak of this is the character of Jodi who enters the household as Ben departs. She speaks in a giggly incomprehensible dialect that utterly wastes the viewer's time. Bad enough to be subjected to several minutes of stoners being idiots; even worse to have to watch the idiotic attempt to portray one of their wasted girlfriends.

Knocked Up manages to work - when it does - because even though it follows a remarkably predictable formula for romantic comedies, the concept is presented in a way that makes it feel just new enough to be amusing. Watching Ben and Alison learn about one another and discover the simple charms each possesses almost makes up for the fact that the viewer can see what is coming about a mile off.

Fans of Freaks & Geeks will enjoy seeing Knocked Up in that it stars Judd Apatow regular Seth Rogen, as well as Freaks & Geeks alums Jason Segel, Martin Starr (who looks nothing like he did in his television role) and a cameo by James Franco. Fans of Grey's Anatomy will no doubt enjoy seeing Katherine Heigl in a role outside her star-making role on that. Knocked Up works in part because when they sit opposite one another, Rogen and Heigl are able to portray a realistic amount of romantic chemistry.

Rogen has an unassuming quality to him and a look that is anything but Hollywood typical. As a result, Apatow frequently uses him in roles where he appears as a slouching slacker. In Knocked Up, Rogen is allowed just enough moments where his character assumes the mantle of respectability and comes into his own in a way that implies he might have the chops for serious drama. Despite things like the on-air prank that makes up the "topless" scene on the unrated DVD, Rogen has moments where he plays Ben quiet and contemplative in a way that genuinely works for him.

It is not a real surprise, for most viewers, that Katherine Heigl holds her own with Rogen. She has all of the qualities for a classic Hollywood star from the figure to her delivery of serious lines. She plays the straightman throughout the movie, while Rogen plays wacky. Heigl is a good choice, though (Anne Hathaway turned down the role) and she lends a seriousness that helps to exaggerate Rogen's absurdities. At the right moments, though, Heigl illustrates she has her own decent sense of comic timing, playing out a few physical gags in the movie.

Largely, though, Knocked Up is an unsurprising romantic comedy that unfolds in exactly the way a seasoned cinephile might expect it to. On DVD, there are a bevy of deleted scenes, a commentary track and a few alternate scenes, including a gag topless scene (It's not Heigl). The film looks good on DVD, but it's one I recommend solely for the rental as opposed to the buy. At least it is not unfunny and it's a fair way to kill an afternoon.

For other works with Seth Rogen, check out my reviews of:
50/50
Paul
The Green Hornet
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Observe And Report
Zack And Miri Make A Porno
Pineapple Express
Step Brothers
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy
Donnie Darko

6/10

For other film reviews, be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Family Stone Recycled And Recast Better With Dan In Real Life!

The Good: Good acting, Good use of tone, Interesting characters
The Bad: Recycled plot, One big conceit
The Basics: A surprisingly smart, funny and touching film, Dan In Real Life suffers from being a movie we've seen before with a tone that is nothing short of oppressive.


It did not take long in watching Dan In Real Life before the movie began to feel remarkably familiar to me. As an avid cinephile and reviewer, I watch a lot of movies. Most films do their best to differentiate themselves, especially from movies that have been in theaters and out on DVD in proximity. So, I was a bit surprised when I sat down to the DVD of Dan In Real Life how closely it resembled The Family Stone (reviewed here!). In terms of the plot, they are essentially the same movie, with the genders of the lead protagonist reversed.

The thing is, despite how similarly the plots resemble one another and how familiar Dan In Real Life seemed, I found myself enjoying it. The tone of the movie, to be sure, is oppressive and very overwhelming and consistent, but it works. With Steve Carell leading an impressive cast of known quantities and new (surprisingly talented) young people, Dan In Real Life works as a very complete and compelling film. Carell continues to impress me, while the female lead of The Family Stone, Sarah Jessica Parker, I find myself more indifferent to.

Dan Burns is raising his three daughters, the oldest of which is learning to drive and the middle girl who has declared she is in love with a boy in her class. Dan and his daughters are headed to his parent's house in the country for a long weekend of family reuniting. Taking a break from his family, Dan goes to a small bookstore where he loads a woman up with books and has a delightful coffee and conversation with her. Returning home, he discovers the woman - Marie - is actually the girlfriend of his brother, Mitch. Dan and Marie tiptoe around one another, very aware of the chemistry they shared.

Things become complicated for Dan when Cara's boyfriend continues to pursue her even to his parent's house, he observes Marie bonding with his youngest daughter, and he realizes that the only thing that truly excites him is Marie. Trying to be respectful of Mitch, Dan struggles to repress his feelings, which leads to humorous and painful incidents that open his eyes back up to love.

Peter Hedges, who directed About A Boy (reviewed here!) directed and co-wrote Dan In Real Life, and more than anything else, this movie proves he is a master of tone. Dan In Real Life is an extraordinarily difficult movie to watch in that it is depressing and steadily, unrelentingly driven by Dan's melancholy. Hedges did a great job with such feelings in About A Boy and here he applies that same sense of being detached from the world to Dan in a way that works, even if it is not the easiest thing to sit through and watch.

That said, Dan In Real Life is surprisingly engaging. It comes with one essential fault, though. Dan Burns and Marie essentially fall in love over one conversation, something Dan denies as a possibility when it applies to his daughter, Cara. Dan's world comes alive and the conversation brings him an energy and enthusiasm that is palpable. Steve Carell's performance in that single scene effectively transforms his character through his mastery of body language and his ability to express emotions with his eyes. Carell is perfectly cast and in that scene, he takes his slouching, drooping-eyelid character and makes him into a gently smiling, cerebral, charming suitor. And it works.

The fault, though, comes in the strength of that in the overall narrative. Marie and Mitch have not just started dating and the alluded-to transformation of Mitch from his relationship with Marie undermines the concept of the strength of the Dan/Marie connection. In other words, all of the conflict that ensues as a result of Dan and Marie hitting it off places a great deal of emphasis and importance on a single conversation. That one conversation generates almost all of the character conflict that the film is actually about.

Dan's parents act as a decent moral core and Poppy especially tries to guide Dan toward making his life happier, especially as Dan's column is considered for syndication by a large syndicate. The character of Dan Burns is an intriguing one; a self-help guru who has difficulty keeping his own life in order. This makes perfect sense as people almost always have blind spots and as a result, there is a realism in the establishment of the Dan character.

Similarly, Marie being portrayed as down-to-earth and passionate works well as a dramatic foil to Dan. The connection they have seems very real and scenes like Marie spending time with Lilly adds to their connection. What works at least as well is the torment Dan experiences watching Marie and Mitch playing football together. They play as a very organic couple and Dan's conflict is vivid as a result of his acknowledgment that his infatuation with Marie is not the only consideration.

Sadly, even more than the characters and the essential plot conflict of "Will Marie end up with Mitch or Dan" (which can pretty much be figured by the title of the movie), Dan In Real Life is about establishing a tone. The tone in this film is oppressive, there is no other word for it. Dan is a character who is trapped in the pain of losing his wife, whose existence seems to revolve around memorializing her in raising the daughters they had together. Even after Marie enters his life, he does not transform significantly. Instead, he is left with more conflict and there is something droll about that.

Carell does wonders at establishing that mood, but it is difficult to watch and be entertained by a character who is so unrelentingly miserable. It works for the story and the story is compelling, but it is not entertaining. Enlightenment is not always entertaining, but the way Dan In Real Life is overwhelmingly and completely oppressive in its level to depressed mood, only proves the point.

What makes Carell ideal for the role of Dan Burns is that he has an ability to play the part with hints of the potential of who Burns might be when happy. Yes, he has wit and he has the ability to restrain it, yet let it out in careful doses that allude to who he was before all of his loss. There is, for example, no hint of his performance from Little Miss Sunshine in his portrayal of Dan. While both characters are depressed, Dan has a very different melancholy working for him and Carell makes that clear through his performance.

Carell's costar Juliette Binoche is adequate and she and Carell have great chemistry to make the conflict between Dan and Marie real. Binoche is a great love interest but she does not do anything exceptional with her character that she has not done in some of her other performances in similar roles, like in Chocolat.

On DVD, Dan In Real Life is not exactly packed with extras, but it does have pretty much what is expected from a comedy or dramedy on DVD. There is an insightful commentary track and there are deleted scenes with optional commentary as well. As well, there is a featurette on the making of the movie which allows some of the actors to have a voice in the behind-the-scenes commentary as well. They are interesting and this is real nice for those who want more than just the movie with its depressing tone.

And despite the tone, Dan In Real Life works exceptionally well as a movie and it is worth seeing, though I am on the fence about owning it. Is it good enough to be bought? For sure! But I have a pretty heavy collection of DVDs and this one does what it sets out to do very well, making me wonder how much more depression my collection needs.

For other movies featuring Steve Carell that I've reviewed, please check out:
Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Despicable Me
Date Night
Get Smart
Little Miss Sunshine
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy

6/10

Check out how this film stacks up against all the others I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page where film reviews are organized from best to worst movie!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Failing To Shine; Bursting The Hype Of Little Miss Sunshine

The Good: Steve Carell's acting, Moments of social commentary
The Bad: Not funny, Not amusing, Not entertaining - Miserable tone!
The Basics: In a disappointingly stark movie, characters are introduced and they spend a journey from New Mexico to California not growing until the movie simply ends.


I was having a conversation with a friend about the Oscars and I made the comment that the reason the Oscars are done annually is because we need a marker for "the best of what we have" as opposed to "the best of what could be." In simpler terms, if the Academy held out for movies that all reached a certain standard, there might not be Oscars every year. There would be no best picture in a year lacking extraordinary films. This is why the Oscars have to be done annually; otherwise, it might be two, three, even five years between Oscar ceremonies. Never have I believed this more than after watching Little Miss Sunshine, one of the five nominees for last year's Best Picture award.

When Olive Hooper makes it into the finals of the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, her family packs themselves up into a broken-down VW Bus and heads from New Mexico to Southern California. The family, miserable over the failures and foibles of one another, becomes progressively more miserable as they travel, save Olive, whose sunny disposition makes it seem like she might be a contender. As the journey goes on, obstacles pop up to thwart the attempt to get Olive to the pageant on time.

Wow, was this a bad movie. Reviewers and critics keep calling this a gem of a movie and I think they're full of it. Here's why: all of the characters are either miserable or obnoxious. Every single one. Olive, perhaps the least offensive, is guilty solely of being an excited kid. Richard is a motivational speaker who can't sell his motivational program, his wife is essentially a doormat, and they are raising one of the most annoying - though well-motivated teenagers in film history. Uncle Frank is a suicidal homosexual who becomes the most empathetic (I wanted to kill myself just watching this miserable bunch!) and Grandpa is the new cliche of the uninhibited, cranky elder who is less responsible than the youngest. The thing here is that all of these characters are miserable and if I wanted miserable characters, I could have spent time with my own family rather than watching this one on screen.

So, what does Little Miss Sunshine do right? I like the concept. Road movies, miserable family movies, movies with gay characters, movies with suicidal characters, these are all things I usually get right behind. If anything, I was biased toward the concept doing into the movie. I liked the conceptual message about the beauty pageant at the end of the movie. Olive's routine is the perfect hyperbole of the direction these insane beauty pageants for CHILDREN go. The reaction of some of the judges, I thought, was amusing as it revealed the psychosis of the culture surrounding these type of pageants.

Two of the characters and actors worked perfectly, as well. Paul Dano plays Dwight, the teenage son who has taken a vow of silence after reading Nietzsche. While the characterization is betrayed for plot predictable convenience, Dwight is an interesting, if completely angry, character. Dano manages to portray the youth with an angry indifference that is hard to sustain. Of course, spending time with this family could make anyone sustain this level of anger.

If there is a gem in Little Miss Sunshine, it is Steve Carell. Carell plays Frank, who has inadvertently survived a suicide attempt and is miserable. I applaud Little Miss Sunshine for presenting the idea that youth should be told about homosexuality and suicide so as to destigmatize both and Carell plays Frank with a seriousness and desperation that I've not seen in him in any other role. He is utterly convincing as the reluctant survivor and as he quietly suffers throughout the movie, he becomes the most empathetic character on screen.

The other actors either fail to dazzle or fail to act. Newcomer Abigail Breslin, who portrays Olive, is essentially playing a young girl on her quest to be a star. Breslin is a young girl getting into acting, so this role is not much in the way of an acting challenge. Similarly, I was seriously underwhelmed by Oscar-winner Alan Arkin as Grandpa.

I like movies that defy "types" and I can live with dark movies (Magnolia and The Empire Strikes Back are two of my top three favorites and Brazil remains my absolute favorite film). I usually have a problem with schmaltzy life-affirming drecht, but even on that front, a well-messaged movie can satisfy me (see The Spitfire Grill, reviewed here!). Little Miss Sunshine fails, in part, because it mixes the types at all the wrong times. So, for example, Frank's story could go pretty much either way to satisfy the viewer with his character arc; he could succeed in trying to kill himself again or he could get over his problems and become determined to live. Ultimately, he does neither and after a particularly brutal character moment for Frank in the movie, his character essentially is dropped. There's no resolution, there's no growth, there's simply a disappearance of the issues that make Frank intriguing to watch. In a similar fashion, Richard's character ends the film without direction, which seems necessary given how much time is spent exploring - and shattering - his dreams.

Little Miss Sunshine is a stark movie, with a minimal soundtrack that contributes to the feeling that this is an empty movie. The length of the song near the end of the movie contrasts the rest of the film in a way that is painfully drawn out. I suppose Nietzsche might enjoy the starkness of the film and perhaps that was the point by directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (how it took two people to direct this, I'll never know!), but if it was, it failed on that front, too. The emptiness of the movie creates a vacuum that can only be filled by compelling characters that the viewer empathizes with. We do not. In Magnolia, P.T. Anderson creates an emotionally wrenching atmosphere and he uses an operatic soundtrack (sometimes literally, as he uses "Carmen") to connect the viewer to the characters and connect the characters to a larger world and the viewer. Lacking that, Little Miss Sunshine is simply void.

And, as with any road movie, part of the question that ought to be asked is "Is it about the journey or the destination?" Kevin Smith laments about Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back that the studio insisted on getting the protagonists out of Jersey and into California as quickly as possible and in the commentary, it's amusing to hear him say how they insisted it was one type of movie and he just didn't realize it (telling a writer-director what type of movie they have created probably means either the artist or the businesspeople have missed something, I vote that it's usually the error of the studio, not the creator). Little Miss Sunshine fails here as well. While the majority of the movie is spent on the road, suggesting that what is important here is the journey, the characters do not truly grow as a result of the journey. For each character - even Dwayne whose characterization becomes defied and voided by the trip - the journey simply is an opportunity to reinforce who they already are. They do not grow and change so much as illustrate the initial characterization that we are given from the outset.

And if the movie is truly about the destination, it's a long way to go for so sleight a punchline.

Little Miss Sunshine is hailed as an artistic movie that came out of obscurity to triumph. Instead, it serves as a cautionary tale for the seductiveness of advertisers; not all small films are good and Little Miss Sunshine starts with a weak script, populates the celluloid with mediocre acting (with the above-mentioned exceptions), stark direction and the result is a film that goes nowhere. There are much better small films, even if they did not receive the press of Little Miss Sunshine.

For other films with Abigail Breslin, please check out my reviews of:
Zombieland
Definitely, Maybe
No Reservations
The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement
Signs

3/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy: Very Funny, But Very Average Comedy.

The Good: Funny, DVD bonus features, Generally the acting
The Bad: Somewhat repetitive humor
The Basics: Funny, but often a one-trick pony, Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy excels on the acting front more than on the character or plot points.


Some part of me has come to entirely embrace the old axiom that it is easier to get work if you already have it. I come to this acceptance by way of watching more and more movies my wife loves. She is a big fan of films I derisively call "dumb comedies." She doesn't argue; she's looking for light fare full of dick and fart jokes, unburdened by social commentary. She wants foul language, nudity and jokes that are racy and while I have not, traditionally, been a fan of such fare, I have found a few that I enjoy. Largely, the ones that she enjoys are the works that feature Will Ferrell in them. She's a fan and there are a few works by or featuring Ferrell or from his production company that I have come to enjoy.

The latest in the parade of movies my partner has subjected me to is Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy. This brings me back to my original premise. Having just seen The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard which is by the same creative team as Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy and Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby, it is easy to see how the production company makes its friends and sticks with them. The primary cast for the three films is startlingly similar, especially with the troupe surrounding Ferrell. It seems David Koechner and Kathryn Hahn, for example, have comedic talents Ferrell and his team enjoy exploiting. The only problematic aspect of their continued cinematic associations is that they never seem to be asked to do anything other than their initial shtick. Fortunately, Ferrell and his team mix it up by infusing other talent, like Steve Carell and Christina Applegate into their otherwise familiar mix.

In Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy, Will Ferrell plays Ron Burgundy, a newscaster in San Diego who is at the top of his game. He wins the nightly ratings battle for the attention of his audience and reports the news with his team, smoking and drinking his way through his sappy deliveries of the nightly news. In the 1970s, Burgundy becomes a legend and his arrogance grows, in part because he is surrounded by sycophants like Champ Kind, Brian Fantana, and weatherman Brick Tamland. But when diversity becomes the word of the day, Burgundy is teamed up with investigative reporter and newscaster Veronica Corningstone.

While Ron works to seduce Veronica, she finds his advances both annoying and charming. When they do hook up, Ron almost immediately violates their privacy by reporting the act. After further incidents which disrespect her, Veronica sets out for revenge. She gets it through Ron's Achilles heel; having Ron swear on air by simply changing his call line on the teleprompter. As Veronica takes over, Ron flounders and his team struggle to get on without him.

Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy is essentially a mock documentary of the life of Ron Burgundy and the humor is derived largely from uncomfortable deadpans and such things as one of the characters (Brick) being mentally retarded and socially awkward. The reversals, like Ron promising Veronica he will not say anything about their sex immediately followed by him telling all of his friends, tend to happen quickly and be very predictable. This is not to say the film isn't funny, but it is a very standard sort of absurdist humor for which Will Ferrell is famous. That said, there's not much surprising here.

Ferrell presents Ron Burgundy as a stiff, strangely formal character whose on-air persona never goes away. As a result, when he tries to interact with friends or with Veronica, there come strange deliveries that seem inappropriate for the setting (imagine having a newscaster on a dinner date who spoke with the same deliveries as they did on-air). Ferrell is adept at the deliveries and he makes Ron Burgundy funny as a result. However, because most of the humor is related directly to either delivering the news or scoring with Veronica, much of the movie seems repetitive.

This is where DVD truly pushes a film up; in the bonus features, where Will Ferrell plays Ron Burgundy for an interview, the result is absolutely hilarious. Ferrell is fearless in his presentation of the parody opposite a serious interviewer and the result is comic gold. Similarly, the outtakes and deleted scenes are very funny.

What Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy does best is lampoon the pretensions of the news industry, especially in the way it attempts to make information entertainment. Things like the repeated joke where Burgundy and his team stride toward the camera and look earnestly at it and one another effectively skewer the way actual news organizations try to blur the lines between disseminating information and keeping an audience hooked with personalities. Of course, the movie is not at all just social commentary, which is made evident by the battle royale that occurs between Ron Burgundy's news crew and those of the competing stations (which is little more than an excuse for cameos by people like Ben Stiller). That scene creates a parody of violence and offsets the predictable and slow moments revolving around the news story of the decade, a pregnant panda at the San Diego zoo.

All of the actors are thoroughly invested in their roles and it is hard to actually criticize the acting here. While Ferrell and Koechner do their usual schtick - they play off one another wonderfully - and Fred Willard plays the station manager pretty much exactly as any fan of his would predict, other performers nail their roles. Steve Carell, for example, establishes his dry wit on the big screen perfectly as Brick. He has a dry delivery that underplays any form of sarcasm and given that this is one of his roles before The Office, it is easy to see how he got that role. He plays Brick as a hapless mentally challenged individual and that works.

But the real standout for acting has to be Christina Applegate. Yes, Christina Applegate, whose fame was predicated on her looks, appears in Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy as Veronica and she is impressive. Veronica is basically the straightman to Ron's absurdity and Applegate plays off Ferrell's over-the-top comic sense with an understated delivery that makes her the perfect foil. More than that, she plays Veronica as incredibly smart and she seems mature and intelligent enough to plausibly be in the place she is. Applegate is a surprise who steals all of her scenes.

This is quite a feat when one considers that much of the movie is spent with the characters staring at the camera delivering lines. When not doing that, Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy is simple hoping to grab laughs off the look of the 1970s personas. Ron dresses in a maroon suit and he and his companions have big-70s hair. Those jokes replay less well than the satirical comments on the news industry but they still work.

Largely, though, Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy is good, escapist humor that sets out to get some laughs and it does that. It does little more than that, but it works for what it is.

For other works with David Koechner, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Piranha 3DD
Paul
Extract
Sex Drive
Get Smart
Let’s Go To Prison
Farce Of the Penguins
Thank You For Smoking
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Waiting . . .

6/10

For other movie reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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