Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

By Adam Lippe

anchorman

If there’s one thing we can count on from Will Ferrell, it’s completely committing to a role. Anchorman is really funny when it is only concerned with its own silliness, but like most comedies, once the plot or story arc kicks in, the laughs dissipate, even if the tone doesn’t particularly change. This usually arrives at the halfway point, right after the biggest laugh, which in this case is a scene on a bridge. With Office Space, it’s the gutting of the fish, or look at most low key, yet raucous comedies after the 45 minute mark, it’s usually there. I think they could have done more with David Koechner’s Champ character, but Ferrell’s ridiculous non-sequitors and Carrell’s wonderful idiocy (while a bit thin), more than made up for it. The commercials make it sort of evident, but Ron Burgundy is basically Ferrell’s Robert Goulet impression with even more self-delusion and pomposity. Which of course makes it even funnier.

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Roadracers

By Adam Lippe

Whenever there’s a genre parody or ode to a specific era of films, such as Black Dynamite’s mocking of Blaxploitation films or Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, the second half of Grindhouse, the danger is that the film might fall into the trap of either being condescending without any particular insight, or so faithful that it becomes the very flawed thing it is emulating.

Black Dynamite has nothing new to say about Blaxploitation films, it just does a decent job of copying what an inept [...]


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Featured Quote (written by me)

On Cold Fish:

Though the 16 year old me described the 1994 weepie Angie, starring Geena Davis as a Brooklyn mother raising her new baby alone, as “maudlin and melodramatic,” Roger Ebert, during his TV review, referring to the multitude of soap-operaish problems piling up on the titular character, suggested that it was only in Hollywood where Angie would get a happy ending. “If they made this movie in France, Angie would have shot herself.”

Well Cold Fish was made in Japan, where Angie would have shot herself and that would have been the happy ending.