Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Saw this one on Wednesday morning, and I’ll see it again next Monday night at the premiere. It’s worth watching at least twice, and I think it’s safe to say that the comedy of the summer has finally arrived. Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Dave Koechner, Paul Rudd, Vince Vaughn, Fred Willard, Christina Applegate, Adam McKay... these are just some of the names responsible for the absolute lunacy of this picture. I’ll write up my full review after Monday night, and I’ve got an interview set this weekend with Will, Adam, and Dave, and I’ll have that for you soon, as well.
For now, here’s our man in Chicago with his take on things...
Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here. Pardon me one minute while I say a little prayer: Comedy Savior, thy name is Will Ferrell. Ever since I caught a hilarious glimpse of a roughly edited sequence from ANCHORMAN more than six months ago at Butt Numb-a-Thon 5, I have been craving this film. I caught Ferrell again recently portraying '70s news anchor superstar Ron Burgundy doing interviews on the MTV Movie Awards, and he had me cracking up again. This Ferrell kid could be going places, mark my words. Burgundy rules the roost at his San Diego television station. He and his all-male news team (including Paul Rudd as on-the-spot reporter Brian Fantana; Steven Carell as deadpan and possibly retarded weatherman Brick Tamland; and David Koechner as cowboy-wannabe sports announcer Champ Kind) live a life that bares a striking similarity to the parties thrown in BOOGIE NIGHTS, filled with beautiful women, hairy men, lots of booze, and Farrell in a Speedo.
The boys club fun comes to a screeching halt, however, when the station manager (Fred Willard) hires the network's first ever female reporter (this is the 1970s, remember) in the form of the lovely Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate, whose every gesture, look, and comic reactions seemed to deliberately mimic Jennifer Aniston; I'm not saying this is bad, just really weird). All of the men at the station hound her in various lame attempts to bed her, but it's the ultra-suave Burgundy that knows how to win her heart with a little help from his jazz flute, if you know what I'm saying...actually, I'm saying he plays the jazz flute in a night club. I don't know what you were thinking. Although Corningstone is given the lightest of light-weight news stories to cover (a cat fashion show, for example), the opportunity arises for her to fill in for Burgundy as the nation's first female news anchor and Burgundy flips, sparking an all-out battle of the sexes. Taking advantage of Burgundy's weakness of reading exactly what's on the TelePrompTer, Veronica gets Ron fired and his life takes an ugly turn at the bottom of a bottle.
Not surprisingly, just about every member of the newly dubbed Frat Pack shows up in ANCHORMAN, most played rival news anchors from other networks. One of the greatest scenes ever is the all-out news team rumble, where news teams from all over San Diego get into an old-fashioned, Warriors-like street fight with knives, bats, guns, pipes with razor wire wrapped around them; you get the picture. I also loved the performance by "The Daily Show's" Carell. Everything out of this guy's mouth was funny, even the stuff in the outtakes. Speaking of which, make sure to stay all the way through the credits; there's a nice surprise waiting for you at the end of this film. At the center of this homerun comedy is Farrell, who just gets better and more confident with each film. He and first-time feature director Adam McKay (who had made a few short films for SNL) have crafted such a solid script that even the less funny parts make you giggle like a school girl. My only criticism is the film's PG-13 rating. I know I harp on this a lot, but this movie approached the "R" line so often that to have jumped over it would have been sheer heaven. Still, hearing Burgundy replace what would have been foul-mouthed exclamations with expressions like "Great Odin's beard!!!" is just too priceless to give up. And the best news is that the DVD of ANCHORMAN is going to rock. In rewatching the trailer, I spotted at least five scenes in the trailer that we're in the film. Bring on the deleted scenes! Not having seen the HAROLD AND KUMAR film, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that ANCHORMAN will be the biggest comedy of the summer. It's certainly the best. The film opens July 9.
Capone
Nice one, man. Thanks.
"Moriarty" out.
