The Most Hilarious Movie You’ve Ever Seen
I didn’t expect a period price about 1970s TV news anchors to be funny. I remember seeing the previews back when Austin Powers was in his heyday thinking, “This is a cheap knockoff. Somebody trying to make money by getting in on a popular idea.” I didn’t even see Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy until relatively recently. But it immediately became one of my favorite and most quoted movies. It’s impossible not to laugh at this massive skit that is a perfect blend of left-field jokes and uncomfortable sexist humor. I was certainly not a Will Ferrell from the comedies he produced before Anchorman. I was so unimpressed by the Saturday Night Live skit based films that he did, like Night at the Roxbury, that Old School, Elf, and this film all flew under my radar. It wasn’t until I saw Stranger Than Fiction that Will Ferrell really got my attention and I began to look back through his filmography. And found that he has remarkable comedic timing and a way of fluctuating between over the top and deadpan deliveries that really translates well to the screen.
But his crowning achievement is the creation of this fictional San Diego legend. You see, in the Seventies, men read the news. And the movie tells us that in San Diego, no one read it better than Ron Burgundy. In fact, he reads so well off the teleprompter that he’ll read anything (and I mean that). Burgundy rules the local news arena with the help of his crack news team. All men of course, but when the network forces the station manager (Fred Willard) to hire a female reporter, the sexy Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), the men fall into a panic. And the world that they have come to know and love will never be the same.
Anchorman is a wealth of wickedly stupid humor, the type that’s so dumb it could only ever be thought up by someone intimidatingly smart. That smart duet is Ferrell himself with his co-writer/director Adam McKay, who has teamed up with Ferrell three times since (Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, and The Other Guys). Ron Burgundy is hopelessly juvenile, terminally inappropriate, and so completely unpredictable that he’s also ridiculously funny. I will wager that this is the only film in which you will find someone shooting flames from the end of a jazz flute. But Anchorman is always willing to take things a few steps farther than you’d expect. The result is comedy which produces unstoppable belly laughs simply from the shock of where Ferrell takes the joke next.
Possibly even more hilarious than Ferrell is his capable news crew. Steve Carrell as Brick Tamland repeatedly doubles me over with insane comments that seem to just come from out of the blue. He shouts, “LOUD NOISES!” when everyone else is in the station manager's office complaining about the addition of Corningstone to the news team. Paul Rudd’s reporter on the scene Brian Fantana is worth seeing just for his musk collection. Even Christina Applegate gets in a few good shots, because she is willing to dish out just as much as her fellow cast mates can throw at her. David Koechner is the weak point as the cowboy hat wearing sportscaster Champ Kind as he just made me uncomfortable. My biggest wish for this film would have been to see John C. Reilly in that spot.
I get the feeling that half of this script was improvised on the spot, and that isn’t a bad thing. I wonder if once they got rolling on set, they just couldn’t stop. The talent pool on this cast was so deep, I can totally believe that at some point they simply abandoned the printed page after realizing they were coming up with better stuff just giving each other the giggles. And with cameos from people like Tim Robbins, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Vince Vaughn the comedy chemistry and laugh factor is wrenched up even higher.
The movie suffers somewhat from what seems like a hastily thrown together finale, in which everything a little too neatly works out in the end. Anchorman is a movie that grows on you and only seems to get better the more I watch it and think about it. Whether he’s taking Veronica to the “gun show,” fighting bears, singing a song from the Starland Vocal Band, throwing burritos at bikers, or weeping over the loss of his beloved Baxter, Ron Burgundy is the perfect outlet for Will Ferrell’s unique brand of comedy. Anchorman 2 is a sequel that I hope they can iron out the details on and get produced, because the world needs more Ron Burgundy.
Do you like Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy as much as I do? What movie makes you bust a gut? Two Vince Vaughn comedies were close seconds for me (Dodgeball and Wedding Crashers), as well as any number of modern classics from Mel Brooks. What movies do you think is insanely funny? I’d love to head abor ir,
I’m a little wary of this question. It seems like the person that started this challenge may be sitting in an office in Hollywood waiting for all of us film geeks to get to day 24. Then when we post our great ideas he steals the ideas for his own and presents them to his boss. Perhaps I’m just paranoid, but I’m not sure if I want to put my great idea on the internet for everyone to see. Perhaps if I post it here with a time-stamp and a copyright at the bottom of the page that will be sufficient to prove that it was my idea before any one else. Well, I’ll live on the edge and throw caution to the wind and tell you all, but you have to promise to at least give me free screenings to your movies that will make millions after you steal my idea. It really is a simple concept and all the technology to make it happen already exists. In a sentence, I’m talking about audience interactive plot control or Choose Your Own Adventure.
Being a dad, it seems like I watch more animated movies than any other type. And since I am a film snob, I can’t stand to endlessly re-watch sub-par movies the way that I see so many parents do. Just because Cars is my kids’ favorite Pixar movie, that doesn’t mean that I am going to put it on every time they ask to watch a movie. Although they would be happy with that, I would go insane. And even if it was a good movie, it would lose some of its magic after seeing it twice a week for 3 years. I am constantly looking for good animated films to share with my family. That passion, along with my general love for film, led me to the breathtaking and impressive canon of Japanese hand-drawn animation director 
But Miyazaki is a glowing exception. His animation has an attention to detail that rivals the exacting standards of a company like Pixar. His intense yet delicate shading of colors would make his works of art more at home in a fine art gallery than in the Sunday comics. Miyazaki also has a great sense of humor, a gift for poetic storytelling, and a taste for adventure. His beautiful children’s movie, My Neighbor Totoro, is a charming and deeply affecting look at how a child’s imagination helps her endure a time of private fear and sadness. His most recent work, Ponyo, is a beautiful story of the transforming power of love. Princess Mononoke, is a powerful, sprawling epic about the need for humankind to respect and live in harmony with the environment. And that is a message that people of all faiths should proclaim.
Spirited Away is a coming of age story of a little girl named Chihiro, who gets lost in a wonderland of spirits and witches, and her quest to find a way to break the curse that has transformed her parents so they can return home. Her only friend in this world is a mysterious boy named Haku who helps her to survive. Eventually we come to hope that Chihiro, her parents, and Haku will all eventually break away from the harsh tyranny of the powerful and dictatorial witch Yubaba.
One of the things I love about Miyazaki is that he never sets up a simplistic face-off between good and evil. He knows we all have good and evil within us, and thus his “villains” have moments of kindness, and his heroes do things they regret.
Some will say that this film is too complex for children, and too scary. For small children, possibly. They could get lost in the intricate plot, and the monsters might scare them. I personally showed it to my kids starting at age 5 and up. But I think kids should be challenged to think through what they’re watching, and this is a story that provides great opportunities for discussion with grownups. Spirited Away is at times frightening, but it emphasizes the importance of an individual’s virtue, and affirms that the smallest of characters can make a big difference. It offers powerful displays of sacrificial love. And it, as I mentioned before, portrays “villains” who are redeemable and can be transformed by compassion and kindness.
One spirit in particular, No Face, appears at first to be gentle and friendly. But he becomes more and more mysterious, shifting between gentleness and violent destructive behavior. Eventually, we come to understand that he is a lonely spirit who seeks approval. When he is around greed and evil, he responds with greed and evil. But when he is offered friendship and unconditional love, he seems to try a better path. Chihiro has patience with him and her kindness reminds me of how Christ patiently endures with me in my own tendency to become self-absorbed. He waits patiently, always offering love, forgiveness, and direction to a better way. No Face is amazed at Chihiro’s virtue. And I came to hope that he would abandon his violence and follow Chihiro to a better life. This is just one of many such parables within a vast tapestry of interconnected stories.
It’s the mark of a great documentary that it can make you care about something you had no interest in otherwise. That is the reason I loved this documentary, because the fight between Billy Mitchell the jerk and underdog Steve Wiebe is something utterly captivating, and a story that’s continued even though the movie came out in 2007. That’s right, the two are still competing, and the saga continues. Sure, it might not seem like a big deal to us, but to these guys, it’s everything.
Mitchell’s record stood, undisturbed, until 2005. That’s when Steve Wiebe, who had recently been laid off, decided to accept the challenge to compete with Mitchell’s high score. The most amazing part of the film is the fact that Wiebe’s wife and kids let him engage in what is a very trivial competition.
But he is one of the best villains I have seen on the screen in a long time. Wiebe, on the other hand, is a guy you can’t help but pull for. We cheer when he bests Mitchell’s score by over 200,000. Then we feel his setbacks when the score is invalidated.
No, I didn’t mis-count, it is still day 20. Yesterday I stretched this question into two questions by naming 
My favorite modern actress is another tough decision. The leading lady I picked has been very selective in her roles. She started her career at 12 years old by getting herself kidnapped by a hitman named Leon. She would go on to get her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Harvard University, and become the Queen of Naboo and a representative in the Galactic Senate. But Natalie Portman really caught my eye when she shaved her head and learned an English accent to play Evey in the futuristic V for Vendetta. She is the accomplice to V, a masked and mysterious anti-hero who’s either a terrorist or a freedom fighter, depending upon which side of the explosion you’re on.
This category is very close to what could be another category. It would be a similar category but I think the results would be very different. That category would be looking for the best book that has been adapted to a film. Since this is a movie challenge, it is only right for the questions to focus on a film instead of a book. My favorite book that has been turned into a film is the Lord of the Rings, but my favorite film (that happens to be adapted from a novel which I have never read) is One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). It was the first film to sweep the 5 major awards at the Oscars: Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay since Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night did it 41 years earlier.
This rebellion is at times uplifting and we cheer as we see these patients grow, but at other times it’s destructive especially during the ending of the film. Nurse Ratched is often portrayed as an unflinching power hungry authority figure. But in her own way, she does seem concerned for the well being of her patients.
As I said before, I have not read Ken Kesey’s acclaimed novel, so I cannot judge the film as based upon the book. In my opinion, it is a fruitless endeavor to compare a film and a book, they are distinct forms of art and have their own advantages and drawbacks. That being said, one way to judge the quality of an older film is to look at some of the supporting cast that Found their fame by using the film as a diving board. This one produced a few, namely Danny Devito and Christopher Lloyd. Do you have a favorite film that is based upon a book or some other form of literature? I’d love to hear your picks or you can comment on One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest if you have seen it. You can leave your comments below or on Twitter or Facebook.
Today’s challenge was simple. If I can only recommend one movie to anyone, it is this delightful gem from Roberto Benigni. And it is a rare occasion that they have already seen it. I wonder what prevents people from seeing this film. Is it the fact that it is a foreign film or maybe that there are no recognizable movie stars in it? Perhaps it is the fact that the subject matter is generally so depressing. But the funny yet haunting Life Is Beautiful, is quite possibly the best most satisfying movie I have ever seen.
Fast-forwarding a few years, Guido, now owns a small bookstore. Guido and Dora have married and have a young son. It wasn’t until writing this review that I found that his son’s name is “Joshua” spelled Giosue (Giorgio Cantarini). A Nazi presence is now creeping into their Italian town, and signs have begun to appear in shop windows: “No Dogs or Jews Allowed” Guido, who we learn is Jewish himself, jokes to a confused Giosue that he should put up a sign on their store: “No Spiders or Visigoths Allowed.” The film shifts gears when his family is arrested and sent to a concentration camp. Dora, who is not Jewish, chooses to follow her husband and child. It is at this point that Life Is Beautiful changes into a very different film. I was impressed at how seamlessly the comedy moved into the world of the death camps.
You would think that with 20 years to work on a worthy follow-up to the Indiana Jones Trilogy that Steven Spielberg and his collaborator George Lucas could create an entertaining and exciting film. However, it seems that instead of becoming sweeter with time, this one just became rotten. In Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, we see an elderly Indy (or should I say Henry because he is rarely called “Indiana” or “Indy” in this film) in his baggy grandpa pants with locks of grey-white hair peeking out under a crisp and rarely-dirty brown fedora you really don’t get the feeling that you’re watching anything historic. This is a movie that obviously misunderstood its audience, it’s exactly the type of summer blockbuster developed to make money at all costs: things blow up; there are aliens; and an unnecessary youthful sidekick.
The other aspect of the film that disappointed me was the role that extra-terrestrials play. The original trilogy uses religious artifacts as the treasure the Indy is hunting. But as with the abominable Star Trek prequels that George Lucas thrust upon audiences, all of the religion and mysticism was replaced by science-fiction. Why don’t film-makers understand that audiences want to encounter something inexplicable in the theater. We don’t want midichlorians to give a scientific explanation of the force or science to replace our religion. The presence of the aliens is strong, but there is no dialogue between the two parties, much like Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Ultimately, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a film that, while not entirely bad, is nowhere near worthy of its lofty pedigree. As generic action films go, it may have provided some level of entertainment in the vein of National Treasure..But with the attachment of “Indiana Jones” to the title and the involvement of Harrison Ford, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg my expectations were raised and my standards were set to a level that these individuals can sadly no longer meet.