title: "Anchorman"
starring: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, Fred Williard, Danny Trejo, Fred Armisen
genre: comedy
You're either going to love or hate "Anchorman," a satire about glorified machismo and stupefied chauvanism at a 70's-era news outlet. Will Ferell, fresh off flashing in "Old School" and charming in "Elf," plays Ron Burgandy, a top-notch anchor for a local San Deigo station. He's brawny, brass, and self-doubtlessly handsome, but eventually tacky and irritating. His co-workers, including at-the-scene Brian Fantana (Rudd), wacky weatherguy Brick Tamland ( Carell, who left all his situational funniness to "The Daily Show"), and hillbilly sports-reporter Champ Kind (David Koechner), are great exaggerations of pompous, permiscuous porn stars, only their idea of "sex" is trodding on the success of women and matter-of-factly regarding the opposites as pieces of saucy meat.
But one woman does her best to ruin the sterotypes - Veronica Corningstone (which sounds like a porno alias to me), played by Christina Applegate, who ironically played smutty Kelly Bundy on "Married with Children." Corningstone is a big threat to Burgandy and his cohorts, and they scoff at a woman actually anchoring the news. Corningstone is kind of cute and courageous, until Burgandy falls for her, and she becomes...Burgandy-ish. It's all sarcastic and shallow, and once we realize that the characters don't care, then we don't either.
Farrell, who wrote "Anchorman" with director Adam McKay, is hilariously unfunny as Burgandy. By that I mean once we see that he's a lone loser who emotionlessly degrades women and talks idiotically to his dog, we laugh because Burgandy is a good representation of a pre-diversified power-hungry male. Turning female liberation of the 70's into this sketch comedy is only half-successfully done.
When the suave foursome encounters rival news-teams in a back alley (featuring a slew of predictable cameos), and the teams pull out weapons and proceed to attack like white gangs, "Anchorman" becomes overwhelmingly dumb. The brilliance of Ferrell's Burgandy becomes a film tragedy, because the plot and sequential sequences are deprived of the comedy we once started with. All's well doesn't end well, and we tune out. Grade: C
MPAA: PG-13
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Quick Flicks:
"Two Brothers": Helmed by Frenchman Jean-Jacques Annaud, this foreign film about the seperation of two tigers, and yes, their reunion, is dopey child fluff. The two tigers are melodramatically split up, and one goes to the circus while another is befriended by a boy (Freddie Highmore). Guy Pearce stars as a hunter whose observation of the cuddly cubs might just force him to change his wicked ways (can you guess if he does???). "Two Brothers" has for it, though, great cinematography, and the camera zooms around beautifully on vast nature and the tiger's trek home. C+
"Farenheit 9/11": Exhausted commercially, and conversed nationally, Michael Moore's controversial documentary about the President is a piece of scathing, sacrifical work. The rumored scenes of Bush continuing to read "My Pet Goat" to an elementary class, as the first and second planes hit on 9/11, is crass and emotional. But the stuff that hits home is the story of a mother out of Moore's hometown, Flint, Michigan, and her story of her son's death while serving in Iraq. Whether you love or despise the guy, "Farenheit" is publically and politically powerful. It needs to be seen. A- You can join Unsolved Mysteries and post your own mysteries or
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