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August 6, 2006
The Story of a Man Who Could Only Count to Number One
Time for a lighter note.
I like to think of myself as a sophisticated man of arts and letters, with equally sophisticated, upmarket tastes in everything from books (current reading: Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Humna) to music (currently listening to Pieter Wispelway and Dejan Lazic's Beethoven: Complete Sonatas and Variations) to booze (how many other households have Poir William on hand, for god's sake???).
It is therefore very hard to admit this, but ... I liked Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. In fact, I like a lot of Will Ferrell's stuff. His time on SNL nearly (emphasis on nearly) rescued the show. His character Professor Klarvin was easily the funniest one on SNL in a good decade and a half (I remember one skit involving the lecherous professor and his wife in a hot tub with the guest host-I think it might have been Drew Barrymore-that reduced my wife and I nearly to tears). His Blue Oyster Cult/Don't Fear the Reaper/"We need more cowbell!" skit with Cristopher Walken may have been the single funniest piece on SNL in years. And, needless to say, his "Frank the Tank" in Old School was probably the most memorable, and now iconic, character in the film.
Bearing such gushing enthusiasm (Will Ferrell really speaks to, no, understands my inner 13 year old) in mind, I have to give an unqualified thumbs up for Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, which I saw yesterday. As brilliant a comic study of a certain type of man and a certain moment in time as Anchorman, its opening 20 minutes had me laughing harder than I have since...well, Anchorman. As funny as Ferrell is, he finds his comic match in Sasha Baron Cohen, as a fey and gay French F1 racer invading Ricky Bobby's NASCAR turf. Every time Cohen said "Ricky Bobby" in the film I laughed until it hurt. It was that funny a delivery. It never got old.
Or maybe I was somehow regressing.
Anyway, from the previews, I learned that I have something to look forward to: Baron Cohen is making a Borat movie.
Posted by dag at August 6, 2006 9:56 PM