ANCHORMAN 2: Enough Laughs For Fans Of The First One

Opening today at a multiplex near you:

ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES

(Dir. Adam McKay, 2013)

Paul Rudd, Will Ferrell, David Koetchner, and Steve Carrell decide while on one of their trademark strutts to get perms! That's funny, right?



Of course, you know from all the heavy publicity that it’s kind of a big deal that ‘70s broadcaster Ron Burgundy is back with the rest of the San Diego Channel 4 news team in this sequel to the 2004 comedy hit ANCHORMAN.



Will Ferrell, clad in his character’s signature burgundy three-piece suit, gathers his comedy buddies Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, and David Koechner together again to bring the retro-fitted funny, and for the most part they get the laughs they’re going for.



It’s just that I wish they, by way of Ferrell and director/co-writer Adam McKay’s sketchy screenplay, were going for more in terms of story, satire, and real comic invention. I mean, they pile on the jokes, most of which are over-the-top one-liners, but the narrative concerning the dawning era of 24-hour news cycles is seriously under developed.



It’s now the ‘80s and Ferrell’s Burgundy is all washed up working as an announcer at SeaWorld after losing his coveted co-anchor job, and having divorced his wife (the also returning Christina Applegate) because she was promoted to the nightly news desk. But his pathetic predicament doesn’t last long because Dylan Baker comes calling to recruit Ron for a position in New York at the new basic cable channel upstart, GNN (Global News Network).



A sequence that resembles the “getting the gang back together” sequence in THE MUPPETS (the 2011 reboot) follows with Ferrell driving around in an RV plucking Koechner from his fast food franchise that serves bats disguised as fried chicken (he claims that an unspecified “they” calls them “chicken of the cave”), Rudd from his somehow sexy photographer gig for Cat Fancy magazine, and Carrell back from the dead, or rather for mistakenly thinking he’s dead as he’s found eulogizing himself at his own funeral.



So far so funny, but the movie’s premise never goes up from there even when introducing a new rival in the form of the intimidatingly handsome Jack Lime (James Marsden), who’s GNN’s star primetime anchor, while Burgandy and his bunch are stuck in the 2-5 am graveyard shift.



In one of his trademark fits of idiocy, Burgandy makes a bet with Lime that if his slot doesn’t get higher ratings he’ll quit the business, but if Lime loses he’ll have to legally change his name to “Lame.” This is, at least, a plot point, but one that doesn’t pay off – it sort of fades into the fussy framework. As does a later strand in which our hero goes blind from a skating injury (he was sabotaged by Marsden) and goes off to live in a lighthouse, one of several places in this 119 minute movie that the jokes fall flat and the laughs taper off.



A sharp as a tack Meagan Good as the boys’ new African American boss gives the film the chance to comment on ‘80s-era racism in the workplace, but, much like the first one’s take on sexism, it just skirts the silly surface on the topic – Ferrell not being able to stop saying the word “black” when first meeting Good is a telling indicator of the level here.



Another new addition to the cast, Kristen Wiig, as Carrell’s frizzy-haired dim-witted love interest is way underutilized, and they really didn’t have any reason to have Harrison Ford (gruff as usual) on board as a network bigwig except that Ferrell and McKay thought ‘why not?’



Still, ANCHORMAN 2 largely stays classy and has laughs a plenty even when it shamelessly trots out re-dos of bits like the epic newscaster battle scene stuffed with surprise cameos (I’m not spoiling!), and another crazy showcasing of Ron’s jazz flute skills. These bits worked before, so again, why not refry them and serve them up again?



Fans of the first one should find enough quotable lines (one of my favorites: “Who the hell is Julius Caesar? I don't follow the NBA!”), enough goofy sight gags, and enough in-your-face absurdity for the sake of in-your-face absurdity to satisfy them, but folks who aren’t into Ferrell ‘n friends’ brand of crude PG-13 boundary pushing comedy should stay home in droves.

More later...

Feeling Right At Home With The Authentic Tone Of Alexander Payne's NEBRASKA

Opening today at an art house near me:



NEBRASKA (Dir. Alexander Payne, 2013)

At one point in this excellent film, I was reminded of a bit that I saw late night talk show host/comedian Craig Ferguson do last month at the Carolina Theatre about how you can get away with saying practically anything cruel by saying “I’m not judging, I’m just being honest.”



As Bruce Dern’s long suffering wife, June Squibb is reminiscing out loud in a cemetery about folks she used to know in the film’s fictional small town of Hawthorne, Nebraska. In the mist of her blunt takedowns of the not so dearly departed she remarks of her husband’s sister: “I liked Rose, but my god, she was a slut!”



Comic actor Will Forte (Saturday Night Live, MACGRUBER), as Dern and Squibb’s son, snaps “Mom, come on,” but Squibb simply states “I’m just telling the truth” and continues her trash talking walk through the headstones.



It’s a fitting line, for NEBRASKA, Alexander Payne’s follow-up to his much more commercial George Clooney vehicle THE DESCENDANTS isn’t judging its characters, it’s being honest about them. Its simple premise of Dern’s protagonist Woody Grant erroneously thinking he’s won a million dollars sweepstakes because of a piece of junk mail hawking magazine subscriptions superbly sets up a bunch of bluntly funny scenes, made all the more sharper by being shot in black and white.



Working with first time screenwriter Bob Nelson’s words, Payne gives us a road movie in the vein of ABOUT SCHMIDT (my personal favorite Payne), which bleeds through in such moments as Dern revisiting locations from his youth (the auto shop he used to co-own, his former watering hole, etc.). Shades of Nicholson’s Schmidt walking into The Tires Plus store that stands on the site of his childhood home for sure.



Despite the protests of mother Squibb (another SCHMIDT factor as she was the wife in that too) Forte opts to drive his ornery out-of-it father from their Billings, Montana home to the lottery office in Lincoln, Nebraska. They stop in Hawthorne for a family reunion, which includes a terrific turn by Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show, Breaking Bad) as Forte’s older newscaster brother, the soft spoken Rance Howard (a great grizzled character actor who’s been in everything from The Andy Griffith Show to Seinfeld) as Dern’s brother, and Mary Louise Wilson (another recognizable longtime veteran of the big and small screen) as Howard’s wife.



A slimy Stacy Keach as Dern’s former auto mechanic partner makes it well known that he wants a cut of Dern’s winnings, as do ne-er-do-well nephews Devin Natray and Tim Driscoll, who have some of the film’s funniest moments especially in a scene where they mock Forte for how long it took him to drive the 750 miles from home to Hawthorne (Driscoll: “Two goddamn days from Billings!”).



It's a career best for Dern, once one of New Hollywood's shining lights of '70s cinema, who definitely deserves an Oscar nomination for his role as the ole codger drunkard, but Squibb steals large chunks of the movie with her fearless bluster. A scene in which she tells off the folks, “vultures” she calls them, clamoring for their cut of Dern's supposed winnings with a resounding f-bomb alone should get her a nomination nod from the Academy.



It's also great to see another side of Forte, as a somewhat beaten down smalltime stereo salesman dealing with a recent break up with his girlfriend of two years (Missy Doty). Forte's effective everyman embarking on a trip to bond with his father, and for a change of scenery resonates beautifully.



Speaking of scenery, the wide lonely spaces of the spare Midwestern settings that surround these sad characters look stunning through the lens of cinematographer Phedon Papamichael, who also shot Payne's SIDEWAYS and THE DESCENDANTS. Anyone's who's traveled across country through the empty terrains of America will get the ambience Payne is going for.



I felt right at home with the authentic tone of NEBRASKA. It has more genuine laughs than most comedies, and more heartfelt humanity than most dramas. It's a near perfect piece of major Payne that makes most of its indie competition this year look pretty shallow. And you know, I'm not judging - I'm just telling the truth.



More later...