Tag: Will Ferrell

Happy November 6th, 2012! It is Election Day in America, so I went the obvious route and picked The Campaign to review. I don’t even have a clever intro to say before I talk about the movie, so fuck it, lets just go into it.

Just gotta warm my tongue muscles first.

In the 14th District of North Carolina, life is simple. Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) is running for his fifth term as congressman for the Democratic party and is unopposed. I guess people really like him. Sure he is a filthy man, and doesn’t do much, but who cares. Unfortunately, his popularity takes a drastic turn down when he leaves a very explicit sexual message for a woman he is cheating on his wife (Katherine LaNasa) with. His campaign manager (Jason Sudeikis) tries to put a positive spin on it all, but nothing really seems to work.

This spells for trouble in Capitol Hill, namely with the Motch brothers (John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd) who are working on a new plan with China and need all the support they can get. Seems like now is the best time to replace Brady with someone new, that the public will love. Unfortunately their only available contact in the area is Marty Huggins (Zach Galifiankis), the son no one talks about. Wanting to make his dad proud, he is happy to run and make his area of North Carolina better.

He just didn’t know it involved changing everything about himself, his wife (Sarah Baker) and kids, from the mysterious campaign manager Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott).

But more importantly, once both men are in the race, how low will they go to discredit the other, just for a chance to help start Project: Insourcing?

Will they be able to stop all this family shit and man up?

Having lived in North Carolina, I was happy to notice a lot more subtle jokes than one would have expected. Like the 14th District of North Carolina, that doesn’t even exist! NC had 13 districts, not sure if they did that for legal reasons, or for the joke, but I will so go for the joke.

Cutting right to the chase, this movie did make me laugh. I giggled quite often. But I think the movie went the easy route with most of the jokes, and could have made a stronger movie overall, tackling bigger issues, while also keeping a lot of the jokes. The DVD for this movie came out about a week ago, all of the timing makes since. They wanted this movie because of the presidential election. Yet they didn’t really say anything important about it.

Sure, the basic message of money buying elections is probably true. Minor jokes on the Romney/Obama campaigns, and other parallels like John Edwards. But overall it just seemed to be missing a lot more.

I would suggest seeing the movie once, it will probably make you laugh. I just don’t think it will pack as big of a punch in multiple viewings.

I don’t think the readers here are ready for this. I just don’t.

A Spanish movie, made by Americans, in America. Where we speak American, damn it!

First time I have put up the language tag without the “Foreign” tag. Because this is all USA baby. Just in Spanish.

Yeah, you were not ready for Casa De Mi Padre.

Gay cowboys eating beans around a campfire. Oscar gold.

Armando Ernesto (Will Ferrell) is the not so smart son of a rancher, and has lived at home his whole life. He has simple needs and pleasures, and loves spending times with his other ranch hand friends, Esteban (Efren Ramirez) and Manuel (Adrian Martinez). But his father, Miguel (Pedro Armendariz Jr.) is upset about something, but won’t tell his son about it, mostly because of his incompetence.

But thankfully, Raul (Deigo Luna) returns! Raul is the younger brother who left home some time ago and he looks rich and successful. Huh, wonder where it all came from? So does Armando. Miguel doesn’t care though, because his younger son is a smart man. Not to mention he brought Sonia (Genesis Rodriguez) and plans on wedding her the next day. Hooray, family growth!

Armando is super suspicious of all of this and of Sonia, she just looks like a money grabbing whore. But of course the suspicion leads to spying, and secret jealously and love. Come on Armando, don’t screw your brother like that. Even if he actually is dealing with drugs, and thus has the local cartel leader Onza (Gael Garcia Bernal) coming by to kill everyone, and also problems with the US DEA agents like Agent Parker (Nick Offerman).

Just by saying Nick Offerman, you should know exactly what kind of character he plays in this movie.

Alright readers, it is very possible I too was not ready for this movie. I just expected a normal comedy, set in Spanish though. I am fine with that. I don’t hate that. It’s weird, but could be good too. But what this ended up being is a larger parody/satire on the entire telenova experience, which is something I have definitely never experienced. Sure, I heard they were overly dramatic, basically soap operas amped up a bit.

Quite a few jokes probably relied on realizing the ridiculousness of it all, and this movie adding even more to that fact. But without knowing that? There will be few laughs. I noted that there was badly edited scenes, one in particular I loved was this fight scene involving coyotes and pumas, but the real humor will come in the smaller details. The scenes keeping the camera on the persons face just a little bit too long. Pretty much all the scenes just going on a little bit too long. Not to mention people getting offended quite easily.

Oh and the songs. There are two and there songs out of no where. Probably common place in Mexico, I don’t know. Hell, the Spanish might not have been real Spanish and I wouldn’t even know. So many layers of comedy I just couldn’t get, I think I have to watch this movie a second time to get a better grasp on it all. But for now, lets keep it neutral. Definitely a different film experience than you are used to from Will Ferrell.

The easiest way to describe Land of the Lost is that it is nothing like the TV Show Land Of The Lost. Going in, I expected it to be very similar, in terms of characters, rough plot, etc, but instead all that really happened were the obligatory shout out references to the old show, without taking anything really that deep. But what else would you expect? That is an old show, and this is a new movie!

And all new experiences are exciting experiences.

Will Ferrell is a scientist who believes in different alternative dimensions, and people make fun of him. After a few years of “laying low” another doctor, Anna Friel has some more information to test his theory! She found a fossil with a cigarette lighter imprint. They go to get readings at this lame water raft ride lead by slacker Danny McBride where she found the fossil. Somehow, though, it opens a portal to a different land! Ahh dinosaur!

They meet Cha’ka (Jorma Taccone), a monkey hybrid thing. After more dinosaur trouble, they run into the Sleestaks, weird lizard people. The one they meet says the others are trying to take over the world. So they help him. Lalala adventures, dinosaurs, mosquitos, drug like fruit, and betrayal. Eventually they get back though, and all is right.

Well. All is right in the movie. But the movie still exists, so real world-wise it is not all right.

I guess I can start with the positives! This movie is a lot more risque than I thought there would be. With a long drug scene, and experimentation, and other sexual jokes, I realize now why it got PG-13. Danny McBride wanted to be himself, and they let him push the limits. His final scene too was pretty shocking. Technically not a kids movie!

But they still tried to make it way too kiddy. The CGI is horrible, very low budget, the plot was weak and boring. And overall it just was not satisfying. Just a mess on the screen, and every once and awhile a chuckle (but is it out of humor, or thinking “Oh they said that in a kids shoW!”? We will never know.)

I have been told that The Other Guys was a great movie. By looking at the cover a long time ago, I assumed that was not true. This also came out around the same time as Cop Out, so I need to spread out my police cop comedy thrillers. Cop Out seemed to be a good movie at the beginning, very funny, and try and turn into a more serious thing by the end, causing me to care less. The Other Guys, on the other hand, seems to be a comedy throughout, yet still, I lost interest.

I am fine with this level of seriousness.

This movie starts out as an over the top action movie. Samuel L. Jackson and The Rock are chasing some criminals in NYC, and lots of damage get done. Sure, they had about only 3k worth of pot on them, and they caused 12million in damages, but who is counting? Crime has been stopped. They are heroes!

But the movie isn’t about them. It isn’t about Rob Riggle and Damon Wayans Jr. either, they are just normal guy. No, it is about the Other Guys. Will Ferrell, desk cop accountant who loves paper work, and Mark Whalberg, overly angry and paranoid detective who has to work with him.

The movie plot is pretty much, SLJ and The Rock end up dying with their reckless ways, and some people need to fill their shoes!

I loved the beginning, had me “lol”ing more than once. But as it got into the story (which was heavy on banking and monetary things, which is something I don’t understand well anyways), I didn’t get confused, I just cared less. Hard to describe it. The jokes did seem to get less funny, or be the same joke over and over. Eva Mendes and Michael Keaton are also both in this movie.

“Two possible pictures here, you chose one with Michael Keaton???” – Angry Gorgon Review reader.

I also didn’t like Whalberg’s character. Normally in a duo, one is annoying, and one is normal. You take Whalberg to be the “normal” part of the pair at the start, until later when you find out he is way annoying. Always yelling and freaking out. Part of the design, but not one I liked to see. So to me, it started out strong, then just got okay.

Sometimes Will Ferrell makes serious movies. I can say that now, because with Stranger Than Fiction and Everything Must Go, there is at least two. Sure both movies of course have comedic elements, but they are overall serious movies. It is always good to see an actor leave his comfort zone. Especially if he can do that and excel. Will Ferrell can excel.

And time travel!

This was a really great movie. All the emotion you would expect is there. Everyone felt real, no one overacted, it was all very simple. I am surprised that the kid was played by Notorious B.I.G.’s son. Also found it weird his only other acting gig is playing….Notorious as a kid in that movie. Would you want to play your dead dad in a biography movie? [IMDB links are screwed up as of this posting. It has his name as two different ways and says they are different people. Each one listing only 1 role. That is incorrect.] Err, besides the point.

Will Ferrell was great in this. He can be a serious and dramatic actor, not relying on slapstick or comedy or dumb lines. that. He has quite a few scenes where it is just him, or just him and one other person.

In the first few minutes of the movie, he loses his job, gets caught vandalizing, has his wife leave him, and is locked out of his house with all his things. So he lives on his lawn, drinking his beers, being poor, and mad at the world. In it you can tell he is a depressed human being, and they obviously note quiet clearly his alcoholic tendencies. (I mean. By saying he is an alcoholic. No subtlety there). I’d say watch this with The Beaver if you want to see two new movies in a row that are sad and depressing. Or just watch it by itself if you hate “The Gibs”.

But who could hate a face like that?

4 out of 4.