Blu-ray Review - Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)

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From announcing the follow-up film as Ron Burgundy on Conan to co-anchoring the news in North Dakota in character, Will Ferrell and company led a tireless advertising campaign to remind the legions of viewers that had been clamoring for a sequel to the cult favorite for years that they were back.

Undeniably creative yet at times just plain obnoxious, as it turned out the aggressive ad campaign was a sneak preview of the very film they were plugging as Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues proved it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

For despite the infinitely clever idea to make a tongue-in-cheek revisionist satire of the decline in journalism in the era of the 24 hour news cycle, Ferrell and the gang should have stopped after the first Ron.

Thankfully the Blu-ray release of director Adam McKay’s unfocused, bloated misfire boasts a “super-sized R-rated version with 763 new jokes,” (including several that actually work better than the final cut that was distributed to theaters in time for the film’s Christmas release) so at least super fans can pick and choose which version and scenes they want to watch.

Yet that’s an awful lot of work to expect from an average viewer who is most likely to be disappointed by the theatrical presentation.

Ultimately Anchorman 2 amounts to a comedic car wreck that rather ironically (or fittingly, depending on your point-of-view) truly begins to go off the rails during an onscreen car crash that occurs as the result of a gag you see coming a mile away when the recently reunited news team of ego-driven airheads realizes that nobody is driving their RV.

An all-out disappointment that’s a missed opportunity of epic proportions, Anchorman 2 tests your patience right from the start after relegating series MVP Christina Applegate to what amounts to a near walk-on role, McKay proves equally inept at handling new female cast members.

Whether it’s in the tonally awkward performance of Meagan Good as Ron’s new African-American boss and love interest at the CNN-like Global News Network we find them working at in the 1980s to wasting Kristen Wiig as a female version of Steve Carell’s intellectually challenged, nonsense spouting Brick via a series of increasingly unfunny encounters, we wind up just feeling embarrassed Anchorman’s newest additions.

Likewise, despite a potential comedic goldmine given the new environment, screenwriters McKay and Ferrell wind up falling back on their old tried and true formulas we’ve seen throughout their oeuvre – borrowing plot points that worked better in previous pictures such as the character-building turning point that came from a medical trauma in Talladega Nights.

Mixing the old with new takes on favorite moments from the first film like a supernatural tinged news network rumble in New York that runs out of gas by the time it’s done introducing all of its celebrity cameo players, everything in 2 is bigger except for the laughs. Likewise, it has that unmistakable Ocean's 12 and 13 like air about it that makes you think that it was infinitely more fun to make than it was to watch.

By filling it with too many on the nose extreme references and crass jokes, the filmmakers have misgauged precisely what was funny about the first film. And while it’s possible that at least 25 minutes could’ve been trimmed from the movie to help match the pace established by the original, all in all it’s hard to guess how much of the work would actually be salvageable since there’s not enough good material upon which to build.

As such, this multi-disc set might just inspire fans to remix their own cut and given the vastly improved first act on display in the R-rated edition vs. the original, there might be a passable Anchorman sequel buried in there beneath all of the bulk. Unfortunately and despite all of the incredible talent involved (that may have spent too much time improvising than refining an already solid script), the one currently calling itself Anchorman 2 isn’t it.

It’s too bad too given the satirical potential of our infotainment-based media and the messages contained in the film that roast the practices of various 24 hour news stations from Fox’s jingoism and speculative reporting to the rise of sensationalism of celebrity fueled stories and car chases in the fight for ratings.

While the intriguing call-backs of age-old scandals from O.J. to Lorena Bobbitt earn chuckles, in an era where The Daily Show and Colbert Report cover the very same terrain with much more sophistication on a nightly basis, the lack of a sharper edge to the writing makes Ferrell and McKay’s gags seem halfhearted and dated at best.

A true letdown that may have earned audience (and critical) goodwill due to how much we love those involved as well as the original film, while at least this multi-version Blu-ray, DVD and Ultraviolet combo pack offers up a more thorough presentation of what went wrong and what went right, I only wish that Anchorman 2 would’ve been filled with as much ingenuity as some of the stunts pulled to raise awareness of its theatrical release.

In comedy, they say you should always leave your audience wanting more and because Anchorman 2 made me want less, in the end it proves that less is more – from the beautiful simplicity of the original to a shorter running time to the thought that regardless of demand, not every hit movie needs a sequel.

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New on DVD for the Week of 9/21

The Foot Fist Way

Samantha Who? Season 1

Sex and the City: The Movie


Amazon Links and More DVD Releases
(Stay Tuned for Additional Reviews)

TV on DVD: Samantha Who?-- The Complete First Season

Warning: Do not operate heavy machinery
(other than your DVD player)
as memory loss and incessant laughter will occur.

Although Samantha Newly (Christina Applegate) laments that “old me really screwed new me over,” in ABC’s hit sitcom, Samantha Who?, when it came to the reception her show received, the former Married With Children star couldn’t have been more wrong.

For nearly half of Who’s fifteen-episode initial season, Applegate’s sunny comedy (which she also produces) became the “highest-rated freshman sitcom of the 2007-2008 TV season” additionally dethroning Charlie Sheen’s two-year title holding CBS comedy Two and a Half Men as the highest rated sitcom for that exact same period.

Not too shabby for a series that took the daring and usually melodramatic topic of retrograde amnesia as the platform for their Pygmalion-like comedy. In the pilot episode of Samantha Who?, we find the formerly “Bad Samantha” awakening after an eight-day coma from being hit by a car. However, after the balloons and flowers have lost their charm, she becomes acquainted with her villainous old life. And upon realizing that it’s time to change her ways and become “New Samantha," suddenly her character’s name Samantha Newly becomes all the more apt as Applegate’s heroine decides to turn over a new leaf and rectify past mistakes.

Samantha Who? Promo

Although she’s primarily both her own Eliza Doolittle and Professor Higgins, Samantha has a great support system all too eager to help steer her in, if not the right direction, then down whichever direction they decide to pursue. After her mother makes peace with the fact that she won’t be able to win an Extreme Home Makeover upon Samantha’s awakening and her dad gives her his business card as a means of introducing himself, Samantha tries to mend fences with the parents she hadn’t spoken with in two years, Regina and Howard Newly (played by a hilarious Jean Smart and Kevin Dunn). And while it’s Smart who steals every scene she’s in, in one particularly humorous episode and the desire to bond with her outdoorsman father, Samantha decides to view the misnamed film The Deer Hunter, later prompting Samantha to ask, “Have you heard of Vietnam? I mean, do people know about that?”

Additionally, she also shares a close paternal/mentor relationship with her aspiring screenwriter doorman Frank (Tim Russ) who always offers her the perfect piece of advice or quote, despite his wish to stay out of her life. However Sam has the most trouble dealing with the unexpected sparks that fly as she strives to establish new boundaries with her former photographer boyfriend Todd (Barry Watson) that get much more difficult when he not only reciprocates her feelings but has begun seeing an unstable, clingy woman named Chloe (Kiele Sanchez).

And over the course of the season, Samantha moves in and out of her family home and old apartment as she comes to term with living life as a virtual newborn. Luckily, like a figurative good angel on one shoulder and a bad one on the other, Samantha has two friends pulling her in opposite directions. While Bad Samantha’s best friend, the champagne guzzling Andrea (Jennifer Esposito), misses Sam’s old partying, bed-hopping, and manipulative ways, young Samantha’s childhood best friend Dena (Melissa McCarthy) relishes the opportunity to start fresh with Samantha so much that she initially lies about their relationship as you can see in the clip below.

Samantha’s Friends

And while sometimes Samantha finds this so overwhelming that she engages in mini-freak outs that get her kicked out of AA or send people running in the opposite direction, she uses her misfortune to her benefit, deciding — like the thematically similar Jennifer Garner comedy 13 Going On 30 -- that she’ll change her ways to become the woman she’s always wanted instead of trying to catch up on three decades of her life.

Although first she must realize just how “bad” Bad Samantha was which serves as a running gag of the first season. Containing numerous confrontations with those whose lives she’d destroyed from violating a restraining order on an old boyfriend who’s dog she’d kidnapped to the married men she pursued, as well as the banning of office birthday parties so that she could horde the cake in her own freezer and save company money — soon it becomes so much that she changes her outgoing answering machine to two screamed words, namely, “I’m sorry!”

And whether she’s learning far too late of her tremendous fear of elevators, discovering that she’d booked herself an appointment to get a boob job, is massively in debt thanks to the shoes and accessories department of her favorite stores, why The Go-Go’s makes her cry, or just trying to remember what liquid soap, REO Speedwagon, and frozen yogurt is, Applegate makes us laugh regardless. This is especially apparent in this scene as she consults Todd while trying to figure out just what it is she does for a living.

“What do I do?”

And although sometimes oral and visual cues prompt her into brief remembrances of the past, Samantha who is afraid to date for fear that she’ll have little to offer in the way of her side of the conversation, goes to drastic measures, such as hypnotherapy, to try and restore her old memory. However, while it does help in her ability to ride in an elevator without screaming which does a world of good in preventing her from running up twenty flights of stairs to her office in a real estate firm where she’s the vice president, her childhood is still a bit fuzzy.

“Annie.”

Featuring a fun and brightly colored booklet entitled “The Good and Bad of Love, Life and Career” written by Samantha, Andrea, and Dena (The Women of Samantha Who?), the first season of creators Donald Todd and Cecilia Ahren’s show hits DVD shelves on September 23. Roughly 322 minutes, the two-disc set is loaded with commentaries and contains bloopers and deleted scenes as well as sneak peeks from other ABC programs. Transferred to its stunning widescreen display that’s enhanced for 16x9 televisions and featuring Dolby Digitial 5.1 Surround Sound, Samantha Who? which is rated TV-PG is also available with a French language and subtitle track as well as Spanish and English subtitles.

Smartly written, upbeat and ridiculously fast paced enough that it could be likened to a thirty minute version of co-star Melissa McCarthy’s work on the screwball inspired rapid-fire dialogue heavy Gilmore Girls, it consistently amazed me how much substantial plot was crammed into each and every episode without one seeming as though it was there as a “filler.” While it’ll be fascinating to see if it can keep up the same momentum as the one-joke amnesia premise may not be able to sustain for more than a few years and keep up the quality for a full year of episodes (as opposed to the shorter run of fifteen you’ll find on the DVDs), Applegate is tremendously charming.

Moreover, she remains in the company of the chosen few female comedians like Lucille Ball, Mary Tyler Moore, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Debra Messing, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lauren Graham, and Tina Fey who play against their glamorous beauty, instead bending over backwards to make us laugh, and reminds us once again just how talented she can be (for further proof she can crack you up even more than some of the guys check out her work in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy).

Additionally, it’s a feel-great and life-affirming sitcom that’s so refreshing to viewers who — like myself — were growing far too weary of argumentative sitcoms like Everybody Loves Raymond that don’t celebrate people but rather present a mean-spirited form of humor wherein you wish everyone involved would divorce or go their separate ways. When it comes to Samantha Who?, you quickly realize you just want this zany gang to stay together, even if its lead character may have trouble remembering just who they all are.

The Rocker (2008)

As he says in The Rocker,
"too loud," is not in Rainn Wilson's vocabulary.

What can I say about Rainn Wilson?

Aside from believing he’s phenomenally underrated as the sycophantic Dwight Schrute to Steve Carell’s Michael Scott on NBC’s award-winning The Office, I’ve never really found him that promising as an actor. He seems to be one of those comedians who does one thing really well and then milks it for all its worth… and then some.

After bombing in his hosting duty at this year’s Independent Spirit Awards when no less than Dustin Hoffman ad-libbed the ceremony’s funniest line (which I won’t even begin to repeat here but involved making love to Javier Bardem), Wilson seemed to have suffered the fate of a majority of TV stars in being more or less pigeonholed to his alter ego Dwight Schrute. And this was all the more evident during his squirm-inducing, awfully delivered “Fertile Myrtle,” “That ain’t no etch-a-sketch” brief cameo opposite the Oscar nominated Ellen Page in last year’s critical darling, Juno. For proof replay his performance in a scene that — despite my adoration for the film and Diablo Cody’s writing — I still feel would’ve been best left on the cutting room floor.

So needless to say, when I first saw the trailer for The Rocker, I braced myself for the worst in what looked like would ultimately be a School of Rock rehash, minus Jack Black. But having been a fan of two of British director Peter Cattaneo’s previous films — The Full Monty and Lucky Break -- I wanted to give the movie the benefit of the doubt.

Of course, I was nearly forced into merriment at a screening complete with The Rocker groupies who were coming back for their fifth, sixth, and even seventh screening of the film. If movie characters lived in an alternate universe, no doubt Kate Hudson’s Almost Famous self-described “Band-Aid,” Penny Lane would be proud. In fact, it’s ironic that it called to mind the aforementioned films since as a word-of-mouth campaign I hadn’t seen one this effective since the likes of Juno or School of Rock. And while I don’t think I’ll be coming back tri-weekly and will be able to hold off until DVD for another viewing, sure enough, when the film started, I quickly found myself in hysterics. Additionally, I realized that, while indeed most will compare the film to School of Rock and Wilson to Black, it’s been quite awhile since Jack Black genuinely made me laugh. In fact, the last time could very well have been in School of Rock.

Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised to forgo the advice of “accept no substitutes,” and let Wilson and not Black rock the audience for 102 minutes. Obviously, it helps if one is old enough to remember the '80s as we open via a pitch-perfect flashback in Cleveland, 1986 as Wilson’s overly enthusiastic and extremely sweaty drummer Robert “Fish” Fishman and his hair metal band Vesuvius (led by no less than Arrested Development’s Will Arnett as the front-man) rock their own on-screen audience. On the cusp of a record deal with a major label, Vesuvius discovers that fame comes with a price — namely nepotism — when the one thing standing in their path is Fish, as he’s ousted by disloyal band-mates and an industry man’s nephew is lined up to step in as their new drummer.

In one of several overly-broad sequences that begin with refreshingly wild comedic abandon until becoming the cinematic equivalent of a run-on sentence (as it crosses the line into the just plain chaotic and overly ridiculous), pratfall prone Fish chases down his band’s van. Running with the speed of Robert Patrick in Terminator 2 and attacking the vehicle with his drumsticks, Wilson's Fish constantly battles like a zombie that refuses to stay dead in a horror movie. Similar to Fish’s admission that “too loud is not in my vocabulary,” Wilson never lets a moment go by without chewing every piece of scenery in sight a la Jack Black and Will Ferrell. And while he does indeed garner some laughs, as it continues — quite similar to the way it plays out on The Office — it’s The Rocker’s minor Dwight Schrute-like characters who manage to earn the longest laughs with ironically the shortest amounts of screen time.

The film catches up with Fish twenty years later, in an all too identifiable dead-end-job as a phone-based customer service representative. But after a coworker forces him to listen to the latest smash success album by Vesuvius, Fish snaps, a fight ensues, and a few scenes later he’s out both a job and a relationship when his long-suffering girlfriend Jane Krakowski evicts him from her apartment.

Now stuck sleeping on an inflatable air mattress bed in the attic of his sister Lisa (Jane Lynch) and her husband Stan (Jeff Garlin), Fish gets an unlikely second chance at rock success when his nerdy, awkward M.I.T.-bound nephew Matt (Josh Gad) recruits his reluctant uncle to play in his band, A.D.D.

Hoping to stand for Attention Deficit Disorder instead of “add,” Fish soon fills out the small ensemble consisting of keyboardist Matt along with his post-modern, unsmiling, no-nonsense bassist Amelia (Emma Stone) and the gorgeous but melancholic lead singer Curtis (musician Teddy Geiger). Although Curtis’ perpetual abandonment issues over his deadbeat father comprise most of the depressing lyrics, Fish begins to rock their songs metal-style. The change is made first to their horror but then after they’re boosted to fame via an unflattering “naked drummer” YouTube video starring Fish, soon A.D.D. becomes an overnight sensation.

While the film makes Fish’s buffoon-like behavior the impetus for their success, there’s no denying the undeniable talent of real-life musician Geiger, whose music in the film is so impressive, it’ll immediately send you chasing down the soundtrack.

And while the music does indeed get your toes tapping and there is a similar “car test” scene to hear a demo while you drive, the film never mistakes itself for last year’s amazing art house ode to musical love, Once, always remembering its initial goal is to first and foremost make audiences laugh.

And like the ensemble quality of The Office, The Rocker’s ensemble makes the film a success with great, subtle, flirtatious support by Christina Applegate as Curtis’s hot mom (in a role that reminded me of her excellent turn opposite Ferrell in Anchorman), the under-utilized Will Arnett, Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Jeff Garlin, and Christopher Guest frequent cast member Jane Lynch, all of whom are a joy to comedy fans.

Yet, I was completely bowled over by the hilariously hyper and obnoxious turn by Jason Sudeikis playing the ultimate hype-monger in the form of the endlessly quotable, politically incorrect, and sleazy, two-faced sycophantic industry man, David Marshall. After just a few ridiculously off-the-wall lines penned by husband and wife screenwriting team Maya Forbes (The Larry Sanders Show) and Wallace Wolodarsky (The Simpsons), I found myself looking forward to the next appallingly hilarious thing he would say and as engrossed by his brief screen time just as much as I was during last week’s Tropic Thunder where Tom Cruise played a similarly hammy exec as well.

Hmm… something tells me we’ll be getting a new Will Ferrell styled Frat Pack buddy comedy about industry executives in the near future. And if Ferrell’s busy, possibly they could employ Rainn Wilson and Jack Black. Since, goodness knows that while they definitely are capable of making us laugh, both could use the benefit of superior writing to make them the genuine stars of their own films. However, until then, there are plenty of backstage antics in this film to keep you entertained. So ultimately, to misquote AC/DC, to “those about to rock” I “salute you.”

View from the Top

Director: Bruno Barrreto

Had it been made in the 1960’s, Brazilian director Bruno Barreto’s View from the Top would have made the perfect vehicle for either Doris Day or Sandra Dee. This mindlessly frothy bit of fluff centers on Academy Award winner Gwyneth Paltrow as Donna Jensen, a young woman from the southwest who, after getting dumped in a birthday card from boyfriend Marc Blucas decides she needs to make a drastic change in her life. Inspired by a book written by Sally Weston (Candice Bergen) that urges women to fulfill their dreams, Donna, who has never traveled in her life let alone set foot on an airplane applies for a position as a flight attendant on a thankless, seedy commuter flight with vinyl, suggestive uniforms that could double as stripper apparel. Content to start somewhere, she learns the ropes quickly and soon, along with her friends Sherry (a hilarious Kelly Preston) and Christine (Christina Applegate) applies for work at Sally Weston’s employer Royalty Airways.

Surviving off-the-wall training from Mike Myers who, as Leonard Maltin noted seemed as though he was playing a character from an entirely different film, the bright, optimistic Donna is disappointed to learn that instead of receiving an assignment on an international flight, she’s been stationed at their commuter hub in Cleveland. Although, as we learned from Tina Fey’s 30 Rock, the “Cleve” has some high points and in View they come in the form of adorable Mark Ruffalo, a law student who Donna inspires while dating. Eric Wald who completed View from the Top in his UCLA MFA screenwriting program owes much to the escapist works of Day and Dee from the past. However, instead of putting an edgy or satirical spin on the genre such as was done in Down With Love, Wald sets his film in modern times and although it’s refreshing to see such a hopeful and innocent work, View from the Top suffered the after-effects of 9/11 when Miramax, concerned that audiences wouldn’t want a carefree airline comedy pushed the release from its intended ’01 although back to ’03 when the re-cut version debuted to horrendous reviews. While the film would no doubt have benefited from a hipper style of humor such as found in the similar Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion and you’re sure to forget it by the time you hit eject, View from the Top is harmless, feel-good fun.