Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

"60% of the time, it works every time."

plot: In the 1970s, San Diego anchorman Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) rules the roost, until an ambitious female reporter Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) is hired as his co-anchor. Hilarity ensues.

Okay, that sounded like I hated this movie. But I didn't. In fact, I was an early adopter who saw this in the theatres.

When Will Ferrell was on Saturday Night Live, I was not a fan. At all. He seemed to corner the market on incredibly annoying characters that served to satisfy the crazy demands and desires of his co-stars. "Cheri Oteri wants to be a cheerleader? Sure. We'll do that sketch once an episode for three entire years." "Oh, Ana Gasteyer is a frustrated singer? Will, go up there and play a funny singing guy with her." Only occasionally was he allowed to break free and do something odd, like random impressions of Robert Goulet and Harry Carey, or that prospector skit that never even made it on air. One thing I did notice, though, was towards the end of his run he started doing these weird little movies with Adam McKay. I remember one involved a pawn shop for food, and another had a stroller and a bag of chips.

When it was announced that their first big collaboration would be a period comedy entitled Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, I was excited. First of all, the mock pomposity of the title was funny, and reminded me of my friend's short The Story of Sam Jameson featuring the Legend of George the Clown. Plus, it just sounded like a good idea. The 1970s were an interesting time, the local news industry is an interesting subject ripe for parody, I just had a feeling that this would be worth seeing in the theaters.

Little was I to know just how big this movie would blow up. Because of this movie, Steve Carrell and Judd Apatow got the green light to go ahead and do The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which helped introduce Seth Rogen who starred in Knocked Up and wrote Superbad. Paul Rudd became a more viable name and went on to star in I Love You, Man. The success of this, coming off the heels of Old School helped solidify the comedy empire built on the "Frat Pack": Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Jack Black, Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell. All but Owen at least cameo in this.

Interestingly, the humor in this is a bit more "silly" and absurd than the other Frat Pack films. The events found in movies like Role Models and Forgetting Sarah Marshall are unlikely, but plausible. The stuff found here frequently goes into Zucker mode where surreality creeps into the picture.

The movie is almost review-proof, because of how large it looms now. This might go down, however unlikely it might have been thought at the time, as one of the defining comedies of the '00s. Everyone from your parents to the frat house to the hipsters that disdain said house loves this movie unironically. It really has captured something in the psyche, and when the careers of Judd Apatow and Will Ferrell and Steve Carrell fade, as is inevitable, Anchorman will still be clutched to the bosom of the classy Planet Earth.

Stay classy, cast of Anchorman. Stay classy.

Amores Perros (2000)

"If you want to make God laugh... tell Him your plans."

plot: Three separate stories are connected through a car crash. In one, Octavio (Gael Garcia Bernal) uses dogfighting to raise money to run away with his brother's wife. Next, a supermodel, Valeria (Goya Toledo), deals with loss after the accident. Finally, vagrant hitman El Chivo (Emilio Echevarria) struggles to connect with his estranged daughter.

Wow, this movie is ten years old! Ten! This DVD is old, too. It's so old even that I bought this bad boy on sale at Media Play. Media Play! They don't even have those anymore! I'm just glad it didn't turn to dust in my MacBook. It just goes to show how relatively old this movie is in that all the reviews compared it to Pulp Fiction, when the "everything's connected" device has since been used in Magnolia, Crash, Traffic, etc. And yes, two of those movies came out in 1999, one year before the American release but I think they were new enough that critics wanted to avoid using them as examples.

This was another... long... movie. Over two-and-a-half hours. And another... dark... depressing... drama. Thank God Anchorman is next. I can save the intentional overdose for another day.

Amores Perros is something of an important modern movie. Released in the first year of the new millennium, it introduced America to the actor Gael Garcia Bernal and the director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, as well as helping to usher in the Mexican Wave of filmmakers like Guillermo Del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron.

This was a tough movie to watch, and not because it was bad, but because it was heavy on the animal cruelty. Dogfights, dogs getting shot, trapped, killed, set on fire post-killing. This ain't Marmaduke.

I thought this movie was very good. I think it was entertaining, but not as portentous or emotionally devastating as probably intended. True to a foreign and/or indie movie, a lot of what happens is tragic, and it continues to be tragic, and in the end none of the characters seem to have gotten what they wanted. Literally none of them.

The acting is very good, as is the directing. I think it's through sheer charisma and style that this movie is so acclaimed and esteemed while another, similar film might be jeered as pretentious twaffle. Overall I recommend a viewing at least once, but make sure you have a strong stomach, because although there's a disclaimer in the beginning promising that no animals were harmed... some of those dog bodies looked very, very real to me.

This asshole wasn't exactly helping matters either.

American Gangster (2007)

"I got Harlem. I took care of Harlem, Harlem's gonna take care of me."

plot: In the 1970s, Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) became one of the biggest distributors of narcotics in America thanks to a system where he smuggles in heroin through the coffins of dead U.S. soldiers. Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is one of the only honest cops in Newark and is assigned to bring down the drug trade.

I actually finally watches this movie, too, late last year or early this year. I don't mind watching it again, as I enjoyed it. However, it was sort of lacking a certain "oomph" in my opinion, in order to make it really great in my eyes.

This movie has been in development for a while, and was originally going to be directed by the helmer of Training Day Antoine Fuqua under the name "Blue Magic." Blue Magic is the street name for the cheap and potent heroin Lucas peddles. I may be a sucker for weird, artsy names, but I think I would have preferred that name over American Gangster, which kind of sounds generic to me.

First of all... man this movie was long. I try to make a habit of always watching the extended, director's cuts because that's what I assume is the closest to the artistic "true" vision, which meant I spent almost three hours on this bad boy. Three hours! It wasn't that long ago that I was scoffing at different people's opinions on long movies. They seemed to cringe at excessive running times, and would imply that if you can't get in and out in under two hours, then something was the matter. I don't know what it is, but lately I'm inclined to agree with them. I obviously had to split this up across multiple days, as there's about a week's difference between my last post and this one.

Now don't get me wrong. I enjoyed this movie. There are surprisingly good performances all around. Obviously you have dependable stalwarts like Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, Kevin Corrigan, Ted Levine... but you also had unrecognizable turns by the RZA and TI. RZA is quickly becoming one of the coolest dudes in the galaxy by scoring Kill Bill and apparently The Mindscape of Alan Moore (!!!) and acting in Funny People and Coffee & Cigarettes. Plus, he was in Wu. TI is a mainstream rapper. I mean, I enjoy him, I own his album Paper Trail, but you don't really expect rappers to blend in to their characters and change themselves as drastically as he does. TI goes from a young braggadocio to an awkward, gawky kid mixed up and in over his head. It's quite remarkable. He could be the best rapper/actor since Mos Def.

There's a sort of weird disconnect with this movie, because while epic in scope, it seems to be really character-based. Frank Lucas is a guy that ships heroin directly from Southeastern Asia, in the coffins of U.S. soldiers, and distributes it all over at least the northeastern United States, but you only briefly see glimpses of his impact, such as the powerful Thanksgiving scene intercutting his warm family celebration with Roberts' lonely bachelor one and the even lonelier demises of several junkies.

Frank is an interesting character himself. Washington kind of plays him as a joyless man, someone who doesn't take any enjoyment out of the vast money and opportunities given. The phrase "The Great Stone Face" (Buster Keaton's nickname) kept popping into my head. Lucas just seems to have a permanent dour expression, as if somewhere in the back of his mind he knows where this is going to end up, and he's powerless to stop it. It reminded me of the title character in Peter Milligan's Skreemer. Most gangster movies work as a sort of wish fulfillment for the frustrated underclass. Society's downtrodden is invited to live vicariously through Tony Montana and his ilk as they stick it to Big Business and The Man as they shed their former shabby origins and embrace the high-living, quick-fingered sharp-dressed life of being a rock star, until The Man and Big Business reminds the antihero and the viewer that it's really best to stick where you came from lest you get riddled with bullets or sent away for the rest of your natural life. However, even as he's schmoozing with old boxers and meeting beautiful Puerto Ricans, Frank Lucas is ever aware of the constant threats to his life and livelihood, and as such realizes that he can never be free no matter where he is.

This is an interesting movie about subjects I'm fascinated by (drugs and organized crime), if just a little grim and long for my current mood, at least. Speaking of grim, this is the actual husband of the former Miss Puerto Rico in the film:

Thirty-one year age difference, she's younger than her step-children. Hope for all kinds, I guess.

300 (2007)

"This...is... SPARTA!"

plot: Three hundred Spartan soldiers, led by King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) defend their homeland against the seemingly infinite armies of Persians led by the bizarrely effeminate Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) in a stylized retelling of the legendary Battle of Thermopylae.

And thus, the official movie of Maxim magazine was born.

I kid 300. This was another movie I missed in the theaters, something that I will stop noting as that would be most movies, if not almost all. I really should have seen this one in the theater, however, as the visuals are the most impressive part. Plus, I would have been able to enjoy it without any weird icky feeling before the movie was adopted by the frat guys and bros the country over. This is a movie tailor-made for fans of other films like Gladiator and Braveheart. Perhaps even more so because the good guys are white dudes and the bad guys are Persians, which can be easily reinterpreted as Christian America versus Islamic Arabs. (Although I really don't think that was Zack Snyder's intent. As for the intent of the 20-year-old in a polo shirt and weather-beaten baseball cap... no comment.) Even without the political subtext, the movie is all about honor and glory and battle and bravery, which are bigtime dude subjects.

Unlike the last movie, I actually watched this before. Like the last movie, it took me over a year to do so. Once again, no real reason. I'm glad I got to see it at least on a big television before my most recent move forced me to subsist on a Macbook 13-inch screen.

Basically, this is a kick-ass movie. The characters are kick-ass. The dialogue is kick-ass. The action is kick-ass. You really only want to watch this if you're in a kick-ass mood, but don't particularly feel up to the physical task of kicking actual ass. This movie isn't going to change the way you look at life, it's not going to cause anyone to join the military, or at least I hope not. Speaking of the military, this would be a good movie to watch in some last stand situation, wherein a battalion is surrounded by a bunch of bloodthirsty, angry Arabs (you know, like all of them. Kidding!) and need to watch something to pump them up. A screening of 300, a blasting of "Welcome To The Jungle," and boom! you're ready to be a martyr.

As far as the actual movie goes, I liked it. It's hyper-stylized, and absolutely nothing like what I saw from Snyder during Dawn Of The Dead, but obviously his influence from this movie carried over to Watchmen. I think this is a fun action movie. That's all it was intended to be, and it succeeded. It's actually a bit better than most action movies. The character designs are visually interesting, with the bizarre Persian armies featuring ninjas with silver demon masks

and firecracker throwing mystics wearing beaded curtains a highlight. I would easily recommend this film to any heterosexual man who is not from the Middle East. Everyone else, proceed with caution.

Hey Leonidas, want to catch a marathon of Sex & The City?

Okay, never mind then.

28 Days Later (2002)

"Plans are pointless. Staying alive's as good as it gets."

plot: Upon waking from a month-long hospital stay, Jim (Cilian Murphy) finds an abandoned England and precious little answers, until he runs into survivors, soldiers, and infected humans who want to kill everything still alive.

I bought 28 Days Later a two or three years ago during a holiday sale at a BYE at the mall. It was reasonably priced, I had heard good things, so I picked it up and said "why not?" The DVD then proceeded to exist, unwatched, until yesterday and today.

I can't really explain why I never watched it before. I know I missed the zeitgeist when it came out eight years ago. I think 28 Days Later is what helped propel the new zombie meme that's absolutely everywhere nowadays. What was once the domain of a few nerdy horror fans is thrust firmly into the hipster mainstream. You can now play zombie games on your iPhone while reading zombie comic books and standing in line for zombie comedies and checking out zombie survival guides at the library. Zombies have never been hotter. 28 Days Later opened the door for Dawn Of The Dead, Resident Evil, Zombieland, etc. It also introduced the concept of fast zombies, which despite what those previously mentioned nerdy horror purists might say, do indeed make the creatures scarier. I mean, really. Zombies are like mummies... you just outrun them!

But what did I think of the film? It was okay, I guess. I think I definitely missed out by watching it after Dawn Of The Dead, etc. A lot of the novelty had worn off and a lot of the plot twists had been intercepted by my ears. I knew that the soldiers that rescued them only did so for the value of the women, I knew Frank would get infected blood in his eye, I knew the real ending had Jim dying in a hospital bed, so with the plot largely known to me I just had to concentrate on the technique.

I am a fan of Danny Boyle. I think he's kind of like an English Richard Linklater in that he moves effortlessly from genre to genre and seems to excel at all of them. I think Boyle's probably a better director as well. I like that he used digital video in this, and bear in mind this is digital video from 2002 so the technology isn't even up-to-date by today's standards. The scenes of Jim's attack on the military camp have this weird effect of looking like a big-budget student/home movie where no expense was spared, but for the camera and film. That's not coming across as positive, but it is really unique. It's meant to be positive, I swear.

The film also differs from the majority of zombie movies in that it doesn't really dwell on the end-of-the-world or apocalypse. It's treated as something isolated that only happens in one country, or this could just be my bias in a) knowing that from the sequel and the scene where Jim spots a plane and b) not being native to England so it was easy to disassociate myself. A lot of zombie movies (coughGeorgeRomerocough) focus on the "we have met the enemy and he is us" spin, the irony of humanity being humanity's worst enemy in a world with flesh-eating monsters, etc. So it was interesting to see a more intimate, character-based drama, really. I read on Wikipedia (where everyone should do their research, natch) that Boyle saw this not as a science-fiction/horror movie but a drama set in that world, and I totally see that. I do sort of miss the epic sweep of the typical zombie movie, as I think what largely makes them effective is the poignancy of seeing recognizable areas deserted or overrun with dead and creatures, and you don't get all that much here, despite the scenes with Jim walking around an empty London. Zombies have somehow become the "realistic" doomsday scenario, or monster. One of the most chilling scenes comes from the news footage from the opening of Dawn Of The Dead against Johnny Cash's "When The Man Comes Around." It felt real.

And look, I know everyone might say that this isn't a zombie movie, and that the filmmakers distanced themselves from calling it that... but it is. Of course it is. A group of mindless humans bent solely on spreading their disease and killing? That's a zombie.

Overall, I enjoyed it, although I admittedly had to split it between two viewings. I am a fan of Boyle and Murphy, and I was not disappointed. Was it my favorite doomsday or zombie movie? No, but it was entertaining and well worth whatever I ended up paying for it.

Plus, now when someone asks if I've seen what the Scarecrow's weenie looks like, I don't have to lie!

"And Here... We... Go"

Hello. My name is Adam. I own a lot of DVDs. I've seen maybe a third of them. Why? I don't know. Perhaps I am afraid of being seriously injured and running out of things to watch. Well, no longer. I am starting this blog to force myself to watch all of the DVDs I own, attempting to do one a day, or at least relatively quickly, and in somewhat of an alphabetical order. This is why, in spite of just finishing up Fight Club, I will not be writing about it yet. No, instead the first entry I will be making will more than likely be on 28 Days Later so... look forward to that.