Yes, I know it’s been a long, long time coming… trying to balance two jobs with seeing movies, friends, family, writing reviews and SLEEPING becomes difficult. I’ll try not to suck so much anymore.

Review: Anchorman
July 14, 2004; Regal Falmouth #1
* * (out of 4)

It is a bad sign when one member of a film’s supporting cast repeatedly outshines the lead actor. It makes me wonder if casting agents in Hollywood are looking in the wrong places for their moneymakers. That is the case with Anchorman. Will Ferrell is very good at playing one character, and it molds to Ron Burgundy well; however, Steve Carrell gets more laughs on each line than Ferrell gets through the entire movie. When the obvious intent of the film is to focus on Burgundy, that gets distracting.

Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) is the anchorman for a local news affiliate in San Diego in the 1970s. Beloved all over the city as ratings champ, he and the rest of his news team (Steve Carrell, Paul Rudd, and David Koechner) are treated as royalty; it’s a good life. All this is thrown into jeopardy when the network appoints a woman (Christina Applegate) to the news team in order to encourage diversity. Burgundy must adjust his anti-feminist mindset and fight against the ambitious newcomer to keep his job, all the while trying to bed her at the same time.

There’s a point when a character speaking almost entirely in non-sequiturs gets aggravating, but Steve Carell doesn’t hit it here. Time and time again, his silliness is manifested as a one-liner, and his character his aware enough of his surroundings to make some of it fit, but it’s still crazy enough to be all sorts of fun throughout the movie.

What this does is take away from the actual plot of the movie – not that this is a huge issue… there’s not a lot of plot to be had. Will Ferrell is pretty much playing his usual immature moron, and he fits in well in this situation. I just think it might be time for Will to try something else. Beyond him, Applegate just looks lost, and the other two members of the news team spend most of the movie mugging, which is fun for awhile, but then the same jokes get a little old.

The most fun here are the cameos. It seems like Ferrell just invited all his friends down to the set one day; they had some beers, then used some film. Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Tim Robbins, Jack Black… it’s a long list, and the scene with all of them put together is all kinds of fun.

There’s just not much spacer in between the funny stuff from the rest of the cast. Ferrell doesn’t interest me, nor does the romance between him and Applegate. It’s unfortunate when the primary plot serves as filler, but that’s what it is here. Rent this to see some very funny people being very silly, but don’t expect it to hold your attention. It’s typical lowbrow comedy for the most part, and it’s time for Ferrell to challenge himself a bit more. Anchorman is nothing special or new.

Review: King Arthur
July 8, 2004; Regal Falmouth #1
* 1/4 (out of 4)

Depressing. Just depressing. There are some things in this world that just shouldn’t be screwed with. If a filmmaker can come up with an original twist for a classic story, by all means, give it a go, but if in the process of “twisting” the source material will be mangled, spit on, mangled again, and tossed aside like garbage, please don’t bother. That is what King Arthur amounts to. It is an abomination, a black mark on one of the most well-known and well-loved stories in human history. To even claim to be associated with Le Morte d’Artur is shameful. Truth be told, Monty Python and the Holy Grail gives a more appreciative look at the legend than this disaster.

King Arthur claims to be a retelling of the events that gave birth to the legend of Arthur, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table. Arthur (Clive Owen), a Roman military commander, is eager to return to Rome after a grueling campaign in Britain. When asked by a bishop to complete one more mission, Arthur must inform his knights – Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd), Gawain (Joel Edgerton), Galahad (Hugh Dancy), Bors (Ray Winstone), Tristan (Mads Mikkelsen), and Dagonet (Ray Stevenson) – that they must rescue a Roman family on the outskirts of Rome’s territory when all the knights want to do is return home. Naturally, something goes wrong, and the knights find themselves knee deep in a civil war between the Saxons and local tribes. One tribe, led by Merlin (Stephen Dillane) and Guinevere (Keira Knightly), desire Arthur’s help in repelling the Saxons to free Britain from any tyrannical rule.

The problem with all this is that by eliminating the fantastical elements, this story turns into Braveheart, just not done as well. The fantasy is what makes Arthur what he is – the mystery of Merlin, the wonder of Excalibur, the comfort in believing that men like Gawain and Lancelot coveted chivalry above all else. Showing this side of the story holds the same fate as seeing a magician’s secrets; you’ll never be able to look at the trick with the same awe and amazement ever again, and that was what made it fun.

This movie isn’t fun anymore. Yes, Owen, Knightly, and Gruffudd try as hard as they can, but even of those three, only Owen comes out of the movie well. That’s not even because he is playing King Arthur; it’s because he does a good job at showing a basic moral conflict – a soldier’s duty to follow orders vs. a religious man’s duty to help his fellow man. So much is written in Owen’s eyes during every decision he makes. It’s obvious he does not want to further endanger the lives of his men, but this mission is the only way out for them. He’s a caring person, and a good leader… but that doesn’t make him Arthur, nor does a sword that they happen to call Excalibur once or twice during the course of two and a half hours.

Beyond Arthur’s basic internal struggle… I couldn’t care less for anyone involved here. The knights are supposed to be the embodiment of chivalry, and yet they are presented for the most part as normal, self-serving humans. Also, Guinevere, in legend the representation of why chivalry came to be, is presented more as Xena than anyone in need of that kind of devotion. What made these characters special was that they were so far beyond anything that could ever exist in real life. Take that away from them, and there’s nothing spectacular – or even terribly interesting – left.

Unfortunately, hidden under all this crap are good directing, some good performances, and some beautiful scenery. It’s all marred by the bastardization of something a good many people grew up loving. The filmmakers want to give a possible realistic, historical context to the legends of King Arthur, to ‘demystify’ the legend. I don’t see the need in that. What makes Arthur so special is the magical elements, the ultra-romantic love story, the exotic backgrounds of each night, the tragic hero’s fall by Lancelot. It is a story that can only be good if told correctly. This is not the correct way to do it.

Review: Spider-Man 2
June 28, 2004; Regal Falmouth #1
* * * * (out of 4)

I’m pretty sure it’s against my religion to say anything bad about this movie. What religion that is exactly, I’m not quite sure, but that’s not the point. The bottom line is this movie delivered to me on all counts, with barely a single disappointing frame. But be warned: this is the movie I was born to see.

Spider-Man 2 finds Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) two years after the first installment. Now enrolled at Columbia, Peter is spending more and more time as Spider-Man, and his normal life is suffering because of it. He is losing touch with his friends and his aunt, and his grades are suffering. Desperate to get back on track, Peter vows to end his career in crime fighting, and focus on everyday life – especially his pursuit of Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). An accident involving Peter’s idol, Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), forces Parker to don his spandex once again to save the day. Octavius, now driven mad by grief and rage, blames Spider-Man for the death of his wife and the destruction of his life’s work, and will stop at nothing to rid the world of the webslinger.

First let me say how happy I am to see Sam Raimi emerge as a credible, big-time, go-to director. You might call the first Spider-Man his big break, but as much fun as that was, it didn’t feel like he was completely comfortable making a big-name movie and using his personal style which has made him famous. He seemed to move towards more mainstream directing. This insecurity does not exist in Spider-Man 2. This movie sits comfortably in the realm of Sam Raimi movies, and is recognizable as one; from sweeping action shots to askew angles during tension to trademarks like the cameo by a chainsaw, this is a Sam Raimi movie through and through, in the veins of Army of Darkness, Darkman, or The Gift. And let’s not forget the nepotism… someday, Bruce Campbell will star in a REAL movie!

More than adding his own touches, Sam Raimi delivers a two-hour living Spider-Man comic book in all its glory. The feel of New York is perfect, the villain is menacing with good reason (a shortcoming of the first film), the romance is interesting, the dialogue is a bit overdone – there are a few sections in which Parker and Octavius go into full-on monologues, but they fit into the mold of the comic world, allowing the audience direct access to a character’s mind without the need for a thought bubble. If I didn’t know better, I would say that Brian Bendis (current writer for Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man series) somehow got hold of the script for twenty minutes and added some authenticity.

And then the performances. Maguire is fantastic and fully settled into Peter Parker’s skin, which in my mind is much harder than pulling off the webslinger. Anyone can be sarcastic and heroic; the point in Spider-man 2 is to show how fully devastating one life is on the other. Molina gets the perfect amount of screentime pre-accident to establish Otto Octavius as a real character, not just a bad guy in need of thwarting. J.K. Simmons, though his part has a bit less impact in this installment, chews scenery like a pro and steals every single scene he is in. Even Kirsten Dunst, the weakest link in the first movie, delivers where she needs to in this one. Raimi spends a bit more time fleshing out Mary Jane, making her more of a full person, and that gives Dunst more to work with. Of course, who can rule out Raimi regulars Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell? Smaller parts, but pivotal, to be sure!

There’s nothing I didn’t like here. The movie is consistently fun; everyone involved gives all they can give to make a fantastic movie. If I had buttons, this pushes every damn one of them. Best superhero movie ever? I might go that far… at least until Spider-Man 3.

Review: Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
June 28, 2004; Regal Falmouth #2
* * * ¼ (out of four)

There have only been a handful of people in the world who can really pull off slapstick comedy correctly. Jackie Chan can do it in his unique style; Charlie Chaplin was excellent in his prime; Jim Carrey’s elasticity lends to the form well; and then, of course, there are the Stooges. The key is striking a balance between the pain inflicted and the seriousness of the action. Too goofy, and it’s not at all believable; too serious, and it’s just watching someone get beat up. Dodgeball consistently hits the happy medium, which makes this super-light comedy all sorts of fun to watch.

… and there’s a pirate…

It follows Peter La Fleur (Vince Vaughn), the owner of a small gym for the common man, as he tries to raise enough money to save his establishment. The beautiful and sympathetic banker (Christine Taylor) informs him that if he can’t pay off his $50K mortgage, his gym will be bought by White Goodman (Ben Stiller), owner of mega conglomerate Globo Gym. His only alternative, it seems, is to enter into the Las Vegas dodgeball tournament, where the winning team will take home a coincidental $50,000. Leading a ragtag group of his gym’s regulars – including a man who thinks he is a pirate (Alan Tudyk) – La Fleur heads to Vegas to preserve the little man’s ability to work out.

From first glance, this movie can’t help but be fun. It’s a movie based around the premise of grown men playing dodgeball. This is just silly. But Dodgeball is able to go beyond that by plotting the film out as a decent satire of inspirational sports movies (re: Remember the Titans, Any Given Sunday, The Rookie, etc.). Suddenly playing dodgeball becomes a life-or-death situation, and while one may bite for football… no. This is downright amusing. The satire is furthered by some of the best sports-on-film in quite awhile during the dodgeball tournament scenes, commentary included. The play-by-play provided by Jason Bateman and Gary Cole is priceless because it tries to build the tension and pressure of the situation… while playing dodgeball…

Even beyond that, there are laughs to be had. Alan Tudyk’s aforementioned pirate is always fun, there’s some pretty fun stuff between Vaughn, Taylor, and Stiller, the training scenes with Rip Torn are priceless, and there are some very short, very satisfying cameos that come out of nowhere and leave you wondering if you really saw what or who you thought you did.

The negative here is Stiller. Compared to the rest of the cast, he’s just a little bit too over the top. At least everyone else exists in some semblance of the real world, albeit a dodgeball-crazed one; Stiller’s White is much more of a cartoon character than a real human, and here that serves to be a bit distracting. Even still, he provides one of the most worthwhile end credit extras to come along in a long time.

Dodgeball is just fun; silly, silly fun that was written well enough to rise above the absurdity of the topic and actually make a worthwhile movie out of a childhood game. Well done.

Review: Supersize Me
* * * 1/2 (out of 4)
June 27, 2004; Patriot Cinemas Nickelodeon #3

It was a documentary weekend, I guess. After walking out of Fahrenheit 9/11 feeling more than a little embarrassed for my country, I entered Supersize Me expecting something a little more lighthearted… which I got… kind of. True, the film festival behemoth took itself less seriously than Moore’s picture, but again I walked out with serious concerns for America’s place in the world today. Morgan Spurlock does a great job showing a problem common to many people today, but he does it without alienating or humiliating those people.

Worried because America has become the most obese nation on Earth, Morgan set a challenge for himself. He spent thirty eating nothing but McDonald’s food three times a day. He took this very seriously, establishing a set of guidelines to work from, including the rule that if anyone ever asked him to supersize his meal, he had to say yes. So off he went, getting over initial sickness after about a week, using a dream team of doctors and medical professionals to track his progress in various areas.

His results were downright shocking, but I’ll leave it to you to find out everything that happened. What’s more important is the point that he makes. Morgan followed this path for one month; there are people who eat at McDonald’s or similar fast-food joints once a day, every day. If he had these problems after a month, consider what might happen after a year, or two, or five. It’s a frightening idea, and there are people living this. More unnerving is the lack of responsibility taken by the establishment. McDonald’s was the company in question here, and despite nearly two dozen phone calls in which he left his contact information, Morgan did not once talk to an executive about what he had found. They barely acknowledged his presence.

The humor and humanity is what will get people to see this. Morgan’s situation is amusing from the start; it’s a wonder his girlfriend, a vegan chef, hung around at all during his experiment, and some of her comments are priceless. Morgan also introduces a number of people across the country for whom McDonald’s is a way of life, including one man who eats upwards of ten Big Macs a day. That the restaurant has developed a culture of its own only makes it more upsetting that they claim to have no social responsibility.

Morgan Spurlock is the reverse of Subway’s Jared, but deserves higher praise. What Subway fails to mention in most of their ads is how Jared walked 3 miles each way to get his daily sandwich; Morgan is entirely up front about everything that went into his McD’s month. Supersize Me is an excellently presented op-ed that may set off red flags with more people than we might expect. Hopefully those people will take the red flags seriously.

Review: Fahrenheit 9/11
* * * ½ (out of 4)
June 26, 2004; The Movies on Exchange Street

I don’t like Michael Moore. Every time I have seen him talk, he has come off as nothing but arrogant and self-righteous, standing on a giant soapbox. He delivers his opinions in such a way that is so entirely overwhelming, it’s hard to even acknowledge that they may be valid. Thankfully, Michael has proven much better at making films than he is at making public appearances.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is Moore’s highly controversial look at U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Consider this a warning: he is wholly unsympathetic to the administration of George W. Bush, and no staff member is spared his scorn. Moore actually starts earlier than 9/11, going back to the questionable victory in Florida and the subsequent Supreme Court decision that installed Bush in the office of the President. From there, he moves through Bush’s first three and a half years in office, detouring to outline some unflattering connections in the President’s past. At every opportune moment, Moore uses appropriate video clips and interview segments to highlight his criticism.

And he more than makes his point. Assuming all the information he gathered is accurate, it is impossible to walk away from this film without a certain amount of embarrassment for the United States of America; the face the country has presented to the world community in the wake of the 9/11 attacks has not been one that any citizen can be completely proud of. While you may not leave feeling as Moore does – that Bush, Cheney, and the entire Republican power base should be immediately removed from office – you will at least believe that the government dropped the ball concerning an appropriate response to terrorism. More than that, Moore points out that despite the inappropriate response, the only effort the government has yet put forward to right that wrong barely amounts an “oops” and an apology.

The methods with which Moore presents his case are expertly crafted and edited. Most powerful, naturally, is his depiction of September 11, 2001 in New York City. Moore leaves the screen black, using only an audio track recorded on the street during the chaos. The infamous video clips are never seen. Other sections include news clips, Congressional session videos, interviews with politicians, professors, outspoken celebrities (one of these left me fearful for the sad direction our country may be headed), and Moore’s own investigative reporting in the streets of D.C. This last method raises one of the most valid and unsettling discussions around: of the 350 members of Congress, the men and women who send America’s sons, daughters, husbands, and wives to war, only a single, solitary one of them has an enlisted child.

Many are branding Moore a heretic and a traitor for his blatant insubordination against the leader of the country, but why? Michael Moore’s films, Fahrenheit 9/11 more than the others, epitomizes first Amendment free speech. He raises questions that need to be answered before voters enter polls in November to decide the next step. Unfortunately, I fear much of Fahrenheit may be Moore preaching to the choir. There is no sympathy for conservatives here, and those who may be on the fence might consider Moore’s portrayal too heavy-handed to be accurate. It’s safe to say that this film could be a major factor in the outcome of 2004’s Presidential election, one way or the other, and if that’s the case, then this is a victory for Michael Moore.