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Posts Tagged ‘Will Ferrell’

Wedding Crashers (20 years later rematch)

Monday, July 14th, 2025

July 15, 2005

WEDDING CRASHERS is kinda like an old nemesis of mine. I reviewed it very negatively on The Ain’t It Cool News twenty years ago and though mostly people believed me there were some talkbackers who also saw it in preview screenings who got kinda mad at me. It wasn’t as controversial as my THE TRANSFORMERS pan or anything but I was applying a similar (in retrospect overblown) destructive fury to it – the headline was “Fuck WEDDING CRASHERS.” It was being hailed as a new comedy benchmark, or a return to the raunchy R-rated comedy, but I swore it would fade instantly. I made a challenge to one guy to meet back in two years and see if he still considered it a “comedic gem.” 

SUMMER 2005If we had followed through on that bet I’m sure I would’ve lost. Its popularity lasted at least five years, which I can clock by realizing in hindsight that this movie is the reason my wife’s younger cousins asked us to play “Shout” by The Isley Brothers at our wedding. But by then THE HANGOVER had come out and I think it quickly replaced WEDDING CRASHERS as the bro comedy of record (no judgment for that – I’d say it’s a funnier movie). (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Romance | 36 Comments »

Bewitched

Tuesday, June 24th, 2025

June 24, 2005

If you’re like me you knew there was a Bewitched movie, but you didn’t know it used a weird meta premise. It turns out that yes, it’s a fantastical romantic comedy starring Nicole Kidman as a pretty blonde witch trying to live among the normies without cheating too much by using her magic, and Will Ferrell as the non-witch she falls in love with. But they don’t exactly play Samantha and Darren, the characters from the sitcom that ran from 1964 to 1972 but that I did in fact watch sometimes as a kid, on Nick at Nite or something. They play the people starring as Samantha and Darren in a 2005 revival of the show.

SUMMER 2005So I started the movie thinking that director Nora Ephron (writing with her sister Delia, who also wrote THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS) just thought it would be cute to have Nicole Kidman do that nose-wiggle thing Samantha does when she casts a spell, but pretty soon I was thinking no, they just liked the logo and the theme song, and needed an excuse to keep using them throughout. They’re also able to show a bunch of clips from the original show, show a gift basket full of its merchandise, animate the expressions on an officially licensed Samantha Barbie doll, and remake the animated credit sequence with Will Ferrell’s likeness. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Romance | 7 Comments »

Barbie

Friday, August 18th, 2023

I took my time writing about BARBIE, the smash hit pop culture phenomenon from director Greta Gerwig (LADY BIRD, LITTLE WOMEN) and Mattel Films (MONSTER HIGH, TEAM HOT WHEELS, MAX STEEL), so all the takes have pretty much been taken, and I’m sure everybody who hasn’t seen it has heard by now that many people love it. I’m another one of those people. I’ll try not to go on too long about it, but I want to pay my respects, and I promise some of the aspects I’m most interested in are not what most of the other reviews focus on.

In this time of Barbiemania I don’t need to go into detail about all of the movie’s joys, but indulge me on a few of them. First of all, I’m a sucker for a movie with this extreme of a dedication to creating a stylized, artificial world. It’s comparable to movies like POPEYE, SPEED RACER or BATMAN RETURNS in that respect. And what the hell, I’ll say THE FLINTSTONES too, though I want to stress that especially in that example I’m just talking about the heightened sets, props and costumes, not equating them in overall quality. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 38 Comments »

Vern Revvs Up For TALLADEGA NIGHTS THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY !!

Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006

Merrick here…

Here’s the inimitable Vern with a look at TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY – a film I really, really enjoyed (the racing sequences were surprisingly well done, too!)

What does Vern think? Read on…

I don’t usually review these “comedy” type movies for you guys but I felt like maybe I should do this one just to show some of my talkback pals that I do know how to laugh and have a good time, etc. I think last time I reviewed a comedy for you guys it was the fucking WEDDING CRASHERS movie and I caught some hell in the talkbacks for saying that it was “something your friend’s girlfriend who you hate would claim is really good.” Of course, America is in a vulnerable state right now so she quickly fell in love with the movie and they are still happily married. So I was very wrong when I said nobody would remember it two weeks after it came out on video. Even I still remember the movie and how much you motherfuckers are crazy for thinking it’s good. (read the rest of this shit…)

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Posted in AICN, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews, Sport | 2 Comments »

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