Approved.

The commentary track on this is pretty random. Will Ferrell & Adam McKay start it off by themselves (not talking about the movie at all but discussing what vulgarities they can say since the DVD is “unrated”) and are joined by various guests throughout the course of the commentary. The most random was jazz singer Lou Rawls showing up and getting into a scat singing contest with Ferrell.

kind of lost all respect for film junk after I saw this. Spiderman 2 was one thing but this is just upsetting

No complaints here. This is already a classic, in my eyes. It also really gave a lot of folks from this film – credibility in the world of comedy. Not to mention that it encapsulates ‘my’ sense of humor, in terms of absurdity and surrealness.

Oh man, absolutely. I neglected to put any comedies on my list for some reason, but if I expanded my list I’d definitely put Anchorman on there.

Yeah anchorman is the shit, I got in touch with Adam mckay
through funny or die to thank him for making such an awesome flick
and he said he loved making it. He also said he was having a meeting
with the former cast to hash out ideas for a real sequel. This one
is on my top 20 comedies of all time.

After seeing Anchorman years ago I actually did some writing about the current comedies and here is some of those ideas, supported by the likes of Borat.

I saw “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” last night and was once again disappointed by a hollywood lackluster comedy. This happens time after time; I become excited about seeing a comedy based on the actor involved and the anticipation of some great laughs only to be let down. I’ve relived this experience for “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle”, “Orange County”, etc., etc.

The few good comedies I’ve seen in the last decade are “Something About Mary”, “Swingers” “Garden State” and “Napoleon Dynamite”. I believe these four films share a common comedic theme which I like; the comedy comes from the characters personal struggles and are intrinsically tied to the story’s time and place.” It’s like a recipe were the comedy is baked out of the ingredients of character, time and place.

For example, in “Swingers” the humor comes from one lonely, and seemly good-natured, character’s experiences in the well-defined plastic and macho environment he and his transplanted friends have created within confines of 1990s Los Angeles. The comedy comes from this character’s actions, in this place, at this time. We as the audience are able to identify with the lead character, fresh from a breakup, as he enters this unique dating scene in a city with a prevailing unique attitude. The comedy is born of this experience it is not applied or forced on to this experience. This is why you do not see any redundant fart jokes or crazy old guys in “Swingers” as you do in other Hollywood comedies. These contrived comedic devices are not needed and would look even more out of place in this film than they do in lesser comedies because everything in “Swingers” is born of it’s character, time and place. When the filmmakers know their characters, time and place comedy flows from that knowledge. It is when filmmakers don’t know their characters, time and place that they try to save the piece by forcing comedic devices in to the film.

As way to clarify this point even more let’s analyze how comedy is forced in say …“Anchorman”. In this film you find multiple moments of standard comedic devices forced on the characters, time and place. The one that stands out the most is the absurd gangland fight between competing news teams. First, the filmmakers start out with the tired comedic device of placing opposing groups in an unreal overused gang fight scenario. Then they thumb their noses at the audience and try to save the scene by exploding the absurdity with star cameos and extreme violence; another comedic device of super excess. And finally they try one last time to save the scene by referencing other famous movie fight scenes, such as, the horse drawn nets in “Planet of the Apes.” They were doomed from the start; the idea of competing news teams fighting a gangland war is too unbelievable for the audience and deemed a forced comedic device. Everything after this initial comedic mistake is just a desperate attempt at saving an unsavable scene.

Why are these mistakes continually repeated by Hollywood? I believe it goes back to the fact that writing a good script is hard and original stories are few and far between. If I go back to the my list of good comedies I find that they are all mostly written from people that lived in the time and place they wrote about with characters they know. Even in a film like “Something About Mary” the comedy comes first from the gullible nature of Ben Stiller’s lonely thirty-something character but also from a more broad “time and place” in which the American man is feeling “castrated” by the modern dynamic woman, which I believe the filmmakers personally.

In a film like “Anchorman”, an initial character was developed by an amazing talent like Will Ferrell, but then weakly applied to the “time and place” of 1970s local TV news. So much natural comedy was available to the filmmakers if they would have worked hard and invested in the “time and place” they introduced. Instead they simply created set pieces and coxed the highly talented actors to improvise in to a heighten absurdity, divorced of any relationship to actual time and place they are in.

If this sounds like I’m against the absurd comedy that is not the case. I would argue that “Caddyshack” is an absurd comedy that is magnificent. It generates all of its comedy from its early 1980s excess (time) and its private country club mixture of “lords and surfs” (place/character). The mad pursuit of a gopher is not a forced comedic device in this instance because it’s totally in Bill Murray’s character to be clinically insane over this destroyer of his precious greens. The audience is satisfied with the portrayal of Carl Spackler, and all of his traits, to the point were blowing up the golf course is accepted as something he would do.

oof, this is a rough one. I can’t watch this movie, I almost walked out of it in the theatres. But I do know lots of people who do love it and I guess comedy is the hardest thing to find common ground on so I’ll let it slide. I agree with RusinChicago though, Borat better be in here somewhere.

I agree with Goon. Anchorman has one of the best comedic ensembles ever. This film is also Christina Applegate’s finest performance to date.

Not every joke in the film is a zinger – but the film contains an insane amount of hilarious moments.

To Russ – This film is all about heightened absurdity. The place, the time, the man, the team, the romance – it is all absurd. This is absurdism in all its glory. (We are introduced to Brick Tamlin as he puts mayonnaise in a toaster) I can appreciate if you do not like absurdity, but I love the stuff and this film certainly suits my fancy.

Top 20 for certain.

RusInChicago seems like pretentious filmschool douche. Since when is Garden State a comedy? That film is more like Revolutionary Road than a comedy.

Not a big fan of this movie. There’s a couple of hilarious scenes but, overall, I just really think people have been setting the bar too low when it comes to comedy. Of course, I think Will Farrell is a hack, in general, anyway and only works as a bit player for me.

Caddyshack, the party , Shaun of the dead,
you got to put absurdist humour where it belongs.
Just let it wash over you and don’t over analyZe it.
Although I don’t agree with Rus I know many people
who don’t get anchormans humour. But for this choice I believe majority rules
in it’s favour.
P.s I wonder what rus thinks of spielberg

I’m in a class cage of emotion.