Best in Film, Mid-2004

I've come up with a list of the top 5 movies released so far this year, in case you need to catch up. They are:

1. Alfonso Cuarón's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
2. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2
3. Jared Hess's Napoleon Dynamite
4. Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ
5. Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Read 'em and weep.

Film Review: ANCHORMAN (2004)

Adam McKay's Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is not a particularly funny movie. In fact, it feels just like a Saturday Night Live skit (circa 2003) that goes on for a little too long. Nay, for way too long.

Anchorman tells the story of '70s news anchor Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) who, despite his raging ego and hormones, is the most popular news reader in San Diego. But his status is suddenly threatened by the arrival of an ambitious female newscaster (Christina Applegate), who's soon made his co-anchor.

While Will Ferrell's presence alone is now almost universally and consistently amusing, the material Ferrell had to work with in this film was singularly inadequate for the purposes of an hour-and-a-half film. After his stint on the smart and whimsical movie Elf, one cannot help but feel disappointed by Ferrell's relapse into puerile penis jokes. We've been here before, and it wasn't all that great the first time around. Indeed, there is very little in the way of ingenuity to this supposed comedy. As we watch, we're immediately struck by the sterile predictability of the plot, as if we've seen this movie before. Unfortunately for Ferrell, it's certainly not a movie that we'd want to see a second time.

There is one scene that stands out among the mediocrity of the film as a whole. At one point, Burgundy and his competitive co-anchor spar back and forth during a live broadcast, trading masked insults and inconspicuous jabs. What's funny about it is not so much what they say to each other, but all that they cannot say to each other by virtue of being live on camera. This kind of subtle, understated humor is both difficult to pull off, and rare to come by, usually because a relationship between the characters need be already established in order to make it believable and genuinely humorous for the audience. This film was in a perfect position to take advantage of such comedy, given its lengthy background story of Ron, his rise to success, and his co-anchor's unwelcome arrival. The fact that the film fails to take full advantage of this kind of smart comedy only confirms Ferrell's willingness to sacrifice quality for uninspired vulgarity. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if our culture were not already steeped knee-high in such banality.

I'd give Adam McKay's Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy a D.

Film Review: SPIDER-MAN 2 (2004)

Spider-Man 2 is an explosive, frantic, roller-coaster ride of a movie. It’s the kind of movie that leaves you with a satiated feeling at the end, and yet you know that you really want just a little bit more. It is the quintessential summer blockbuster on many levels: the story is ripe with a nontrivial existential crisis which confounds our beloved superhero; the characters have matured and grown into their own since the original film, making for impressively natural performances from the likes of Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and James Franco; the action makes for an engaging thrill-ride without seeming officious or over-the-top; and of course, the moral of the story remains true to the spirit of Spider-Man, with its all-American emphasis on wholesome fun coupled with a real sense of responsibility. Director Sam Raimi turns in a beautiful motion picture that is perhaps most impressive for its unlikely feat of trumping the brilliant original. A

IT'S OFFICIAL: Jim Dedman over at JIM DEDMAN: Infandum ... iubes renovare dolorem is a deadbeat blogger. He hasn't posted anything of substance on his site since November 2003, well over a month ago. Alas.

UPDATE: Pot: "Kettle, thou art black!"