“It’s called Sex Panther…60% of the time, it works, every time.”
I’m going to break the fourth wall with my research methods. I find a list on Wikipedia, detailing the films that made it into cinemas in the year and double check on the likes of IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes to double-check I haven’t missed anything. It took me until April to find anything of real quality that I had watched. I feared the worst. I was ready to begin the 2004 post like the 2003 post. Yet, where 2003’s poor comedies were plentiful and dramas for the most part, just as bad, the summer of 2004 was a stellar time for comedies and the rest of the year was full of box office hits and critically-acclaimed gems.
I saw Shaun of the Dead and was adamant that that would be the film to study here. Then I saw Napoleon Dynamite which has garnered such a cult following. Then there was Anchorman, a film that I hold so close to my heart, thanks to its journalism theme and the utterly ridiculous humour that comes with it. And it’s my second-favourite film to quote.
Some honourable mentions from a surprisingly great year: Shaun of the Dead, Mean Girls, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Napoleon Dynamite, Dodgeball, Saw, The Incredibles, Hotel Rwanda. As much as I enjoy the Harry Potter films and they have a special place in my heart, they rarely stand out to me critically and as far as I’m aware, they never top my end-of-year rankings. However, The Prisoner of Azkaban deserves a special mention for creating the dark feeling that we see near the end. The whole story of Sirius Black and Harry is my favourite; and that comes courtesy of Alfonso Cuaron’s style.
Films that I need to see include: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kill Bill Vol 2, Friday Night Lights, The Grudge, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I have Eternal Sunshine…in my house, so there’s really no excuse for me to have not watched this. But I take a while to get around to things sometimes.
The Skinny
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is a 2004 comedy film directed by Adam McKay (The Big Short, Step Brothers) and features Will Ferrell (Elf, Zoolander), Christina Applegate (Hall Pass, The Rocker) Paul Rudd (Clueless, Knocked Up), Steve Carrell (Foxcatcher, The Officer) and David Koechner (The Office).
Anchorman shows the television lifestyle of local celebrity and San Diego’s best news presenter, Ron Burgundy (Ferrell). Despite his strange mannerisms and his lack of intelligence, he’s revered by all in the local television industry. Set in the 1970’s, Ron finds himself with a co-anchor. Not only that, but due to the network being forced, a woman. Veronica Corningstone (Applegate) is a strong, independent woman focused on a career in television. She ignores Ron’s overtly-sexual advances and clashes with the sexism that comes during her time at the network. Despite their differences, they work together along with sports reporter Champ Kind (Koechner), weatherman Brick Tamland (Carrell) and reporter Brian Fantana (Rudd) to make sure Channel 4 News win in the ratings.
Director’s Cut
It’s so weird to see a film divide opinion in the way Anchorman does. For some, it’s a ridiculously silly, over-the-top satirical comedy that has one of the best comedy characters of all time in Ron Burgundy. To others, it’s nonsense that throws together random lines that don’t make a lot of sense. It’s both really. Anchorman isn’t a comedy that takes itself too seriously, quite like Zoolander. It indulges itself in the absurd and takes the audience on a weird journey through a bygone era.
Off-the-bat, the sexism in this film is one of the funniest things. This isn’t some Meninist carnival, but a mockery of the seventies and how politically incorrect it was. For the record, what is deemed ‘politically incorrect’ is mostly for the good. Hence why we shouldn’t go around calling ethnic minorities offensive names and making judgements about women based on stereotypes. Anchorman sees a time where having women presenting television was uncommon and in turn, show how stupid the men are for trying to stop it happening.
That’s where the characters work well. Ron is an emotionally-unstable TV maverick who will read anything that he sees on the teleprompter which leads him to say, “I’m Ron Burgundy?” because someone messed up his outcue by accidentally adding a question mark. He is a ladies’ man who can woo most with his moustache and his sweet talk, along with his reputation within the city. He finds himself arguing with Veronica due to her progressive views on women in the media and her intelligence, which makes her competitive with her co-anchor on air.
Then we have the sex-crazed Brian Fantana who like Ron, finds himself constantly surrounded by women and having sex regularly. He’s Ron’s right-hand man who usually provides the common sense in a quartet of idiots. Champ is the antagonist of the group if one can exist due to his casual sexism and misogynistic behaviour around Veronica, but he also comes out with one of the best lines when talking to Ron’s television rival, Wes Mantooth (Vince Vaughn), saying, “I’m gonna take your mother Dorothy Mantooth out for a nice seafood dinner, and never call her again!” Then there’s Brick, who has an IQ of 48 and ‘what some people would call, mentally retarded’. He’s a simple being who tends to bring most of the random humour including finding a hand grenade before the big fight and killing a guy with a trident.
Will Ferrell has called this his favourite character and it’s easy to see why. He is completely comfortable as an air-headed, egotistical presenter and bounces off well against the others. He can make himself chauvinistic, yet still a character with humanity. Koechner is like the character that he would go on to play in The US Office, except more lovable here. Rudd has his usual nice guy act, but with an added sex obsession. Carrell fits the hyperactive loyal, yet imbecilic Brick and would become the main point of comedy in the sequel. Applegate, who was in little prior to this, excels as a woman with principals as well as being a character you can hate a little for making Ron lose his job.
If anything can summarise how stupid Anchorman is, watch the famous fight scene. After Brick leads the gang into a dodgy side of town when they’re on their way to buy new suits, they are confronted by Mantooth and his news team, before being joined from all other rival news teams in the area as they have an all-out brawl where Brick kills a man with a trident, there’s horses, men on fire and Luke Wilson loses his arm. It summarises Anchorman in five minutes. And there’s lots of cameos.
Then there’s the setting. Although the film regularly makes fun of women, it does so in parody – often making the male characters look idiotic. The one element in this story that makes it acceptable is how it treats Veronica as a character. Despite the misogyny, she’s always portrayed as a strong woman. The men are morons. This dynamic left me both laughing with and laughing at the male characters simultaneously.
The message above all is how mundane local news can be. The hot story of the year is the pregnancy of a panda at the local zoo. Although a nice story, it mocks that level of news as trivial and more importantly, mocks Burgundy whose ego is through the roof in a job that isn’t as big as it first seems. Elsewhere, there are moments where Ron reports on a squirrel on a pair of jet skis and Veronica reports at a cat fashion show in the back of a pet shop. All the stories are purposely terrible and for the most part, focused around animals, yet again showing the mundanity of local television news.
So, whether you enjoy Anchorman or think it’s the worst thing you have ever watched, do watch it. Despite its light theme that won’t win any awards for an intelligent script, it’s a style of comedy that is firmly underrated. If slapstick did scripts, this would be it. Less people slipping up and falling over and more thinking that San Diego is German for a whale’s vagina. Also, Baxter the dog that Ron can understand is the best.
And I’m Michael Houston. You stay classy San Diego.
The Drive IN 