Blades of Glory
(Not to be confused with the classic "Blades of Steel.")
Went and caught the new Will Ferrell movie with the Romedogg the other night. I expected it to be funny...and it definitely met expectations. Quick thoughts:
1) They sure did convince a lot of former Olympic skaters to be in this movie. Nancy Kerrigan, Sasha Cohen, Dorothy Hamill, and several others showed up in a movie that basically makes fun of the sport. I got the feeling there were a lot of figure skating jokes in the movie, but being as masculine as I am, I didn't get most of them.
2) This Jon Heder guy sure has gotten a lot of mileage out of playing Napoleon Dynamite, huh? This guy isn't particularly funny, yet this is the second movie I've seen him in as the comedic lead. If I were a bookie, I'd put the Over/Under on his "Surreal Life" appearance at 4.5 years.
3) Will Ferrell is funny. But it occurs to me that he basically was the only mega-talent on that late-90's SNL cast. Remember that in the early 90's, you had Sandler, Farley, and Spade all having success; before that, there was Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, and Phil Hartman (a moment of silence please). These guys fed off each other during their SNL years. Who was on Will Ferrell's level when he was on SNL? Chris Kataan? Tracy Morgan? He was pretty much the only guy...
4) It makes me feel old to think that 20 years from now, adults may fondly remember "Blades of Glory" in the same way that I fondly remember movies like "Ghostbusters," "Trading Places," and "Spies Like Us."
1 Comments:
Blades of Glory was great. Some notes on your notes and more...
-Yes there were a lot of former skaters in the movie (they also included typical analyst Scott Hamilton and announcer Jim Lampley). I think sports parodies are able to attract personalities from around the sport. For example, in Talladega Nights, Dale Earnhardt Jr appeared in the film, and often announcers will appear. Think about all the NBA stars who were in Space Jam?
-I think Jon Heder will last a little longer playing the same sort of character. After all, don't most of these other guys play the same sort of role in every film?
-A lot of Will Ferrell's SNL contemporaries have been given shots at feature films, etc since that time. Don't forget Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Ana Gasteyer, Molly Shannon and Amy Poehler (also in Blades) as people who were in SNL at that time and been semi-successful.
-Probably true, although I get the sense that there's some sort of comedy clique and formula with some of these films - Blades of Glory, Talladega Nights, Anchorman, Old School, Zoolander, 40 year old virgin, Wedding Crashers, etc, that those older movies didn't really have. On the other hand, I wasn't really old enough at the time to really appreciate if there was or not.
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