Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
Great story - compelling, and rich.
THE SUMMARY: San Diego’s top newsman has his seat usurped by his affirmative action love interest, but they ultimately reconcile under threat of bear attack to report on the city’s biggest story: the long-awaited birth of a Panda cub. There’s nothing here for deep analysis, but there isn’t supposed to be. Just sit back and enjoy a respectfully brief 90 minutes of hilarious and highly quotable lines.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER TROY: Throwing a comedy in for variety, Anchorman is probably one of the most quoted movies of all time, and for good reason. All cast members contribute to the humor of the film, and it is a fun film throughout.
THE BEST:
Too many great lines to list: I hadn’t seen Anchorman for over 10 years at least, enough time to forget just how many lines in this movie are still quoted today. Sure, it has good slapstick humor. Sure, the characters are performed well. But where the movie shines is in its writing. There are no deep themes to analyze here, just clever dialogue that is every bit as memorable as the philosophical dilemmas I usually appreciate in this segment. These aren’t necessarily even my favorite, but consider the ones you still hear almost 20 years later:
They’ve done studies, you know. 60 percent of the time, it works every time.
The only way to bag a classy lady is to give her two tickets to the gun show.
Whether it’s the funniest movie I’ve ever seen or not, its cultural prominence and resilience is undeniable.
My favorite slapstick bits: To say the slapstick humor is secondary to the writing is not to sell it short, however. Many of the stronger laughs this movie gets from me are physical performance, not necessarily written joke quality:
The repeated ‘disarming’: You have the right to bear arms. Or in Frank Vitchard’s (Luke Wilson’s) case, a bear has the right to your arm. I don’t know why this bit gets me - something about just casual disappointment in being dismembered, coupled with the quality callback to finish off the other arm later in the movie.
Plus just how unapologetically crappy the bear dismemberment is in its visual effects - watch it in slow motion. You can clearly see it’s just a big stuffed bear, Wilson’s hand looks more fake than Chubbs’ in Happy Gilmore, there’s a seam on his jacket sleeve where it’s designed to rip, and Wilson’s actual arm is clearly visible bulging under his jacket. The high-school level production just makes bit even funnier.
The jazz flute performance at the bar: The head-poking into the bathroom stall, the impromptu martini flamethrower, the ‘I’m not prepared’ line while pulling a flute from his sleeve, all of it. There were portions of this performance that didn’t make the final cut - in a deleted scene, Will Farrell has a full-on flute seizure on the stage.
The dog punting: No, it’s not an appreciation of animal abuse, though of course we’ve all encountered a puntable dog in our lives. Or a puntable owner. Either way, again - it’s the comedy of how bad the effects are. Watch this one in slow motion too. It appears the producers didn’t even bother making a decent Baxter dummy to punt. It looks like they stopped by Goodwill and picked up whatever second-hand stuffed animal they could find. In fact, they did. You can see the stuffed animal in the credits gag reel, and the failed punt is even funnier than the successful one.
Mockery of feminism and diversity: I say this movie has nothing deep to ponder because it generally doesn’t, but at least briefly, there are criticisms of both feminism and diversity that even if not totally sincere, I’m not sure would pass through today’s Hollywood.
When Veronica is hired, the concept of hiring a woman at all, let alone hiring a woman just because she’s a woman, is mocked thoroughly. Diversity is just an old Civil War ship. It is anchorman, not anchorlady, and that is a scientific fact.
Of course I think the producers intend to mock ‘male chauvinism’ just as much as they intend to mock diversity or feminism with these scenes, but the fact remains that Veronica is perpetually unhappy as a career-chasing woman. She gets everything she thinks she wants - she achieves her dream of becoming an anchor - but it’s still not enough. There’s something inherent within her that needs the love and leadership of a man. Not because she’s inferior, but because it’s the natural order of things.
And then, if only clumsily, Ron literally saves her life. Without him, she has nothing, despite trying to convince herself she has everything.
Gah! I did not see that comin’!
I dabble.
It’s getting to be ri-goddamn-diculous!
Baxter gets punted.
THE WORST:
I’d like a little more on-air time from the crew: The sidekick crew of Brian, Champ, and Brick have just as many great lines as Ron does, and they get plenty of screen time too, but one thing we don’t get much of is their ‘on-air’ performance. What makes them such a legendary broadcast team? Why are they number one in the market? How do they interact with the cameras on? It’s not that it’s vital to the story - I just think there are opportunities for comedy in that situation that perhaps weren’t fully developed.
Could have had a better ending: Since I appreciate Veronica’s somewhat anti-feminist or at least feminist-critical storyline, I would have liked to see it more fully realized. She didn’t need a co-anchor spot at ‘world news’ with Ron. She already had that, at least locally, and was still unhappy. She needs Ron to be her husband. Make the ending babies with little mustaches, or something like that.
I could also do without the political ‘Bush White House’ cheap shot at the end, not because I have to protect Bush, but just because it’s an out-of-place point in a movie that otherwise isn’t political. We get it. You don’t like Bush. Cool, but the movie has nothing to do with that.
THE RATING: 4/5 Wickies. Its lines live in infamy, and have contributed greatly to the show itself. Great story - compelling, and rich.
YOUR RATING: Vote here ⬇
NEXT WEEK: Interstellar (2014) - the list was rejected last week, so this one is a random IMDb top-rated selection.
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