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THE HAWK EYE
!" BURLINGTON, IOWA
Thursday • December 19, 2013
3C
WEEKEND
‘Anchorman’
sequel is bloated
but still funny
Film takes a stab
at the very purpose
of TV news.
By JOCELYN NOVECK
Associated Press
Will Ferrell: Everyone
knows a Ron Burgundy
By JOHN ANDERSON
Newsday
N
EW YORK — The
time: a rainy weekday
afternoon. Setting:
the book-lined, wainscoted drawing room
of an upscale downtown hotel.
The fireplace softly sputters.
The wait-staff quietly bustles.
The guests engage in muted
conversation, nestled in leather
armchairs. One of those chairs
contains Will Ferrell. He is not
playing the cowbell.
So far, so good.
Ferrell, creator of some of
contemporary comedy’s more
indelible characters, has not
shown up as any of them. Not
race driver Ricky Bobby (“Talladega Nights”), not Chazz
Michael Michaels (“Blades
of Glory”), not Jackie Moon
(“Semi-Pro”), not Brennan Huff
(“Step Brothers”). Not the cowbell-banging member of Blue
Öyster Cult from “Saturday
Night Live.” Not George W. Bush
(“You’re Welcome, America”)
or Abraham Lincoln (“Drunk
History”). Not even the seasonally appropriate Buddy the Elf
(“Elf”).
Most surprisingly: not the
legendary Ron Burgundy —
bombastic newscaster, mustachioed narcissist and the
centerpiece of “Anchorman 2:
The Legend Continues” (which
opened Wednesday). Ferrell’s
been playing him for months,
after all — on “Conan,” in car
ads, at a curling competition in
Canada, even a local newscast
in Bismarck, N.D. You half
expect the clueless newsman to
be sitting here, playing cheesy
jazz flute and ordering pee-nonwarr.
“Oh, you don’t want to talk to
Ron Burgundy,” the soft-spoken
Ferrell laughs — the message
being, “How much does Ron
possibly have to say?”
Well, he speaks to a largeenough constituency of the
American moviegoing public
to make “Anchorman 2: The
Legend Continues” — the longawaited sequel to the cult-fave
“Anchorman: The Legend of
Ron Burgundy” (2004) — one of
the more anticipated releases in
a season traditionally devoted
to highbrow, lofty-minded
Oscar bait that clocks in at
around, oh, 2 hours and 59 minutes. At less than two hours,
“Anchorman 2” has a lot more
jokes than “12 Years a Slave.”
But it took almost 10 years to
make.
Why?
“How do I say this diplomatically?” Ferrell asks, preparing
to be undiplomatic. “They
(Paramount Pictures) were
cool to not going beyond a
certain budget level, which was
ridiculously low. They were
running their numbers based
on the box-office success of the
first one, and not taking into
Faux newsman is a
good real-life pitchman
Where there’s a Will — in this
case, Ferrell — there’s a way to
sell anything. In a marketing
blitz of massive proportions,
the “Anchorman 2” star has
been showing up as his screen
incarnation Ron Burgundy in
everything from Dodge commercials to the January cover
of Dog Fancy magazine. While
he’s selling people on the
movie, he’s also been selling
these products.
! Would you buy a new
car from this man? Since
last month, Chrysler has been
getting plenty of mileage out of
using Burgundy in ads for the
2014 Dodge Durango. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, sales of all Chryslers
have increased 11 percent
since the ads started running,
and Durango sales have gotten
revved up by 59 percent.
! The scoop on ice cream:
The cherry on all this marketing mayhem rests on Ben &
Jerry’s latest flavor called, not
surprisingly, Scotchy Scotch
Scotch. Despite its name, this
G-rated sweet treat is actually
butterscotch ice cream with
butterscotch swirls.
! A shot of scotch:
account how much it’s grown in
popularity and where all of us
are now, professionally speaking. And we were, like, ‘Uhhhhh, I don’t think we can do it
for that number.’ ”
Obviously, the concerned
parties found “common
ground,” and the legend was
allowed to continue: Ron,
now married to his onetime
rival Veronica Corningstone
(Christina Applegate), has come
to New York — where he’s
promptly fired, and Veronica is
made the first female anchorperson of a major network. The
year is 1980, however, and the
birth of 24-hour news is providing opportunity for all manner
of inept newspersons. Invited
to join an operation clearly
modeled on the original CNN,
Ron decides to reunite his old
San Diego crew — sportscaster
Champ Kind (David Koechner),
field reporter Brian Fantana
(Paul Rudd) and demented
meteorologist Brick Tamland
(Steve Carell) — and re-invent
the news.
Hilarity — subtle and inane
— ensues, but so does a certain
satirical take on the media.
“Obviously, we just wanted
to make a funny movie first and
foremost,” Ferrell said. “But
once you decide to do 1980 and
Burgundy loves his “Scotchy
scotch scotch.” So, in keeping
with that spirit, Riviera Imports
has concocted its own edition
of Ron Burgundy’s favorite
libation called Great Odin’s
Raven Special Reserve. It’s
being touted as a “40 percent
ABV (alcohol by volume)
blend of Scotch whiskies from
Speyside, Highlands and Islay
(it also boasts some nice fruity
overtones).”
! News briefs: Jockey is
getting in on the action with a
line of Ron Burgundy low-rise
briefs, available in Zeus blue
or panther red. The packaging
features Burgundy running his
hand through his hair with the
tagline “Don’t act like you’re not
impressed.”
! Book it, Ronno: “Let Me
Off at the Top: My Classy Life &
Other Musings” (Crown/Archetype), Burgundy’s “autobiography,” purports to tell the news
anchor’s story, from his childhood in Haggleworth, Iowa, to
his experiences with women.
The mustachioed Burgundy
adorns the cover along with
this bit of self-endorsement: “I
wrote a hell of a book!”
—Daniel Bubbeo
24-hour news, you kind of have
to comment on what’s become
commonplace. And it made us
laugh that Ron Burgundy and
these guys would be the forefathers of what we now expect
to see on TV news. ‘Oh, he’s the
one who thought it all up.’ And
that made us laugh.”
One of the “innovations” is
now a staple of Los Angeles
local news — the high-speed
car chase.
“In one of the focus groups
we had, when we tested the
movie, it was fascinating
because all they talked about
was the news part of what the
movie was talking about,” he
said. “They’d say, ‘I didn’t realize there was a time before
high-speed car chases were
part of the news,’ and that was
kind of really satisfying. We
said, ‘I think we’re on to something.’ ”
The “we” were Ferrell and
director Adam McKay, who
has worked with the actorcomedian on the original
“Anchorman,” “Step Brothers,”
“Talladega Nights: The Ballad
of Ricky Bobby” and co-wrote
“Anchorman 2” with its star.
The idea there’s a script might
dismay some viewers: Someone
actually wrote those jokes?
“That’s the question we get
all the time,” he said. “How
much is improvised and how
much is written. There’s no
strict ratio — if we went and
watched the movie, I could
show you: One scene is improvised and another isn’t, and the
half of the next is or isn’t. We
improvise on every scene and
see what happens, but even
the written stuff is improvised,
because Adam and I are improvising as we write it.”
What’s great about Ron
Burgundy, Ferrell said, is everybody thinks he knows who
Burgundy is.
“Literally, as the movie grew,
Adam and I would run across
people, and it didn’t matter
what part of the country, someone would say they knew a guy
like that,” Ferrell said. “ ‘Let me
ask you: You know a guy named
Craig Gerber? He was in Terre
Haute, Indiana, for years? He
had a mustache? Was it based
on him?’ And we’d say, ‘We have
no idea what you’re talking
about.’ ”
One day on the street in Beverly Hills, Ferrell said, he ran
across an ex-L.A. newscaster
named Harold Greene.
“He used to work in San
Diego for a bit, then L.A.,” he
said. “I run into him one day,
and he says, ‘Will Ferrell?’ And I
say, ‘Yeah! Harold Greene?!’ He’s
totally flattered I knew who
he was. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he
says. ‘You know, I used to have
a mustache. ...’ I said, ‘Yeah, I
know who you are.’ He says, ‘I
gotta ask you — was that movie
based on me?’
“I started laughing and said,
‘No, I’m sorry.’ And he says,
‘There’s an old saying in the
news game: ‘Yeah, right. ...’ And
he turns and walks away. He
was totally convinced it was
him.”
D ecem ber 31st,2013
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392762
But the actor swears the
character is not based
on any one newscaster.
stopping to gather the old news
team from San Diego — er, San
Di-AHgo, as he pronounces it:
overly emotional sportscaster
Champ Kind (David Koechner),
now running a chicken joint;
overly sexed reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), now photographing cats; and overly insane
weatherman Brick Tamland
(Steve Carell, reliably hilarious)
now dead. Or so he thinks.
Burgundy’s new nemesis is the
impossibly good-looking, selfadoring anchorman Jack Lime
(James Marsden, perfect in such
self-mocking roles). And his superior is the overachieving Linda
Jackson (Meagan Good), who
finds Burgundy ridiculous but
then inexplicably falls for him.
Linda is not only a woman but
black, a double-whammy for the
chauvinistic Burgundy; their coupling, however improbable, leads
to a very funny dinner-table scene
with Linda’s disapproving family.
Of course, underdog Ron has
tricks up his sleeve.
“Why do we need to tell the
people what they need to hear?”
he muses. “Why can’t we tell them
what they WANT to hear?”
And they’re off, satirizing
today’s infotainment brand of
cable news. A routine involving
an endless car chase and, well,
Yasser Arafat (yes, Yasser Arafat)
is one of the more inspired scenes
in the film.
The starry cast also includes
Kristen Wiig, intensely weird
as only she can be. And there’s
the finale, a news-team rumble
in midtown Manhattan involving more celebrity cameos than
you ever thought possible. Sacha
Baron Cohen as a BBC anchor?
Only the beginning. Of course, it
all feels like too much.
But you can’t have too much of
a good thing, remember?
“Anchorman 2: The Legend
Continues,” a Paramount Pictures release, is rated PG-13 by
the Motion Picture Association of
America for “crude and sexual content, drug use, language and comic
violence.” Running time: 119 minutes. Three stars out of four.
MPAA definition of PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned. Some
material may be inappropriate for
children under 13.
392460
Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy is shown in a scene from “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.”
“Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” has arrived
at the Westland Theatre
in Westland Mall. Call the
theater at (319) 752-1643
for showtimes.
Tues.Evening B uffet• 5-8 PM
12
392725
Gemma LaMana/Paramount Pictures
Can there be too much of
a good thing? Where did that
expression come from, anyway?
If it’s good, isn’t more always better?
Discuss.
Or, actually, don’t discuss.
Because, in the case of “Anchorman 2” anyway, the question is
sort of pointless, isn’t it? Everything about the original 2004 film,
a cult classic of the Will Ferrell
oeuvre, and its lead character,
Ron Burgundy, was puffed up and
absurd and ridiculous.
And so, why wouldn’t the sequel
be even more puffed up, more
absurd and more ridiculous? As
long as Ferrell’s back (he is), and
reunited with his wacky partners
(he is) to form a veritable dream
team of inappropriateness (they
do), then what could be wrong?
Not that “Anchorman 2: The
Legend Continues,” again directed
with total self-assurance by Adam
McKay, is a work of fine art. It’s a
broad, low-brow comedy, which
one imagines was concocted
somewhat like a huge abstract
painting: You throw gobs (or jokes)
onto a big canvas, some spills
over the edges, and it’s messy and
lumpy, but hey, it’s all good, and
anyway, the next gob is coming.
For those who may have
missed the original, it brought us
Burgundy, a TV anchor defined
by his goofiness, self-importance,
good-natured chauvinism and
polyester. Set in the 1970s, the
theme was gender equality; Burgundy’s foil was Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate),
who sought her own anchor chair.
In the sequel, the issue isn’t
gender but the very purpose of
TV news: To inform, or entertain?
We’re in 1980, and Burgundy and
Corningstone, now married, host
a morning show together. Then
she — alone — is offered an evening anchor slot. Burgundy? He’s
fired (the boss is a gruffly funny
Harrison Ford, sounding quite
Brokaw-esque).
Ron tells Veronica she can’t take
the job without him. She accuses
him of acting like Julius Caesar.
“Who the hell is Julius Caesar?” he bellows. “I don’t follow
the NBA!”
Veronica takes the job and abandons Ron. But opportunity comes
in the form of a job offer that
sounds crazy: a new 24-hour news
channel, being launched by an
Aussie billionaire. Its name? GNN.
Burgundy heads for New York,
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