NTSF:SD:SUV:: - Season 1

NTSF:SD:SUV:: is a spin-off of Childrens' Hospital (in our universe, within the meta-fiction it's just another show in their nightmare world of silly, generic network TV shows taken to an extreme), and while it hasn't managed to become as good as that series yet, it's still a lot of fun and has enough promise to turn into a similar coming together of strong writing, a great cast, and a bunch of off-the-wall ideas. Paul Scheer stars as Trent Hauser, the lead agent of an anti-terrorism unit that protects San Diego from all manner of bizarre crimes. Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager plays his boss and two-time ex-wife with an eye patch, Martin Starr plays a computer expect who's not much of a character but still does a good job, and Rob Riggle plays the nutty President of the Navy. Peter Serafinowicz does the voice of the their robot assistant, and a couple people I don't really know play fellow agents, one who constantly makes reference to his native Alaska and another who ably fills every possible cliche of a female lead in a cop show.

Besides the main cast, there's plenty of great talent in the guest cast from week to week, like Jeff Goldblum as a high-stakes gambler who makes full use of jurisdiction laws and Adam Scott as a rival to Trent who's confined to a wheelchair. The cast frequently props up episodes even when their plots are a bit bare and reliant on a single wacky joke. Most of the stories are actually pretty familiar if you've spent any time watching shows like this, often with just a couple little tweaks that push them into the realm of the fully ridiculous. Once in a while they'll go for broke with an alternate universe episode or something, but a big part of the fun is how close the show really is to what it parodies at certain times. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what they can do now that they're more familiar with what they can get away with on Adult Swim.

The Other Guys

Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay continue their fruitful partnership of serviceable and occasionally brilliant but often flawed comedies with The Other Guys, a send up of buddy cop movies (which are themselves already pretty silly in nature) with an odd sense of humor and an even odder political stance against the seedy nature of big money in America. The bad guys in the story are basically using fraud to cover up losses, and the entire end credits of the film feature animated information about things like how Ponzi schemes work and the average salaries of CEOs in comparison to regular workers over time. This is probably the wrong movie to throw an issue like this into, though I appreciate the effort.

The movie starts out bombastically with a ridiculous car chase through New York City as Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson attempt to stop some drug dealers. It's one of the most wonderfully absurd action scenes played for laughs I've seen, and it's a great start for the movie. I would watch a whole film about Johnson and Jackson as these superhero cop characters. But it's not about them, it's about the other guys, played by Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. Ferrell plays a number cruncher and paperwork doer who'd rather stay in the office than chase bad guys, and Wahlberg was a promising young cop who had his career derailed after he shot a famous athlete. They're mostly the subject of ridicule, but they see an opportunity to make a big case after they arrest a businessman played by Steve Coogan and he is then kidnapped by armed thugs. People with money don't like Ferrell and Wahlberg sniffing around their affairs, and they are harassed at every turn by their fellow cops and other things working against them.

The structure of the story could have pretty much just been a regular buddy cop movie, but it's the specific weirdness of the situations and dialogue that make it a Will Ferrell comedy. The film just comes up with a ton of running gags and lets them ride, and some of them end up being pretty funny. Some of the better ones include all the horrible things that happen to the interior of Ferrell's Prius, his dark past, and Wahlberg's habit of studying fine arts so he can make fun of people who enjoy them. Some bits are weirder; Ferrell's innate attraction to beautiful women is cute but offset by what's basically an emotionally abusive marriage that's played for laughs.

Ferrell's mix of low key and very loud methods of being funny are in full effect and enjoyable as usual, and while I would say Wahlberg definitely isn't a natural comic actor (or a natural actor at all, really), his hit rate on one liners is generally pretty decent. Michael Keaton is great as the police captain, and his role is another I'd love to see revisited in a Rock/Jackson prequel. The movie is overstuffed to the point of bursting with recognizable comedic talent, and most of the cameos usually have at least one decent joke attached instead of just being their for their own sake. Ice-T's narration in particular is memorable. Not every joke is a success and I would have preferred a less self-serious plot, but it was a pretty fun movie.

The Hangover

I don't think it's much of a stretch to say this is Todd Phillips' best film, as he's always done acceptably fun comedy, but this seems unique among his work and just a bit better. Not a great movie, but pretty damn funny once it gets the ball rolling. The key to all of it really is Zach Galifianakis, who steals every scene the same way that Steve Carell stole them in Anchorman, and hopefully it will be a similar boon to his career. I get plenty of enjoyment out of his stand-up and cult TV appearances, but any extra Zach I can get is good. His character is pretty unusual here, and hard to classify. He's fully functional but definitely off in a significant way, having lots of strange tendencies like an aversion to profanity and an urge to imitate those he likes, and often makes really terrible decisions, though he manages to mostly redeem himself. I think this is the biggest role I've seen for Ed Helms too, again playing a guy who just can't see how badly his girlfriend is treating him, and his character is a nice balance of uptight and humorously incredulous. I really don't know much about Bradley Cooper, but I liked him in this movie too, playing the most emotionally stable one who still has some definite issues.

The movie's biggest problem might be that it takes too long to get really cooking. I don't know where the additions were made in the unrated cut, but I assume they're mostly after the forgotten night in Vegas that the plot centers around, and in any case they spend too much time establishing things before the main characters wake up in a trashed hotel room completely oblivious to what happened in the previous 12 hours. It's nearly half an hour before we get there, and I understand the desire to make the relationship between the three leads and the missing Doug clear so we know why it's so important they find him, though that was already pretty set from the fact that he was getting married and they were the ones throwing him a bachelor party. I wouldn't have minded the long lead-in so much if it itself was funny, but I really didn't laugh much at all until after things went wrong. Once that's all taken care of though, things move briskly as they try to puzzle out what they can remember and figure out from clues to solve various mysteries like the presence of an infant and tiger in their room and eventually track down their missing friend. There are some good appearances by various funny guys like Rob Riggle and Ken Jeong, and Heather Graham is fine in her part but you wonder why they got someone as famous as her to do it, unless that was the point. The denouement was similarly a bit too lengthy for my tastes, but overall it was a pretty strongly crafted pure comedy, one of the better I've seen in some time. It mostly worked because I liked all the characters, and it was nice for once that they weren't played by Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, and Owen Wilson. I don't hate any of those guys, but keeping things fresh is always good.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

300 posts. I don't know if I should be proud or ashamed of myself.

Talladega Nights was much funnier than I thought it would be. I'm not sure why my expectations were low, I guess I just might be growing out of stupid comedies a bit, but it wasn't as dumb as I assumed. They could have just made fun of rednecks and NASCAR for a couple hours, but there were lots of clever moments and pretty good wordplay that made it quite funny in spots. Even when characters were just insulting each other, the specific insults were usually pretty darn good. It was especially great hearing it from Ricky's two kids, who were horrible brats in the beginning but ended up as articulate gentlemen.

Will Ferrell's schtick of picking a random, usually sports related profession and doing a movie about it is getting a little tiring, but he's been likable whenever I've seen him on the screen (I just realized I've never seen one of his movies in theaters, which is weird), and does a good job carrying this movie. John C. Reilly plays his sidekick and best friend, who's very dedicated but completely lacks common sense. Sacha Baron Cohen is also good as the villain to the story. They use the character as a simple excuse for a lot of French and gay jokes, but he provides a lot of amusement as well. The rest of the cast also does a pretty good job keeping things funny, including known names like Michael Clarke Duncan and Amy Adams. The dialogue is a strong point of the script if the pacing isn't. It felt like Ricky spent too little time doing well and too much wallowing in his own failure before recovering in the obvious return-to-glory storyline. Instead of spending time establishing the situation, there were some pretty drawn-out scenes that were strictly for laughs, although I suppose I can't fault a comedy for having those. In the end, I liked the movie quite a bit.