Day: April 11, 2008

they’re back. mike and i and a bunch of others are going to see them in minneapolis later this month. it will be my third time seeing them live. the previous shows were brilliant adaptations of sketches from the show for the stage. this tour is apparently mostly new material from which they hope to spin off a new show and a movie. here’s an av club interview replete with video.

i have this emotional connection to the kids which i can’t quite explain–and it doesn’t translate to them individually (though i did watch newsradio religiously). it may be that it takes me back to those halcyon days of grad school, when we had no money and theory seemed like something worth fighting drunkenly over in bars. oh, wait, those were nightmarish days. anyway, as intellectually satisfying as the kids’ comedy can be (like a man getting hit in the groin by a football, it works on so many levels) my primary relationship to it, and them collectively, is one of love. i almost burst into tears when “having an average weekend” played at the beginning of the show the first time i saw them live (i think it was at the wiltern–john, pete, did we all go together?). mike, make sure to bring some hankies, and be ready to hold me close on the 26th.

I would provide a mild recommendation for Jake Kasdan (& co-writer/comedyimpresario/medialovechild Judd Apatow)’s biopic shenanigans. As it began, I was sucked into its pitch-perfect mimicry and its generally sly and absurdist approach to parody — Apatow learned some of these chops on the old “Ben Stiller Show,” which offered up some of the greatest, sharpest showbiz satires ever made. (My favorite was the Behind the Music documentary about the rise of U2, who were managed early on by Reuben Kincaid.)

Alas, those bits were 10 minutes long, and this is almost 90, and … well, it is never more than a sly absurdist parody. John Reilly remains one of my favorite comic actors, unrivalled in the portrayal of earnest dimwit intensity. But Dewey Cox–and every character–remain sharp but shallow caricatures, and the film doesn’t develop the sense of character the way other Apatow films (or even the best Will Ferrell vehicles) do. Watching Anchorman I felt like I was inside Ron Burgundy’s head, and it was a wonderful strange place, but Dewey’s all too familiar. Walk also avoids the scattershot quantity-theory of parody (a la Airplane), which allows it to be much smarter but also less frequently funny. I admired the craft of the jokes, and I’m not sure a general intellectual appreciation ought to be the primary outcome for a comedy like this.

I did enjoy the full-frontal male nudity. Penises are funny.