The Other Guys
- Title: The Other Guys
- IMDB: link
In case you weren’t aware, Step Brothers is the greatest achievement ever in cinema ever.
Okay, it’s not. But at the rate that I, a film dork, think back to the Comedy Extroardinaire from Will Ferrell and frequent collaborator writer / director Adam McKay, it certainly would seem to own a spot on AFI’s top hundred. Following up solid laughers Anchorman and Talladega Nights, the McKay / Ferrell team has proved maybe the most bankable in Hollywood when it comes to laughs. If you’ve gone the past six years without someone quoting a Ron Burgundy line to you, it’s because you haven’t talked to anyone the past six years.
And, as a fan of the divisive Step Brothers, I, more than most, was totally excited for McKay and Ferrell’s newest film, The Other Guys. Maybe it’s because of these high expectations, but this fourth film from the duo appears to be the first hiccup, and unfortunately not a small one.
…
At a time when lo-fi music is getting a lot of attention from critics and listeners alike, it’s not surprising to find a similar movement emerging from film. Dubbed “Mumblecore,” these movies forsake high production value for handheld, affordable cameras and a production style that emphasizes improvisation – whether it be camera angles or dialogue. The posterboys for Mumblecore are Jay and Mark Duplass, two brothers that have gotten some attention for their movies including Baghead, and last year’s Humpday (both of which are availible of Netflix Streaming.) They’ve come far enough that, despite taking advantage of low-budget limitations to inform their films’ style, their newest film, Cyrus, was actually financed by a major studio.
Peter Jackson might have been the luckiest director of the 00s. A virtual unknown, the Kiwi hit the jackpot when New Line gave him hundreds of millions of dollars for those Lord of the Rings that came out a few years back (you may have heard of them). He only got luckier when the films turned out to not just be successful, but hugely loved and adored by both the novels’ fans and regular Joes alike. His reward was a $200 million budget for his vanity project, a remake of King Kong that received a less ecstatic response than his previous work.
As far as I can tell, Pedro Almodóvar is the most well-known Spanish filmmaker, and has a shot at being the most well-known European one, too. It’s been a lonely three years since his last film, Volver crossed the Atlantic, but now we get Broken Embraces, another story of the consequences and rewards of love. Was it worth the wait? Of course it was.
