Anchorman 2

Oof. I died a little inside every day I didn't see Anchorman 2. Katy left for a week the day it came out and of course I was forbidden from seeing it without her. Then work and other movie obligations got in the way.

But finally, after two agonizing weeks we sat down with beer and readied ourselves for some serious funny.

And it delivers! I have to admit I had tempered my expectations a bit, there was just no way it could live up to the first one. A movie that is pure lunacy, Anchorman was a shock to the system of comedy and has obviously achieved legendary status, something that even the best sequel could never overcome. So all I really wanted was for the movie to make me laugh, and that it did.

The film starts strong and ends with a battle so absurd and brilliant that I wish the same energy was employed throughout the rest of the movie, as the middle drags quite a bit. The film runs just under 2 hours, and it could have easily lost 20 minutes if not more.

Still, I laughed hard and I laughed a lot and it was never not a treat to have these ridiculous characters on screen again.


Well, that was a bit short, but really all you want to know is if it's funny, right? It is. So now, I'm going to take a left turn and get a little bloggy.

As you probably know, I like movies. Some would even say I like movies a little too much. Not as a way of not dealing with life or whatever, but that I literally like just about any movie I see. While that's not true, I usually only write or post about movies that I like because talking about good movies is fun. My work with Carycitizen.com has given my the opportunity to not only hone my writing skills but to see more movies, some of which I actively disliked. It's a bummer writing about movies you don't like. But that's the job of a critic though, letting other film lovers know what's worth the price of admission.

So I've changed the way I view movies ever so slightly. Or rather, I've been trying to change the way I talk about them. I try to be more honest about the actual quality of a movie. Even if I liked it, I try to admit what faults a film might have.

I realize this probably seems painfully obvious. I mean, duh, a film critic is supposed to talk about the overall quality of a movie. Well, fuck you. I'm new to this and in trying to turn this love/obsession into a career I'm having to really re-think my shit.

There was a small part of me though that was scared that this new way of thinking critically about a movie would dampen my overall love of movies, including the worst of the worst that I shamelessly own and watch again and again.

So to put this fear to rest, I watched Van Helsing.

That movie fucking sucks. There is no defense. Well, the score is pretty cool. I always knew it was bad, I just didn't care.

Thankfully though, even as my newly minted critic brain was turning its wheels, I took comfort in the fact that I still didn't care that it was bad. I still enjoyed every awful second of it. None of that so bad it's good bullshit. I liked it. Just cause.

So fear not, I'll make it my duty to be honest about films, good and bad and in between.

Sometimes though, I'm just going to watch some shit. And sometimes, I'll be perfectly OK with that.