Director: Adam McKay
Cast: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd, Steve Carrell
Have I Seen it Before: Seeing this film for the first time in the summer of 2004 was one of those special screenings. I don’t remember laughing that hard at a movie before, and I can’t think of a time since, either.
Did I Like It: But that’s the thing about a comedy. It can age horribly, not just because the jokes are from a different time, but because the version of you that enjoyed the film so much is an increasingly dim memory.
Who would have thought that a review for a movie that insists “San Diego” means “a whale’s vagina”?
I watch the film now and I have some mildly positive feelings about it, but that’s still largely memories of that summer 17 years ago. Maybe the film is just a bit too quotable. With so many movies that land on the tips of the tongues of every frat guy in the western world, the film may have grown tired and old by New Year’s Day 2005.
That’s a shame, because I remember this film delighting me beyond all measure. Now, it’s mildly diverting background noise. It’s probably not fair to judge the films on those terms. McKay and Judd Apatow probably didn’t count on the film being so loved in the instant of its release that there would be thousands of Facebook groups within the year called “I’m kind of a big deal”, they certainly didn’t bargain for a guy staring down the barrel of his 40th birthday occasionally feeling wistful for 20.
The soundtrack—where Ferrell, in character as Burgundy uncontrollably weeps throughout “Shannon”—has still got to be as funny as it was back then, right?