Saturday 29 December 2007

Steve Carell is a Really Really Funny Man




I watched "Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy" again last night...It's a bit uneven, but very funny in many spots and allows for a great deal of improvisation. This is apparent in a few outtakes included in the final credits. In particular, this sequence of lines from Steve Carell's "Brick Tamland" character which is supposed to show his, shall we say, lower level of intelligence:

  • "I drank a lava lamp. It wasn't lava."
  • "I ate a whole bunch of fiberglass insulation. It wasn't cotton candy like that guy said. slight pause. wince. My stomach's itchy..."
  • "I pooped a hammer."
  • "I pooped a tape recorder."
  • "I pooped a cornish game hen."

Shown in rapid fire succession, I was pretty much in tears by the third line. You really need Carell delivering the lines with his intonation and deadpan expression though.

4 comments:

James McNally said...

How about:

"I DON'T KNOW WHY WE'RE YELLING!"

and

"I killed a guy with a trident!"

Funny stuff, and yes, the whole film seems improvised. In fact, the trailer that showed a few months before the film had lots of stuff that wasn't even in the final film.

dana said...

Anchorman is my favorite movie of all time, pretty much without a doubt. Even though Will Ferrell steals every single scene, Carell comes pretty damn close a lot of the time.

PIPER said...

I agree with you that Anchorman is uneven. It feels like it's always building to another gag. But there are many funny moments. One of my favorites is after the anchorman fight where Burgundy says "that elevated pretty fast... Brick killed a guy."

Brick says "I killed a guy with a trident"

Burgundy says "yeah, I've been meaning to say something to you about that. You're probably going to want to lay low for a while."

Funny stuff.

Bob Turnbull said...

I think I'm going to have to watch 'Anchorman' again soon...I burst out laughing at the "I DON'T KNOW WHY WE'RE YELLING!" line and the trident one was set up perfectly by Burgundy's straight faced "that elevated pretty fast..."

Damn, if it wasn't past midnight, I'd probably pop it in now.

Thanks for the comments!