There are plenty of laughs in this silly story about two nincompoops battling for a North Carolina congressional seat, with Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, well suited to the roles of corrupt incumbent and his naive challenger. Amy chose it and I didn't expect to like it as much as I did, but all three of us had a good time. The two stars were last mentioned in the blog in Casa di mi Padre and The Hangover Part II, respectively. Fun support comes from John Lithgow (profiled in Rise of the Planet of the Apes) and Dan Aykroyd (best known to us boomers for 97 episodes of Saturday Night Live from 1975-2009, he was also notable in The Blues Brothers (1980 & 2000), Trading Places (1983), Ghostbusters (1984 & 1989), Dragnet (1987), Driving Miss Daisy (1989) which earned him an Oscar nomination, Chaplin (1992), and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), to name some of my favorites) as the one-percenters who try to puppeteer the election, Jason Sudeikis (covered in Horrible Bosses) as Ferrell's harried campaign manager, and Dylan McDermott (first came to my attention as Julia Roberts' husband in Steel Magnolias (1989), then did good work in, among others, In the Line of Fire (1993), Home for the Holidays (1995), 'Til There Was You (1997), and, of course, 147 episodes of The Practice (1997-2004). Fun fact: he remains close with Eve Ensler, who wrote The Vagina Monologues, even though she's no longer his stepmother) as the intense advisor to Galifianakis.
The soundtrack is by the composer for Hope Springs, Theodore Shapiro (here's a clip), and the list of songs is here.
It's been three weeks since we saw it, so I don't remember much more. You can definitely wait for cable (rottentomatoes is tepid on this one: 66% critics, 57% audiences) but if you like the stars you'll probably enjoy it.
No comments:
Post a Comment