Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (PG)

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy was one of the funniest things I had seen in a long while. Abosolutly hilarious it never struck me that second time I would look at it like dirt on my shoe. But I did, By all means watch it. In fact you definitely should. But like all comedies that rely to heavily on stupidity or shock factor comedy Anchorman has little lasting value. It's a great film. That is certainly male targeted.

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Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, follows many very funny comedies this year including School of Rock, Shaun of The Dead and Dodgeball. It competes with them all and was really enjoyable. Here's a quick plot summary:

Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) is news anchorman supreme in San Diego in the 70's and he's 'kind of a big deal'. He works in an all male team with the sports guy called Champ (David Koechner), the on-site reporter (played by Paul Rudd, Mike in Friends) and a weatherman called Brick (Steve Carell) who has an IQ of 48. His world crumbles when Veronica (Christina Applegate) turns up. She's a sexy lady with her eyes on becoming an anchorwoman and breaking into the male-dominated world.

Admittedly there's not much of a plot, but there doesn't need to be. The gags flow like wine and there are so many quotable lines you'll never remember them all. There are also quite a few cameos including Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughan, Tim Robbins and Jack Black, all of which don't feel too contrived and add something to the story. I laughed for the entire film and for a long while afterwards. Go see and enjoy, and remember, stay classy.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy - Many of you have heard my rant against Adam Sandler and his use of his "friends" who are not actors in many of his films. They have ruined his films, along with poor storylines. The "Old School" crew is starting to do this in films, as well. You can't keep using the same actors in different films, and hoping they will always work, you are abusing the audience. For example in this film we have the same actors that were in "Old School", with Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, and Luke Wilson. Also featured is Ben Stiller who was in "Starsky & Hutch", which was the same director. Even actors that are this good cannot continue to be "re-used" in this fashion.

This movie is set in the 1970's when all of the news anchormen were men. It was never even considered that women could sit on the main newsdesk. It also seems that smoking and littering were very big back then, too.

This station in San Diego hires a new female reporter, Christina Applegate (Kelly Bundy from "Married with Children"). They promise her that she can go after hardcore news, but they give her stories like "the cat fashion show"....

Every guy in the station tries to hit on her, with no luck. One guy even has 20 different types of aftershave. He considers his best one to be something called "Sweat of the Panther". He puts that on, and everyone in the newsroom thinks a skunk got into the building.

One man actually breaks through and beds Christina. That man is anchorman, Ron Burgundy, played by Will Ferrell. She asks him to please keep their affair quiet, and he agrees. That is, until the next day, when he announces it on the evening news. She was not happy about that. They were doing well for a couple of weeks.

One day, Ron was driving across a bridge, over the water. He decided he had enough of his burrito and decided to throw it out of his car window. It hit a biker, played by Jack Black, and caused him to wreck his motorcycle. Jack decided to destroy something that meant a lot to Ron, and kicked his dog over the bridge - to its almost certain death.

Ron was beside himself with grief. So much so, that he forgot to show up to do the news. The station manager did not know what to do. He decided to gamble and put Christina on the air as the anchor. Despite the rest of the all-male news teams' effort to distract her, she did a great job. When she finished, Ron showed up at the station. He couldn't believe that she did the news instead of him. They had a big fight, and broke up right there in the newsroom.

One of the best scenes in this movie is an all out rumble between the news stations. The top station is led by Ron and his team, then the second station is Vince Vaughn and his team, even Ben Stiller leads the Spanish speaking channel's news team. They re-enact many fight scenes from the 1970's, including the "Planet of the Apes".

After their break up, Ron and Christina are constantly fighting at the station. One of Ron's faults is that he will read anything put on the teleprompter. Christina has them add, "That's the news for today, and f you San Diego" to the prompter. Ron reads it without even thinking about it. He still didn't know that he did anything wrong, until the station manager had to fire him.

Ron goes into a complete funk. He drinks all of the time, and grows a "Moses"-like beard.

Meanwhile, Christina takes over the lead anchor position, and the news team starts to get along with her. They are getting better ratings too.

The biggest story in town is that a panda at the zoo is going to give birth sometime that summer. When it starts to happen, Christina heads to the zoo. Somehow, she disappears. The station manager is forced to call Ron back into action.

You get your typical happy ending here. "Old School" was an instant classic. "Starsky and Hutch" was a good movie. This film, is a "wait for rental". I give it a 7/10.