Word: talladega
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Even in comedy, where women were mandatory for smart repartee and the fade-out kiss, guys have elbowed them out of the equation. Forget Tracy and Hepburn. Today the standard pairing is some combination of Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Ferrell and one or more Wilsons. Wedding Crashers, Talladega Nights and Blades of Glory are basically male love stories: boy bonds with boy, boy breaks up with boy, boy and boy make up. The female interest is strictly nominal...
...bares his chest in his new movie - to show his hated rival "what a real skater's body looks like." That's just one similarity Blades of Glory (a great title, by the way) has with other Ferrell films. It's a sports comedy, like Kicking and Screaming (soccer), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (NASCAR racing) and next year's Semi-Pro (basketball). Like Talladega it gives him a colleague who's also a rival (Jon Heder) and a villain (here the tandem of Will Arnett and Amy Poehler) who will surely be defeated in the climactic competition...
...even remotely trying to make a great film. It has the slapdash air of a movie that was a little more fun to shoot than to watch. To say that Blades is a little sharper than Kicking and Screaming, but not nearly so smart as the best parts of Talladega, is like taste-testing a Big Mac against a Whopper and a Wendy's Classic Double. In other words, Blades an acceptable Friday evening diversion, most of which will have run through your system by Saturday morning...
...personified by Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg, a borderline-incestuous brother-sister pair whose long-skate routine has the theme "Forbidden Love," with Stranz skating as JFK and Fairchild as Marilyn Monroe. Arnett and Poehler's turn doesn't quite match Baron Cohen's as the French driver in Talladega, but Arnett gets points for smarming so nicely-nastily...
...Talladega Nights, Ferrell and Baron Cohen exchange a long, firm kiss, after which Baron Cohen says, in his faux-French accent, "You taste of America." That's Ferrell's appeal. He's us, and U.S.: a bully and a sweetie, deranged and good-natured, a jerk and a hero. He's the American taste: burgers and fries, supersized...