Fort Bliss Monitor

‘Anchorman’ Legend of Ron Burgundy so funny it hurt

Sgt. Trinace Johnson
Special to The Monitor

By far, the funniest movie this year, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy catapulted comedy to the highest level.

Will Ferrell (Burgundy), plays a pretentious, male chauvinist, not very intelligent, yet oddly likable San Diego news anchor whose 1973 male- dominated world of reporting comes tumbling down after a very ambitious star in the making rival female anchor, Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) joins his good-old-boy crew.
Burgundy was an award-winning, narcissistic, perfect haired (or so he thought) anchorman who remained number one in the ratings until Corningstone bumped him out. Corningstone, the self-proclaimed, “serious journalist,” plotted and landed Ron’s job.

Burgundy and his crew, cowboy Champ Kind (David Koechner), Brian Fantana, (Paul Rudd) a field reporter, and weather man Brick Tamland, (Steve Carell) who has an IQ of 48, do everything within their powers to stop Corningstone from becoming their “equal.” Which in itself was funny, because her character had a higher IQ than the four of them combined.

As badly as Ron and his boys treated Corningstone with their childish, sexual harassing, and plain ignorant antics, he couldn’t help his growing attraction to her or her to him.

Corningstone was no damsel in distress awaiting her superhero boyfriend to swoop her up into the journalism spotlight. She was a very competent newswoman who held her own in the male dominated newsroom that overflowed with testosterone.

As unbelievable as this movie would appear at first glance, the characters are remarkably believable, which makes it that much more funny. Nevertheless, in all its silliness, it brought up a serious point of the 70s and how diversity was forced into the all-male journalism workforce.

This was the most funny, organized, dimwitted confusion that’s come around in a long, long time; maybe since ‘Airplane.’ Five times funnier than Farrell’s ‘Old School,’ a ridiculously out of control ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit, you’ll laugh at every single scene. There are hilarious cameos by Ben Stiller, Jack Black and other comics.
There is comic violence, maiming, smoking, drinking and extremely explicit sexual references for a PG -13 movie, so don’t make the mistake of taking your children unless they’re in high school.



www.bliss.army.mil	Published for the Fort Bliss/El Paso, Texas Community	July 15, 2004

<map name="boxmap-b4"> <area shape="rect" coords="0, 589, 120, 600" href="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" > <area coords="0,0,10000,10000" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=&creative=92501&camp=8117&link_code=dl1&path=subst/misc/amazon-cobrand-cc/v3/marketing-from-associates-step1.html/ref%3Db1_assoc_29" > </map>	‘Anchorman’ Legend of Ron Burgundy so funny it hurt Sgt. Trinace Johnson Special to The Monitor By far, the funniest movie this year, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy catapulted comedy to the highest level. Will Ferrell (Burgundy), plays a pretentious, male chauvinist, not very intelligent, yet oddly likable San Diego news anchor whose 1973 male- dominated world of reporting comes tumbling down after a very ambitious star in the making rival female anchor, Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) joins his good-old-boy crew. Burgundy was an award-winning, narcissistic, perfect haired (or so he thought) anchorman who remained number one in the ratings until Corningstone bumped him out. Corningstone, the self-proclaimed, “serious journalist,” plotted and landed Ron’s job. Burgundy and his crew, cowboy Champ Kind (David Koechner), Brian Fantana, (Paul Rudd) a field reporter, and weather man Brick Tamland, (Steve Carell) who has an IQ of 48, do everything within their powers to stop Corningstone from becoming their “equal.” Which in itself was funny, because her character had a higher IQ than the four of them combined. As badly as Ron and his boys treated Corningstone with their childish, sexual harassing, and plain ignorant antics, he couldn’t help his growing attraction to her or her to him. Corningstone was no damsel in distress awaiting her superhero boyfriend to swoop her up into the journalism spotlight. She was a very competent newswoman who held her own in the male dominated newsroom that overflowed with testosterone. As unbelievable as this movie would appear at first glance, the characters are remarkably believable, which makes it that much more funny. Nevertheless, in all its silliness, it brought up a serious point of the 70s and how diversity was forced into the all-male journalism workforce. This was the most funny, organized, dimwitted confusion that’s come around in a long, long time; maybe since ‘Airplane.’ Five times funnier than Farrell’s ‘Old School,’ a ridiculously out of control ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit, you’ll laugh at every single scene. There are hilarious cameos by Ben Stiller, Jack Black and other comics. There is comic violence, maiming, smoking, drinking and extremely explicit sexual references for a PG -13 movie, so don’t make the mistake of taking your children unless they’re in high school.