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By Beth in NBC, Will Ferrell, comedy, Movies, TV, film, pop culture, Amaldo.Com, The Today Show, Daily Show on June 3 2009
 Will Ferrell made a stop on the Today Show today to promote his latest flick, Land of the Lost. Ferrell has been fulfilling his various promotional duties - the press-related racket that comes with being owned by Universal and even made a stop earlier this week to baptize Conan’s new Late Show, and proclaiming himself honorary 1st guest. Ferrell’s memorable entrance on the show featured him sitting atop a sedan chair while 4 men in loincloths carried him and the chair.
But back to Matt Lauer and his visions of stardom.
Lauer was not on hand to interview Will Ferrell (that would be too gauche), but Meredith Vierra was and true to her ever-inappropriate, stick 2-feet-and-elbow-and-a-car-in-her-mouth ways, she simply talked about Matt Lauer’s cameo with little regard for Will or the film. Whether this was calculated or not, the whole interview was about Matt Lauer.
For those of you egging for a real Will Ferrell interview and what components it should entail, check out this Daily Show clip from 2000.
By Beth in Uncategorized, Will Ferrell, comedy, Movies, Hollywood, film, pop culture, Steve Carell, Amaldo.Com, celebrity, Evan Almighty on June 24 2007
 I really adore Steve Carell. As egomaniac boss of a small paper company Michael Scott in NBC’s “The Office” or the shy, affable 40-year-old virgin in Judd Apatow’s delightful comedy, Carell always manages to bring a bit of humanity, class, and humor to his roles. His understated pithy witticisms and his intuitive sense of timing make him inarguably one of the best comedic talents out there today. And I’m sorry to say, well above Will Ferrell in my opinion, although I’m also fond of Ferrell’s shtick.
However, when it comes to the Summer box office and discerning what will become the next Blockbuster hit, it’s usually over-the-top that wins out over adjectives like unassuming and understated. Read More…
By ariel in Uncategorized, Entertainment, NBC, Will Ferrell, comedy, Blog, SNL, TV on May 7 2007
D.R Scott wrote on this blog about his dislike of SNL:
“I believed Saturday Night Live just wasn’t that funny. Oh sure, there were always random moments of savage comedic brilliance, but most of the time I felt as though I needed a few shots of Johnny Walker Red and a bong hit to get most of the sloppy, lazily-written bits to work.”
Watching last night’s NBC special SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE IN THE 90′S: POP CULTURE NATION got me thinking about it and my insight is that maybe it’s not supposed to be so funny. Sure, the show’s producers will not agree with me, but maybe It’s not about laughing as hard as you can. It’s more about smiling. No one can say that a bearded Will Ferrell, wearing a too tight shirt hammering a cow bell is not something to be smiling about. The feeling I get watching the show resembles in a way what I felt watching “ Clerks II” for the first time. It’s like meeting your old buddies again. They are not always hilarious, and you sometimes think they are immature, but still, it’s fun to see them again.
By Beth in Uncategorized, Will Ferrell, comedy, Comedy Central, The Office, Movies, Hollywood, Adam Sandler, Steve Carell, Newsweek on April 27 2007
 I happened to read the same Newsweek article mentioned in the previous post. I don’t dig “The Simpsons” so much so I can’t share Ariel’s enthusiasm, but I can share some of my insights about this summer preview article Newsweek unveiled on its unsuspecting readers.
Ok, so I read it twice, maybe three times. I kept thinking maybe I was missing out on the point of the piece? It’s a summer preview of all the comedies coming out this Summer. A lot of these movies star my favorite funnymen: Seth Rogen, Steve Carell, Robin Williams, Paul Rudd (questionable w/out Ferrell and Carell alongside), Adam Sandler, etc. And yet…And yet…
Why did Newsweek pay these guys to do tongue-in-cheek type reviews of their own films “in character”? The premise was just a little too weird for my pea-sized brain to wrap itself around.
Case-in-point: Paul Rudd is starring in “The Ten“-an anthology-based flick loosely based on the actual Ten Commandments in which each characters’ story somehow relates to one of the commandments.
So here’s what Rudd (as “Jeff“)writes for Newsweek:
Though it’s debated, many people believe that there was a first set of commandments that Moses smashed in a fit of anger (because the Israelites chose to worship the golden calf. Great!). Through extensive research (i.e., Wikipedia), a few of the originals have been unearthed. Drumroll, please:
- Thou shalt not get a tattoo of an Asian proverb if you’re a lame white guy.
- Honor small, medium and large. Tall, grande and venti are for jackasses.
- Thou shalt never try and live with bears.
- Thou shalt not go back to Rockville (specifically for R.E.M.).
- Thou shalt never, never, never, ever buy a Hummer.
Huh? Maybe it’s just too obscure to have comedians pretending to be actors acting “in-part” pretending to be writers describing their pretend roles to readers.
Can the equation work when only one of its component is actually real?
By ariel in Uncategorized, Entertainment, Will Ferrell, comedy, Amaldo' Home, Movies, Adam Sandler, Sneak Peak on March 29 2007
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As we are getting closer (some may say not fast enough) to the weekend, here is a list of movies if you decide to do some passive activity, such as going to the cinema. So here are the movies and what Yahoo movies had to say about them. 1. Blades Of Glory- Will Ferrell and Jon Heder star as rival figure skaters, banned and disgraced from the sport, who team together as pairs’ skaters. 2. Peaceful Warrior- A mysterious stranger leads an arrogant, talented college gymnast on a spiritual journey that will change his life forever. 3. Meet The Robinsons- A boy genius creates a machine to recover the lost memory of the past and embarks on an amazing adventure with his future family.
By Beth in Uncategorized, NBC, Will Ferrell, comedy on March 6 2007
 I often think about how pop comedians are among the saddest bunch of people around, even the ones I find less remarkable. But then again, they also spend the majority of their time head-on with some of life’s less desirable, universal truths.
I mulled over this while watching the final ten minutes of “Heroes” last night, which also happens to be the season finale. I could write a whole post on the deterioration of the network TV’s “season” cycle, but I won’t bore you right now.
At present my focus is on a debate that was put forth in the episode regarding leading a life of meaning versus one of happiness. I realize this isn’t exactly esoteric, existential orgasmic content here, but it brought up the whole Zen Buddhist“living in the moment” equates with true happiness. That means that the remainder of us who spend our lives muddling around in the past and worrisome about our future are therefore condemned to lives of ultimate inadequacy with premature wrinkles and gray hairs being the least of our concerns.
I understand this logic and I don’t wholeheartedly disagree with it. I’ve witnessed both extremes and aspire to fall somewhere in between, tho truthfully I tend to fall more under the fine lines on forehead, dark circles under my eyes categorization.
This weekend after seeing “Stranger Than Fiction,” and readjusting my barometric mindset to Will Ferrell as serious dramatic actor, I had a similar moment of reflection to the one last night.
It’s the classic question that befalls even the smallest of minds at least once in our lives: If you knew you were going to die soon, how would you spend your last days? And as a tweaked addendum to that: Is it more meaningful to die a noble death than live a humble life?
Of course in today’s three-ring circus of a media, the words “noble” and “humble,” excluded, death can bring about a measure of substance to an otherwise disgraceful life. Take Anna Nicole Smith for example. Or perhaps if Scooter Libby tragically killed himself, the guy would muster up a bit more sympathy.
There is a point in “Stranger Than Fiction” when Dustin Hoffman’s character turns to Will Ferrell’s likeable everyman and says, “You have to die. It’s the only way the book can end meaningfully.” It’s an odd moment in the film because your mind shifts from suspension of all absurdist belief to succumbing to all that is surreal in the film for the sake of the broader message being conveyed.
In short, it’s an “ahhh” moment where you piece together why the director spent 1.5 hours taking us along on such a creative and unorthodox journey for the sake at arriving to that exalted somewhere in our mind’s sky. He wanted that moment of convergence to resonate all the more powerfully - the message that living a life of meaning and happiness can be juxtaposed, if not forever, than at least for a little while.
And since that’s all we have really, I guess it ain’t so bad.
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