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Friday, October 31, 2003
Can't beat a beautiful day off, now can you? It's a perfect fall Friday, a crisp, blue-skied halloween, and time for us to hit the highway to head northwards... it's up to Vermont to officially usher in my 'mid-thirties'. It ain't nuthin' but a number, right?
 Caught a preview screening last night of Elf, which comes out next week, and I've gotta say... it was hands-down high-larious. Will Ferrell is, as always, one seriously funny man-child. The movie was just sweet, plain and simple. And I don't mean "dude!" sweet ... I mean, "awwww..." sweet. Jon Favreau set out to direct a timeless holiday film, and thanks to a good script and an great cast, he may have damn well done it. Low on bitterness, high on straightforward sentimentality, very light on toilet-humor... the comedy comes straight from Ferrell's reactions to the 'real' world of NYC after being raised by north pole elves. I can be pretty cynical when it comes to blatant attempts to manipulate and tug at the heartstrings, but this movie was enough to knock down those walls. Halfway through I realized my cheeks were starting to hurt from laughing so much. I was sucked in early thanks to all the blatant Rankin-Bass stylee in the first 1/2 hour... all those old stop-animation TV Christmas specials like Rudolph and the Year Without a Santa Claus that I loved so much as a kid. Hell, I still do. The opening credits, the perfect score, the animated characters... you'll see. They really pulled together a great cast for it, too... James Caan, Zooey Deschanel, Mary Steenburgen, all excellent. The supporting players are almost all welcome familiar faces... Andy Richter, Kyle Gass from Tenacious D, Amy Sedaris, Faizon Love, along with comedy vets like Bob Newhart and Ed Asner. Even Peter Dinklage from the Station Agent shows up in a scene that just killed me. Pay attention to the way Will Ferrell delivers three simple words: "Look at you!". Awesome. Judging from the reaction of all the kids at the screening, this movie is going to be HUGE. This is an an unashamed family film, and it knows it. It walks this accutely self-aware line between over-sentiment and nudge-nudge, wink-wink sarcasm that no holiday film I've seen in years has done. They didn't need to 'spice' anything up for the adults, didn't need to throw in l.c.d. gross-out stuff to get a laugh from kids. Amie summed it up best when we walked out... "That movie was just the cutest!". Yeah, it kinda was. "... and it's halloween, tonight and every night ..." - elliott smith  |
 neil halstead live in cambridge, ma on november 14th, 2008 previously: joy formidable - boston 2011 recent posts on the 'nac...
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