MY MOVIE SHELF: Blades of Glory

This is the deal: I own around 350 movies on DVD and Blu-ray. Through June 10, 2015, I will be watching and writing about them all, in the order they are arranged on my shelf (i.e., alphabetically, with certain exceptions). No movie will be left unwatched . I welcome your comments, your words of encouragement and your declarations of my insanity.

Movie #32: Blades of Glory

“These guys put the ‘bone’ in ‘Zamboni.'”

Honestly, I’m not sure if Blades of Glory is an underrated Will Ferrell movie or if it just speaks to me, personally, because of that weird mashup of love I have for sports movies in general, The Cutting Edge in particular, The House of Yes, and Will Arnett and Amy Poehler as a couple. (I’m still upset they split up, even if I think Nick Kroll is okay too.) I think it’s the former, but it might be — in part at least, it probably is — the latter. Regardless, this movie makes me laugh like crazy.

I’ve already mentioned my preference for Will Ferrell in small doses, and how its his supporting cast, more than he himself, that wins me over. This one has Will Arnett and Amy Poehler as crazy, incestual siblings (House of Yes reference #1) Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg, who are gangster Pairs figure skaters. I doesn’t get much more psychotic than that. Add Jenna Fischer as good girl Katie Van Waldenberg (sister to Stranz and Fairchild) who at one point vamps it up splendidly and Jon Heder (who is polarizing, yes, but tends to shine when playing somewhat stunted individuals, as he does here — and I dig it) as pretty boy precision figure skater champion Jimmy MacElroy. (He dresses as a literal peacock for the opening competition. It’s spectacular.) Oh, and they also manage to get honest-to-god skating superstars Nancy Kerrigan, Scott Hamilton, Dorothy Hamill, Peggy Fleming, Brian Boitano and Sasha Cohen to cameo, among others.

Speaking of Kerrigan, cultured MacElroy is like the Nancy Kerrigan to Ferrell’s (as Chazz Michael Michaels) Tonya Harding — the hardscrabble upstart, overweight and full of hard living. They have a public brawl and are banned from Men’s skating forever, but come back four years later to compete as Pairs. With each other.

Blades of Glory somehow manages to send up every sports movie cliché in smart and hilarious ways. It’s like the writers were watching the Olympics (which do not appear in the movie, but are instead parodied as the World Wintersport Games) and wondered what it would be like if ice skating were covered like other sports. Chazz Michael Michaels is the stereotypical bad boy of the sport. He doesn’t play by the same rules, and he’s provocative and daring. Jimmy McElroy is a symbol of the famous Olympian training, driven and focused from a very young age. There are training montages and one-upmanship. There is animosity and sabotage and even a great chase scene. The rival team puts on a near-perfect program (featuring JFK — House of Yes reference #2). And of course, there is the magical final skate that manages to pull off the impossible move they’ve been working on for weeks (hello, Cutting Edge).

Predictably, there are great jokes here, both subtle and less so, but the real draw is the insane physical comedy. It’s not even the various skating programs, either. The best scene by far is Stranz chasing Chazz through a building while they are both on skates, unable to walk. Cracks me up. Second place, though, might go to the Van Waldenbergs skating “an edgy look at urban culture, told in the language of the streets” to “Good Vibrations” by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, while dressed kind of like a bedazzled Salt ‘n Pepa if Salt ‘n Pepa were white and one of them was a dude.

Honorable mention to perpetual stupid-movie That Guy, Nick Swardson, who does a dynamite job as Jimmy’s stalker Hector. There’s a bonus scene of him in the closing credits that is not to be missed if only for his impressions of both MacElroy and Michaels.

And one final piece of interesting trivia: Busy Phillips, who stars in my beloved Cougar Town (once of ABC, now on TBS), has a story credit for Blades of Glory. Blades of Glory contains a joke about something being “mind-bottling … when things are so crazy it gets your thoughts all trapped, like in a bottle.” This sort of joke, using the wrong phrase for something because your definition makes more sense than the real one, is frequently seen on Cougar Town. “Change approved!”

 

MY MOVIE SHELF: The Benchwarmers

This is the deal: I own around 350 movies on DVD and Blu-ray. Through June 10, 2015, I will be watching and writing about them all, in the order they are arranged on my shelf (i.e., alphabetically, with certain exceptions). No movie will be left unwatched . I welcome your comments, your words of encouragement and your declarations of my insanity.

Movie #27: The Benchwarmers

Ever since I started this project, my husband has been cracking himself up over the reality that I would eventually come to this stupid movie of his, and I would be forced to watch it. Well, the joke’s on him. The Benchwarmers is actually not that bad.

I’m not sure if it’s the surreal feeling of seeing Rob Schneider play it straight (i.e., not some lunatic gross weirdo character), my weird affinity for David Spade and Jon Lovitz, or the sheer joy I feel when Craig Kilborn gets what’s coming to him, but this movie made me laugh quite a bit. It’s goofy, yes. And stupid, yes. And it’s by Adam Sandler’s production company, Happy Madison, so it’s teeming with gross and inappropriate jokes. But it’s funny. And it’s got heart — not unlike something akin to The Bad News Bears.

I’m not sure what at the time would make this so forgettable or make so many assume outright that it was terrible. It couldn’t have been marketed well, I’m guessing, though I doubt that was the only cause. Maybe the world was just burned out on Adam Sandler movies — the mere sight of Rob Schneider (especially considering his previous roles) is enough to make me cringe on most occasions, and I’m sure that’s true for lots of people. Not only that, but David Spade in weird hair is a hard sell on any day, and Jon Heder’s breakout film Napoleon Dynamite was kind of polarizing in that some people really got it and loved it, and everybody else just hated it; there wasn’t a middle ground. (He still seems to have that effect, truth be told.)

I was definitely one of the people who looked at the trailers and posters for this movie and thought, “Ugh.” I wanted nothing to do with it, even after it sat on my shelf for the past eight years. However, I’ve been wrong before and, more importantly, I’m willing to admit it when it happens. This isn’t a movie I’m going to watch over and over again, and it isn’t something I’m going to hold up as an example of how movies should be made or revere in my heart as a treasured favorite, but it made me laugh — out loud, several times — and that’s certainly worth something.