Step Brothers (2008, USA)

I enjoy Will Ferrell comedies when they really go off the deep end – for example, the Applebee’s commercial that interrupts the final race scene in Talladega Nights, or the network-on-network fight scene in Anchorman. Unfortunately, Ferrell’s latest has too little of the sublimely ridiculous, and too much of forty-year-old men acting like twelve-year-old boys. It’s a fitfully amusing movie, worth a rental on a slow night for moments like the bigotry neighborhood, Richard Jenkins’ childhood dream, and, of course, the fuckin’ Catalina Wine Mixer.

While I’m on the subject, though, I have to say that I’m getting more than a bit tired of the recent string of comedies from both Ferrell and Apatow camps that consistently glorify the adolescent male mentality. I ask you – where are the comedies about me, the reluctantly adult-ish American woman? Sure, we got Baby Mama this spring, but in comparison with the approximately 83 films that Judd Apatow has had his paws on over just the past two years, it’s kind of a moot point. And don’t talk to me about Sex and the City – can’t women on film be legitimately funny without simultaneously making the rest of us feel bad about our lives because we can’t afford $800 shoes? Here’s my proposal - why don’t we clone Tina Fey, and maybe Tamara Jenkins and Mindy Kaling while we’re at it, and stick the clones in a room with a couple of laptops? That should get things started. Someone’s got to give Anna Faris something better to do than The House Bunny.