So I caught Stranger Than Fiction and The Holiday, two movies featuring two comedians I like doing serious roles; Will Ferrell (best in Anchorman and the Cowbell SNL skit) and Jack Black (best in School Of Rock, and maybe Tenacious D: Pick Of Destiny whenever I get to see it.)

Despite the many questions of the believeability of Stranger Than Fiction, like, “Did her character manifest in real life… or is Karen in her book?“, it is certainly more believeable than The Holiday, where Jude Law knocks on your door (wow!) and he has big-eyed kids (awww!) and he is a widower (AWWW.) Bloody Hallmark channel trite.

Those scriptwriters take every chance they get to put an AWWW moment in. Are we supposed to start crying in the first 15 minutes of the movie?

In Stranger Than Fiction, Will Ferrell plays Harold Crick, an IRS taxman who suddenly hears the voice of novelist Kay Eiffel (played by a very sombre Emma Thompson). She then narrates that he is going to die… which freaks him out. Will looks distraught, which really isn’t that much of a departure from him, because ALL his movies feature him going through a rough patch. He also always beds a hot chick (except in Kicking And Screaming, I think…)

Stolen from IMDB’s Quotes:

Harold Crick: [talking to Ana while holding a cardboard box with multiple small paper bags inside] I brought you flours.

(The joke being that Ana is a baker that Harold has the hots for. That scene was a lot more real and more sweet because he was a gangly nerdy taxman, as opposed to the super suave Jude Law who has everything set romantically, being an editor, which was by far the least romantic job held by any of the characters in The Holiday.)

Meanwhile, in The Holiday, Jack Black is always animated and always gets a singing skit. I tire of seeing it when it’s not appropriate.

The ending for Stranger Than Fiction might disappoint, but the irony of that is already stated in the movie.

Dr. Hilbert: It’s not great, it’s okay.

The movie is the novel! The beautiful irony of that made me realize how brilliant it was.

Both movies have a lot of hidden references; The Holiday makes it most obvious, with each character having a few references to previous movies. Heck, the movie was written with the four stars in mind! Stranger Than Fiction has loads of references to The Beatles.

I wonder now if Sacha Baron Cohen will do a serious role. Yeah, the guy behind Ali G, Julien (he goes “I like to mooove it mooove it!” in Madagascar)

I don’t quite know how he would outdo the masterpiece that is Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, really. I loved the hidden irony and parody; Borat is a reporter from a fictional Kazakhstan who comes to America to learn its culture and document it for his country to see.

Random quotes stolen from IMDB:

Borat: My neighbor Nushuktan Tulyiagby is still assholes. I get iPod, he get iPod mini. Haha! Everyone know iPod mini for girls!
Borat: Go, kids! Smash the Jew chick before it hatches!
Azamat: [points to two cockroaches] The Jews have shifted their shapes!
Borat: You telling me the man who try to put a rubber fist in my anus was a homosexual?
Borat: My moustache still tastes of your testes!

Yes, there are some pretty gross scenes there (which came about since Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby, where Sacha plays Jean Girard, a gay racecar driver who kisses Will Ferrell.)

While it seems like Borat is a highly ignorant chauvinist ape from a faraway land, he is really parodying the Americans in their ignorance of outside culture. For example, in his fictional Kazakhstan, they believe that Jews transform into ogres and that they must be killed. (Sacha is Jewish, heh.)