I have no idea how TN is getting over 70% on Rottentomatoes.com.
Film critics just love NASCAR, I guess.
Right. Michael Mann is a robot.
He only wrote the screenplays for Manhunter, Heat, Collateral, Last of the Mohicans, The Insider.
Does your computer get the IMDB station?
Somehow I doubt that A.O. Scott is a big NASCAR fan.
There is a quote out there somewhere that I am going to hack to pieces, but it goes something like, Appeal to the lowest common denominator and you will never go hungry.
Rotten Tomatoes is a sampling of movie critics.
Are they the “lowest common denominator” now? Because when they all trashed “Pirates of the Caribbean 2”, the party line was that they’re all elitist snobs out of touch with the movie going public.
Has it dawned on anybody that just MAYBE this is a funny movie? That it could be about a NASCAR driver and perhaps send-up what’s funny about NASCAR while still having charming characters and getting some laughs out of some talented actors.
Or, did everyone just see the preview, and go “Will Ferrell in underwear. NASCAR. Definitely sucks.”
Bill Lumbergh, Mike Brady, Harvey Birdman and now Reese Bobby. All hail the greatness that is Gary Cole.
I haven’t seen the movie, but it’s obvious you and phall0106 are missing an in-joke. It’s customary for NASCAR drivers (well, just about any drivers) to plug their sponsors relentlessly. Even F1 drivers won’t just say, “our car was good today”, it’ll be more like “the Marlboro Scuderia Ferrari was good today”. Usually at least half of any post-race interview is nothing but a string of, “I want to thank Snap-On Tools, Trojan Condoms, Gerber Baby Food, Jack Daniels Whiskey”…for 5 straight minutes before they say anything about the actual race. And they have to swap different hats with different sponsors (usually the race sponsor gets the hat), drink different post-drink beverages, etc.
It’s not just a lot of product placement in a movie, it’s NASCAR-strength over-the-top product placement, a joke.
I thought I said this before, but I see that I didn’t. I did see it, and I have no idea…
It wasn’t horrible walk-out bad, it just was so formulaic in almost every respect.
It wasn’t the funniest movie I’ve seen this year and I can’t really recommend paying $8 to go see it right now,
however, it did have some good jokes, a harmless story line, and is worth seeing sometime (DVD rental).
The Nascar “in” jokes are pretty scarce (over the top product placement, Earnhardt Jr. cameo) and it played more to the “My Name is Earl” type fan who can laugh at the trailer type mentality.
I saw the movie last weekend. I didn’t laugh too often and found some parts painfully unfunny. But the movie is more a satire than a comedy so maybe that’s why a lot fell flat for me. Did anyone else suffer from the same confusion as me? I swear, Amy Adams’s character was introduced as Ricky Bobby’s sister. I got really confused and grossed out at the end! Sasha Baron Cohen was really excellent. Borat here I come!
psst, he was talking about Miami Vice, definitely not a NASCAR movie.
I thought she was the woman who lifted her shirrt and Ricky Bobby said “I hope she’s 18”.
I hate Will Ferrel, but I laughed through the whole movie.
I think you nailed it right here. I remember laughing my ass off at Will Ferrell’s cameo at the beginning of Austin Powers where his chair tipped back and he fell down into the room of flames, or whatever it was called.
“Hello, can anyone hear me? If you can, send help, because I’m very badly burned. I’m really in a lot of pain…oh, thank God. You’ve come to help me. I need…you shot me! I can’t believe you shot me!”
Granted, I’ve not seen a lot of Ferrell movies, but as a general rule, if he’s a main character I don’t like the movie. He should just go back to SNL and do Celebrity Jeopardy and GWB impersonations.
I haven’t seen any trailers, just the TV ads, but for some reason the “Help me, Tom Cruise!” line makes me laugh every time. Maybe that means I’ll like the movie. 
“Tom Cruise, use your witchcraft to get fire off me!”
I wasn’t planning to see the movie, but last night on Scarborough Country they had some guy who is the head of some christian movie watchdog group, and he was foaming at the mouth about how this movie makes fun of baby Jesus, and predicting widespread doom because of the moral decay represented by the movie. When another guest simply commented that she didn’t think it was a big deal, he accused her of making fun of baby Jesus and asked her if she really thought it was funny, and if she would also be willing to make fun of Allah. I seriously rewound it on Tivo to watch the whole thing again, it was so funny.
So now I’m going to see the movie. I’ll probably wait for it to come to PPV though.
The lines about Baby Jesus were pretty funny, though I wasn’t impressed with the movie as a whole.
Unlike someone above, I found the Cohen character painful. The accent kept throwing me, and while some of the gay jokes were funny (such as the cut to the announcers after the bio), some were just unpleasant and odd. The old man, the kids, the wife, I would have happily done without. The best friend, the father, the crew chief, I would have happily seen more of.
Jeezum Crow, some people just WANT to be offended. The movie doesn’t “make fun” of Baby Jesus, it just has a running gag in about how Will Ferrell always prefers to pray to “Baby Jesus” rather than “grown up Jesus.” There’s some humor in the detail he goes into in describing Baby Jesus while he says grace, but nothing he says is offensive or an attack on Jesus. Good lord, you would this guy would be happy that the characters are shown praying to Jesus at all, now he’s going to bitch about HOW they pray? It’s enough to make sweet, 6 pound, 8 ounce Baby Jesus roll his little eyes out of his head.
I shoulda done the double quote tag, or just quoted phall, but I was lazy. phall was talking about TN, and fetus responded with the Miami Vice attribute, so it made it look like I was responding to the wrong movie…but product placement in TN was what got the ball rolling, that’s the ball I was running with.
Are you referring to this reviewer?