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The Guardian
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
In defence of Step Brothers: the platonic ideal of Obama-era comedy
It's 2008. George W Bush is wrapping up his presidency. The world's economy is in turmoil, but Obama is ascendant. The US's – and the world's – problems will soon be solved once and for all. The peak comedy of this era is, of course, Step Brothers. Adam McKay's previous hit collaborations with Will Ferrell, Anchorman and Talladega Nights, hit a rich seam of man-children being elevated to folk-hero status. We could call it a thematic trilogy, if we were being a bit pretentious – like Ingmar Bergman's faith trilogy, but with more prosthetic testicles. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning In Step Brothers, the duo finally boil their theme down to its bare bones: two grown men in their 40s inexplicably acting like 10-year-old boys. Brennan (Ferrell) and Dale (John C Reilly) are brought under one roof by the marriage of their parents (Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins). At first, they respond the way any prepubescent imps would, with territorial acrimony and spite, before forming an alliance over their mutual hatred of Brennan's brother Derek (Adam Scott). Brennan and Dale are the epitome of what would later be known online as 'large adult sons' – giant, gormless failures, sheltered by low expectations. They brawl, assemble bunk beds, and destroy the lives of their retirement-aspirant parents with the destructive force of dogs who don't know their own size. These are the men of the 2000s: outsize children running rampant in a world that lets them do so. Critics were displeased. 'Another unashamedly juvenile comedy,' wrote Guardian reviewer Peter Bradshaw. 'When I left, I felt a little unclean,' said Roger Ebert. 'In its own tiny way, it lowers the civility of our civilisation.' Nothing will get me in the theatre faster than an affront to civility. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion There are the prosthetic testicles, of course, and there's dog poo, farting, and raucous sex scenes. But Step Brothers transcends all that and builds its own world. It's juvenile and sublime, dumb and clever, dated and timeless. Ferrell and Reilly have a unique chemistry. They are revolting and endlessly endearing, skating easily over the script's cracks. Together, they invite us to laugh at a dying breed – the coddled, mediocre man – but also celebrate him. As with McKay and Ferrell's previous films, it's a man's world. Women condemn, but are ultimately enthralled by, this masculine freedom. Steenburgen's Nancy can't help but protect her large adult son from a world that expects too much (anything) from him. The film's innate irony, meanness, and childishness are the dying embers of the Gen X sensibility – a generation which, as the comedian Stewart Lee once wrote, 'profiteered from the assumption that political correctness was a done deal, and now we could have fun jumping in and out of its boundaries, like street kids round a spurting water main.' But of course, these men weren't dying out. They were mutating into something worse: media behemoths, CEOs and presidents. The dominance of the idiot man was far from over, but it's far more cruel than innocent. The large adult sons who rule the world are still ridiculous, but they're winning. This may explain why, after Step Brothers, McKay's films got angrier and more literal. His next, the 2010 buddy-cop comedy The Other Guys, ends on an unparalleled bit of tonal whiplash, as the credits are splashed with infographic stats about the beneficiaries of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The Big Short, Vice, and Don't Look Up are angry polemics dressed up as comedies. 'Can you believe they're getting away with this?' he seems to be yelling at us. Yes. Yes I can. 'Sometimes I think I am living in a nightmare. All about me, standards are collapsing, manners are evaporating, people show no respect for themselves.' That, once again, is Roger Ebert in his 2008 review of Step Brothers. Roger, it was a beautiful dream, and one I cherish. The nightmare is now. Step Brothers is available to stream on Netflix, Stan, Binge and Prime Video in Australia and available to rent in the UK and US. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here
The Guardian
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
In defence of Step Brothers: the platonic ideal of Obama-era comedy
It's 2008. George W Bush is wrapping up his presidency. The world's economy is in turmoil, but Obama is ascendant. The US's – and the world's – problems will soon be solved once and for all. The peak comedy of this era is, of course, Step Brothers. Adam McKay's previous hit collaborations with Will Ferrell, Anchorman and Talladega Nights, hit a rich seam of man-children being elevated to folk-hero status. We could call it a thematic trilogy, if we were being a bit pretentious – like Ingmar Bergman's faith trilogy, but with more prosthetic testicles. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning In Step Brothers, the duo finally boil their theme down to its bare bones: two grown men in their 40s inexplicably acting like 10-year-old boys. Brennan (Ferrell) and Dale (John C Reilly) are brought under one roof by the marriage of their parents (Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins). At first, they respond the way any prepubescent imps would, with territorial acrimony and spite, before forming an alliance over their mutual hatred of Brennan's brother Derek (Adam Scott). Brennan and Dale are the epitome of what would later be known online as 'large adult sons' – giant, gormless failures, sheltered by low expectations. They brawl, assemble bunk beds, and destroy the lives of their retirement-aspirant parents with the destructive force of dogs who don't know their own size. These are the men of the 2000s: outsize children running rampant in a world that lets them do so. Critics were displeased. 'Another unashamedly juvenile comedy,' wrote Guardian reviewer Peter Bradshaw. 'When I left, I felt a little unclean,' said Roger Ebert. 'In its own tiny way, it lowers the civility of our civilisation.' Nothing will get me in the theatre faster than an affront to civility. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion There are the prosthetic testicles, of course, and there's dog poo, farting, and raucous sex scenes. But Step Brothers transcends all that and builds its own world. It's juvenile and sublime, dumb and clever, dated and timeless. Ferrell and Reilly have a unique chemistry. They are revolting and endlessly endearing, skating easily over the script's cracks. Together, they invite us to laugh at a dying breed – the coddled, mediocre man – but also celebrate him. As with McKay and Ferrell's previous films, it's a man's world. Women condemn, but are ultimately enthralled by, this masculine freedom. Steenburgen's Nancy can't help but protect her large adult son from a world that expects too much (anything) from him. The film's innate irony, meanness, and childishness are the dying embers of the Gen X sensibility – a generation which, as the comedian Stewart Lee once wrote, 'profiteered from the assumption that political correctness was a done deal, and now we could have fun jumping in and out of its boundaries, like street kids round a spurting water main.' But of course, these men weren't dying out. They were mutating into something worse: media behemoths, CEOs and presidents. The dominance of the idiot man was far from over, but it's far more cruel than innocent. The large adult sons who rule the world are still ridiculous, but they're winning. This may explain why, after Step Brothers, McKay's films got angrier and more literal. His next, the 2010 buddy-cop comedy The Other Guys, ends on an unparalleled bit of tonal whiplash, as the credits are splashed with infographic stats about the beneficiaries of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The Big Short, Vice, and Don't Look Up are angry polemics dressed up as comedies. 'Can you believe they're getting away with this?' he seems to be yelling at us. Yes. Yes I can. 'Sometimes I think I am living in a nightmare. All about me, standards are collapsing, manners are evaporating, people show no respect for themselves.' That, once again, is Roger Ebert in his 2008 review of Step Brothers. Roger, it was a beautiful dream, and one I cherish. The nightmare is now. Step Brothers is available to stream on Netflix, Stan, Binge and Prime Video in Australia and available to rent in the UK and US. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Shut It Down': Why Adam McKay Is Endorsing a Mass Strike for Workers Across Industries
On Thursday Don't Look Up filmmaker Adam McKay appeared at the virtual town hall of a grassroots group attempting to help organize a general strike, encouraging participants to 'shut down this broken, befouled economy.' McKay joined a town hall for the 'General Strike 4 Resignations' group alongside Chris Smalls, the co-founder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union and one of the subjects of the 2024 documentary Union, which McKay executive produced. More from The Hollywood Reporter Writers Guild West Staffers Launch Their Own Unionization Drive (Exclusive) My Mother, the Hollywood Scab Writers Guild West Bars Members From Working on Martin Scorsese-Produced Film Due to Randall Emmett's Role The idea of a general strike — however realistic or unrealistic — has gained momentum in select activist and labor circles in the last few years as a means of changing the status quo in the U.S. The general idea is that if enough working people, unionized or not, withhold their labor across the country, they can establish enough leverage to change policy. While still far from mainstream, two leaders of major stateside unions — Association of Flight Attendants international president Sara Nelson and United Automobile Workers president Shawn Fain — have endorsed the notion, with Fain calling on fellow unions to time their labor contracts to expire on May Day 2028 to make a mass work stoppage possible for organized workers. McKay is a believer, as he demonstrated on Friday. 'I am here because I am terrified,' he told the modest group of attendees, which hovered a little above 30 over the course of the town hall. 'I have two daughters and a wife that I love, and I became friends with a bunch of climate scientists. Then at that point, I started to petition our government to do something about this calamity [climate change] that is happening right in front of our faces. And look, I'm a Hollywood guy, so we have money, we talk to people. You can be like, 'Screw you.' But I am here to tell you, the people in Washington D.C., the people in London and the Western countries do not give a shit about what's going on.' McKay added that he has tried to push the Democratic left 'for years' to no avail. 'Eventually I started to figure out, 'Oh, they don't want to offend their money.' So the two parties at this point are useless. So what do we do? And what we do is we shut down this broken, befouled economy.' Over the course of the conversation with Smalls and the General Strike 4 Resignations organizers, which occasionally meandered to the topics of the Blue Origin all-female space trip, AI, Palestine and socialism, the filmmaker promised that he would pledge $250,000 to a strike fund to help cover the living costs of people in the southwestern U.S. if a general strike came about. 'If you're a wealthy person and you're hearing this, you are delusional if you're not giving money to the same fund,' McKay said. The filmmaker also emphasized the importance of spreading the idea of a general strike through word of mouth, saying that his work in the media industry has shown him that the business is always trying to recreate those kind of exchanges. He underscored the urgency of climate change and its effects, like rising global temperatures. 'I kind of feel like the whole reason we're here is that every one of you needs to say, 'Fuck social media, fuck the press.' Talk to the people to your left and right and say 'shut it down,'' he said. 'It is a monster death machine. And I am telling you, I have met with so many scientists and so many economists. Shut it down. We can do it. We really can.' McKay has been active in climate causes in recent years, donating $4 million in 2022 to the Climate Emergency Fund and joining the board of directors. In 2023 he launched the nonprofit Yellow Dot Studios, which seeks to activate people around climate change with entertaining short-form videos 'that challenge the decades of disinformation pushed by oil companies and amplified by large swaths of elected leaders and the media,' according to the organization's website. As Donald Trump amassed electoral votes during the 2024 presidential election, which he eventually won, McKay — who has in the past identified as a Democratic Socialist — posted on X that 'it is time to abandon the Dem Party. I'm registering Green Party or Working Families. But am open to ideas.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter How the Warner Brothers Got Their Film Business Started Meet the World Builders: Hollywood's Top Physical Production Executives of 2023 Men in Blazers, Hollywood's Favorite Soccer Podcast, Aims for a Global Empire
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Film Movement Acquires N. America For ‘An American Pastoral' Doc Capturing Toxic U.S. Public School Meetings
EXCLUSIVE: Film Movement has acquired North American rights for French filmmaker Auberi Edler's documentary An American Pastoral, chronicling the struggles in a rural Pennsylvanian community over the future of its public schools. The cinema vérité-style work – produced by Les Films d'Ici Méditerranée – won the Best Directing Award at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). More from Deadline Film Movement Acquires U.S. Rights To Adam McKay & Alan Cumming EPd Philippines Land Grab Docudrama 'Asog' Film Movement Takes North America For Palestinian Director Scandar Copti's 'Happy Holidays' Doc Talk Podcast: Carla Gutiérrez And Irene Taylor From Amsterdam, Plus IDFA Chief Orwa Nyrabia Decries Left-Wing Policing Of Free Speech Film Movement have slated the work for a theatrical release in 2025, to be followed by a launch on leading digital platforms and the home entertainment marketplace. The documentary captures the battle for control of public schools in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, a picturesque town situated in the rolling farmland of Lancaster County. On the surface, it has all the charm of small-town America but behind its bucolic veneer lies a fracture in the making as local school board meetings turn into a battleground. After months of vitriolic debates over Covid-19 restrictions, budget priorities, and library books, four of the five long-serving Republican incumbents announce their retirement, leaving the door open for far-right Christian Nationalists to potentially seize control. The acquisition announcement was made by Film Movement President Michael Rosenberg and Arianna Castoldi, Head of Documentary Sales for Mediawan. 'In true vérité style, Edler offers no narration or commentary, instead letting the interpersonal dramas and behind-the-scenes events play out on screen in absorbing fashion,' said Rosenberg. 'At a time when politics has seeped into every facet of our lives, An American Pastoral shows how the fraying of our national fabric is playing out locally.' Further recent acquisitions for Film Movement include Marie Losier's Queer Lion-nominee Peaches Goes Bananas, Shall We Dance?, starring Oscar nominee Koji Yakusho, and Pedro Martin-Calero's The Wailing. Best of Deadline 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Tonys, Emmys, Oscars & More 'The Last Of Us': Differences Between HBO Series & Video Game Across Seasons 1 And 2 'Ransom Canyon' Book Vs. Show Differences: From Quinn & Staten's Love Story To Yancy Grey's Plot
BBC News
12-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Jersey Bulls title hopes hit by Redhill defeat
Redhill knocked Jersey Bulls off the top of Combined Counties Premier South as the islanders lost 2-1 at home to their title drawn 1-1 in Surrey last week the pair met at Springfield knowing a win for the islanders would put them three points clear with two games to two goals in as many second-half minutes saw the English side become just the second team to beat the islanders in the league this had the better of the opening exchanges as Lorne Bickley had a penalty claim turned down before Adam McKay and Toby Ritzema headed wide from Miguel Carvalho the hosts went ahead in the 28th minute as Adam Trotter finished well after Joe Kilshaw had broken up the could have gone into the break 2-0 up, but Bickley hit the bar shortly after the was a miss they would regret as Redhill levelled when Timmy Obisanya poked the ball home from a goalmouth scramble following a floated 57th-minute free kick from the edge of the almost straight away Redhill were in front when substitute Elliott York blasted in from 12 yards after Euan van der Vliet had saved Nathan Hogan's Queree had a header palmed wide while Kurtis Guthrie had a penalty appeal waved away inside the final 10 minutes as the island side pushed unsuccessfully for an result leaves Redhill three points clear of Bulls with a game against mid-table Guildford City to Bulls would likely still win the title should they win their final two games thanks to their goal difference, which is 18 better than Redhill' travel to mid-table Abbey Rangers on Tuesday night before hosting relegation-threatened Sandhurst Town at Springfield next week.
