Talking to the Real Sacha Baron Cohen

DATE March 30, 2007 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Filler: By policy of WHYY, this information is restricted and has
been omitted from this transcript

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Review: Film critic David Edelstein on "Blades of Glory" with Will
Ferrell and Jon Heder
TERRY GROSS, host:

In the new film "Blades of Glory," Will Ferrell plays a boorish figure skater
forced to team up with another man in a pairs skating competition. Film
critic David Edelstein has this review of Ferrell's latest in the series of
parodies of macho men.

Mr. DAVID EDELSTEIN: Will Ferrell is the only "Saturday Night Live" alum to
hit paydirt at the movies without acting as if he's bigger than his material.
In one sense, his modesty isn't misplaced. He doesn't have Mike Myers' genius
for seeming to transform himself down to his DNA, and he doesn't fly his
peculiar neuroses as bravely as Adam Sandler. His big body is only moderately
expressive. His face, mild to the point of blandness. But I'd rather see a
Ferrell film than one by any of his fellow "SNL" graduates. He has a
sweetness that's missing from other modern screen clowns. He finds the lyric
poetry in fatuousness. In "Anchorman," "Talladega Nights," and the new
"Blades of Glory," he ravages the ideal of American masculinity--but so
tenderly, you could mistake it for an ode to innocence.

In "Blades of Glory," Ferrell plays figure skater Chazz Michael Michaels, a
sex-obsessed galoot who fondles his female fans and ends his twirls by
grabbing his crotch and talking trash. This is in stark contrast to his
slender, blond rival, Jimmy MacElroy, played by Jon Heder, who closes his
balletic routines by releasing a white dove. After a post-competition brawl,
the brute and the fem get banned by an all-star tribunal. But nearly four
grim years later, a loophole comes to light. They're allowed to compete in
pairs skating. And because registration is imminent, they have to team up
with each other under the tutelage of mad scientist skating coach Craig T.
Nelson. Obviously, Jimmy and Chazz don't see eye to eye on their routine.

(Soundbite of "Blades of Glory")

Mr. JON HEDER: (As Jimmy MacElroy) So, coach, I was thinking about the music
for our routine.

Mr. CRAIG T. NELSON: (As Coach) Really?

Mr. WILL FERRELL: (As Chazz Michael Michaels) We're going to skate to one
song, and one song only. "Lady Humps," by the Black Eyed Peas.

(Singing) "What you going to do with all that junk, all that junk inside my
trunk? I'm going to get you, get you drunk, get you drunk off my lady hump.
My hump, my hump, my lovely lady hump."

Mr. HEDER: (As Jimmy MacElroy) I'm not skating to anything with references
to lady humps. I don't even know what that means.

Mr. FERRELL: (As Chazz Michael Michaels) No one knows what it means. But
it's provocative.

Mr. HEDER: (As Jimmy MacElroy) No, it's not. It's gross.

Mr. FERRELL: (As Chazz Michael Michaels) It gets the people going!

(End of soundbite)

Mr. EDELSTEIN: Arguably, figure skating could use some humpa-humpa. But Chazz
and Jimmy must meet halfway. Chazz will plumb his softer side, and Jimmy will
ask out a girl, played by a radiantly waifish Jenna Fischer, from the American
"The Office." She's the reluctant accomplice of a champion skating pair, a
brother and sister with the sunny demeanor of The Osmonds and the morals of
Tonya Harding.

"Blades of Glory" is much more conventional than Ferrell's other parodies,
which were directed and cowritten by his frequent collaborator Adam McKay.
"The Odd Couple" buddy premise is routine, and the film has no demented highs
to equal Sacha Baron Cohen's prim gay French existentialist car racer in
"Talladega Nights," or the news team's impromptu a cappella crooning of
"Afternoon Delight" in "Anchorman." Still, the picture's loads of fun. The
triple lutzes land. The directors, Will Speck and Josh Gordon, know the
straighter it's all played, the more hilarious. As Chazz and Jimmy work
diligently on a potentially lethal move called "The Iron Lotus," I was choking
on my popcorn.

Jon Heder, of course, boogied to stardom as uber-dork "Napoleon Dynamite." I
don't know whether his dazed-but-prickly mouth-breather shtick will have
staying power, but his stringy frame is a great foil for Ferrell's beefiness.
The subtext is how each man learns to overcome his revulsion to touching, or
being touched, by another dude. The implication being that real men are those
who overcome their fear of sissydom.

I can't wait to get "Blades of Glory" on DVD to see how they did those
phenomenal skating routines. There must be wires and lifts and
computer-generated effects, but it looks like big ol' Ferrell and nerd robot
Heder are Olympic-worthy stylists. The climactic ice dance to Queen's
immortal theme from "Flash Gordon" is the platonic ideal of machismo yielding
gracefully. Queen's Freddie Mercury would've been proud.

Now I'd like to see Ferrell critique the masculine archetypes of "300." To
watch him thrust out those flabby abs and cry, "Spartans!" might even inspire
me to take up arms.

GROSS: David Edelstein is film critic for New York magazine.

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Correction: Clarification from Elizabeth Warren's story on credit
card theft and fraud from March 27th (Tuesday)
TERRY GROSS, host:

We'd like to clarify a point which came up earlier this week during my
interview with Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren. Warren is an expert on
unfair and deceptive credit card practices. I talked with Warren about what
happens when a purchase is made with a stolen credit card number. We may have
given the impression that credit card companies themselves always absorb the
cost of a fraudulent purchase.

What we'd like to clarify is this: Federal laws protect the consumer against
the fraudulent use of their credit card, but in some cases of fraud, the
credit card companies will pass the charge onto the merchant who made the
sale.

You can hear our interview with Elizabeth Warren online or as a podcast by
visiting our Web site, freshair.npr.org.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
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