Will Ferrell Has Not Hit the Ball Out of the Park in a Long Time

Will Ferrell stretches the limits of comedy just a little bit with Ferrell Takes the Field, currently airing on HBO. 

It's a mockumentary that succeeds on some levels but is not very good on most. The premise of Farrell taking his legendary comedic talents to the baseball field is pretty original, as he gets traded and plays for a bunch of different teams in the Arizona cactus league before the 2015 season. 

The tone, however, is off, with Farrell over-acting the supposed seriousness of his endeavor. He did the same thing recently in his role as disillusioned Eric Jonrosh in The Spoils of Babylon, which was equally bad (even if Ferrell's bit parts were the best thing about it). 

Farrell is no doubt slipping (ala Sandler) since his heyday with Saturday Night Live. In fact, he hasn't been in anything really compelling at all since his run of Blades of Glory, Semi-Pro, and Step Brothers back in 2007-2008. 

I'm not sure if he'll ever recover any past glory at this point. And even if Farrell Takes the Field is far from his worst work, it's just not worth wasting your time with when there's so much other great stuff out there to be watched these days. 

Even the fact that this is thankfully raising funds for cancer doesn't redeem it as entertainment worth watching. 

**1/2 out of ***** stars 

Bonus: In longing for better days, Ferrell's best movies are: 

6. Wedding Crashers
5. Elf
4. Zoolander
3. Old School
2. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
1. Austin Powers: International man of Mystery (even though it's Farrell's first move and he just plays a bit part in Mike Myers' masterpiece) 

Indie Movie Binge: Which Recent DVD Releases Are Worth It

With our recent re-upping of Netflix after a time away, I've been able to hit a spate of indie flicks in the way I used to in my 20s in the mid-90s when I presumably had nothing better to do.

None of these reach Richard Linklater Boyhood levels (my movie of 2014), which, much like his past releases Slacker, School of Rock, and Dazed and Confused, holds the grand torch of best-of-the-best. But I still enjoyed this binge. From best to worst ...

Wish I Was Here

The strong soundtrack including The Shins is where Zack Braff's latest ends at being like Garden State and Scrubs, his very-high career highlights thus far. There are some funny moments, but it's mostly a serious look at midlife.

Braff plays an out-of-work actor who spends more time smoking weed than auditioning. When his father (Mandy Patinkin) announces he has cancer and can no longer pay for Braff and Kate Hudson's children's Jewish private school education, Braff decides to home school them.

This leads to much soul searching and rediscovering. Not necessarily as good as I thought it could be, this little movie is indeed worth watching.

***1/2 out of ***** stars

Obvious Child

This flick is a mix of Louie and Ed Burns' rom-coms. With major social commentary on abortion mixed in (with conservative groups the Heritage Foundation and Family Research Council chiming in against it).

I love star Jenny Slate for her roles in TV's The Kroll Show. She is far less wacky here, playing a comedian who loses her boyfriend before setting out on some binge drinking that results in a drunken encounter that gets her pregnant. Bouts of sweetness ensue with her stranger paramour, even if the bounds of believability are stretched with their continuous random sightings of each other.

Consider it devoting the time of just more than two episodes of Girls, which seems to be getting painfully annoying in its third season (should I even attempt to keep going into season four?).

***1/2 out of ***** stars

Inside Llewyn Davis

This is the one that really surprised me of this bunch. Nominated for best picture last year, I'm finding it harder and harder as time goes by to remember anything about it. I usually love the Coen Brothers, but Inside Llewyn Davis is particularly uninteresting.

It starts promisingly. Oscar Davis plays the title character. He is a folk singer who has lost the duo partner that brought him minor fame. But nobody likes his new solo stuff. The movie is fairly captivating during the first half in Greenwich Village, but it collapses into veery-slow meaningless by the point Llewyn road trips to Chicago with John Goodman, in a sadly pointless performance.

I really wanted to like this, but really didn't. It might have something to do with my stunning lack of interest in Bob Dylan (I know you're not supposed to say that out-loud) and this post-Dylan take on artistry.

**1/2 out of ***** stars

The Skeleton Twins

This is another big disappointment of two actors I really like. Perhaps the world in not ready for Saturday Night Live stars playing depressed suicidal twins.

The lack of humor is the most painful point. And why any scriptwriters would think audiences would care about these two losers is almost as amazing as it actually being green-lighted. I guess they thought Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig's double likability would save it, but they can't.

Like a really bad version of Robert Downey Jr.'s exploits in Less Than Zero.

** out of ***** stars

Where'd You Go, Bernadette is Only Half Fun

I thought I would love this book, having been authored by Maria Semple of Arrested Development, Saturday Night Live, and Beverly Hills 90210 writing fame.

And indeed I did voraciously suck in the first half, but the second half left me cold with a boredom-inducing adventure through the Antarctic to locate the Bernadette from the title of Where'd You Go, Bernadette.

Many pop-culture landmarks are touched upon, with Bernadette Fox having won a Genius Award in her youth before settling in as an unemployed and cynical private-school parent (or more like a friend) to daughter Bee and cold-fish wife to Microsoft fellow-genius Elgie Branch.

Elgie is on the verge of getting Bernadette institutionalized while he is half-heartedly carrying out an affair with his co-worker. But then Bernadette disappears. The novel is a decent study in family dysfunction. And the characters are fairly memorable, but they are also almost roundly unlikable.

Maria Semple

I was kind of bummed I had spent so much time with these kooks. This one is, unfortunately, no I Love You, Beth Cooper.

*** out of ***** stars

Second City Ramps Up the Absurd at Woolly Mammoth with Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies

If you haven't been to DC's Woolly Mammoth to catch Second City's Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies, you've got one more weekend to hop to it. Actually, it's probably sold out, so good luck.

But it's sold out for good measure. This is by far the funniest show I've ever seen at DC's best theater. While the plot gets at something to do with death, mortality, fate, and civilization's impending doom, the real point of seeing this show is that it's like a classic episode of Saturday Night Live, up close and in person.

Some audience members are more up close than others. The cast starts by pretending there is a delay and technical problems, so it engages some audience members in chit chat, some of whom then get reinserted into the action as the play unfolds.

Aaron Bliden is the funniest actor of a funny bunch, especially in his absurd vignette with a burrito. Scott Montgomery is wildly creepy as a TSA agent who details the personal statistics of several surprised audience members. Maribeth Monroe, of Comedy Central's Workaholics, is hilarious as a leathery casino patron. And James Alfred does a pitch perfect Barack Obama, and even strips a little like he might in real life.

This is a great slice of entertainment, and I hope Woolly continues to go in this direction. A Bright New Boise, which preceded Spoiler Alert, also headed down this absurdist path.

****1/2 out of ***** stars