With Martin Freeman hosting Saturday Night Live, it is almost a no-brainer that the show would have to do something about two of his most famous roles — as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit films and as Tim Canterbury on the BBC’s original series The Office. Still, SNL managed to take a funny concept and make it really funny with The Hobbit Office.
The segment also features Bobby Moynahan as Gandalf as the boss of a paper company, reflecting the character played by series creator Ricky Gervais and later played by Steve Carell in the U.S. version. And wait until you see which character from Middle Earth takes on the role of The Office‘s Gareth Keenan/Dwight Schrute character. Check it out.
The final Hobbit film, The Battle of the Five Armies, will be in theaters starting December 17, 2014.
What is your favorite part of The Hobbit Office? Leave your two cents in the comments.
One of my favorite episodes of the U.S. series The Office is the season four episode entitled “The Dinner Party.” In the show, Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) and Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin) invite some guests from the Dunder Mifflin office for dinner, and the tension in their relationship plays out to make the most awkward party since the Donners.
In the episode, Jim notes to the camera, “Michael and Jan seem to be playing their own separate game, and it’s called ‘let’s see how uncomfortable we can make our guests.’ And they’re both winning.” One of the most uncomfortable moments comes from a wonderful song, “That One Night,” by The Hunted.
The Hunted
The Hunted is the fictional band led by Hunter Raymond, the young man who had worked as Jan’s assistant. As Jan plays the CD on the stereo in “The Dinner Party” episode, the awkwardness ramps up when we realize that Hunter is apparently singing about losing his virginity to Jan (“You took me by the hand/ And made me a man.”).
Below is the cringe-worthy clip of when Jan first plays the song.
The song appears again at the end of the episode when Jim reveals to Pam that he stole the CD, a sweet gesture to make Pam laugh. Jim’s act is also a sympathetic theft so that Michael no longer has to hear the song. Jim plays the CD in their car as the song then plays over an epilogue showing the dinner guests after the party.
Who Created “That One Night”?
Unfortunately, there is no real album by The Hunted, but the song works perfectly in the episode of The Office. When a comedy uses an original song for comic effect, it is a challenge for the song to sound believably real while being funny too. “That One Night” hits it out of the park on all counts.
Who are the geniuses behind “That One Night”? In the series, actor Nicholas D’Agosto (born April 17, 1980) portrayed Hunter Raymond. D’Agosto appeared in two episodes during the third season, his voice appeared in another episode, and his image graced the CD cover for “That One Night” in “The Dinner Party” episode.
The actual singer on “That One Night,” though, is Todd Fancey, a singer-songwriter who is the guitarist for The New Pornographers. Fancey also wrote the catchy music for “That One Night,” while writing and producing team Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg wrote the lyrics.
The Lyrics?
There are no “official” lyrics for the song posted on the web. So, there seems to be a disagreement about the words Fancey sings.
Some say that part of the chorus says “so raw, so right,” while others claim he sings “so wrong, so right.” Another source claims the words are “so rock the ride all night all right.”
I have always thought the disputed words were “so wrong,” not “so raw.” That interpretation makes the most sense, but I understand how one may also hear it as “so raw.”
While we never got a tour or a full album from The Hunted, we loved the band’s music for that one night. Oh yeah.
Update and Alternate Version of “That One Night”
In April 2017, Rolling Stone featured an interesting oral history about the episode. One of the revealing facts was that Fancey also put together a more polished longer version of “That One Night” with alternate lyrics. While it is interesting to hear, one can see why The Office went with the version they did. Below is the alternate version.
What is your favorite episode of The Office? If you also love “The Dinner Party,” check out these deleted scenes. Leave your two cents in the comments.
Occasionally, I will receive in the mail a Netflix movie where I have no idea how the movie ended up on my list. By the time I received The Way Way Back (2013) and popped it in my DVD player, I was expecting a film about prisoners escaping from a Siberian Gulag camp during World War II before realizing that movie was called The Way Back, a 2010 movie I still want to see. Instead, The Way Way Back turned out to be a surprisingly enjoyable movie about a teenage outcast trying to understand his life one summer. The Way Way Back, written and directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, follows the awkward 14-year-old Duncan, played by Liam James, who goes with his divorced mother Pam (Toni Collette) on vacation to a Cape Cod beach house with her boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell) and his daughter. Duncan is out of place in the world of adults, and eventually he begins exploring on his own, finding a surrogate family at the local water park managed by Owen, played by Sam Rockwell.
While I would not describe The Way Way Back as a small independent film, it does use a modest budget to illustrate a realistic story that does not overly play to Hollywood stereotypes. The victories and the defeats in the movie are not overblown, and the story seems honest, while also being fun.
I suspect that The Way Way Back ended up in my Netflix Queue because I had read a good review and saw that two actors I like, Rockwell and Carrell are in the movie. Steve Carrell plays against type here, portraying someone who is a jerk, while Rockwell uses his quirky charm to full effect. And Toni Collette is brilliant at playing a troubled mom, as she did in About a Boy (2002). The excellent cast also includes Maya Rudolph and Rob Corddry.
Considering the small budget, The Way Way Back was modestly successful at the box office and created a lot of buzz coming out of The 2013 Sundance Film Festival. But if you missed it the first time around, it is worth a rental.
Conclusion? If you are in the mood for a modest story with interesting characters and are not expecting an overblown adventure, you probably will enjoy the small coming-of-age tale in The Way Way Back. The honesty of the story and the excellent cast make the movie a nice surprise and a good movie that you might have missed. Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie a respectable 86% rating from both critics and audience members.
{Missed Movies is our continuing series on good films you might have missed because they did not receive the recognition they deserved when released.}
What did you think of The Way Way Back? Leave your two cents in the comments.
In the last several years, there have been a number of interesting science fiction films that manage to avoid using special effects, or use very limited special effects. Maybe it is a response to the prominence of CGI, where so many movies are weighed down by images that you know just are not “real.” Maybe it is an attempt to return to using science fiction elements to actually say something besides blowing up things. In this genre, Chimesfreedom has discussed three films that we really liked: Robot & Frank (2012), Another Earth (2011), and The Man from Earth (2007). Another film that was interesting was Melancholia (2011). Two other films to add to this list are It’s a Disaster (2012) and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012), both now available on DVD and Blu Ray.
Of the two, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World has the bigger stars, featuring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley (as well as a small appearance by Martin Sheen). The film begins with Dodge (Carell) and his wife listening to the announcement that an asteroid is going to crash into earth in three weeks, resulting in his wife making a mad dash to leave her husband. Thus begins Dodge’s quest to find some company for the end of the world.
The movie, directed by Lorene Scafaria, has some laughs and some interesting thoughts on different ways people might react to the end of the world. The film avoids going the expected route of going for an all-out fantasy comedy or for going for futuristic reality. But because the movie tries to walk a middle ground between comedy and tragedy, it seems to zig zag back and forth, making for interesting but somewhat unsettling viewing, especially as the movie becomes more serious toward the end. Still, I enjoyed the film and the fact that it aimed for something a little unusual.
By contrast, It’s a Disaster is clearly a comedy. The film follows the interactions of several couples during a Sunday “couples brunch” as they gradually come to learn that someone has set off some dirty atomic bombs not far away and, inevitably, they are all going to die, probably within the day. But the film centers less on the morbid future and more on the relationships between the couples as they go about their afternoon finding things out about each other, occasionally taking some time to come up with ideas to figure out what they should do.
The low-budget film directed by Todd Berger pretty much stays inside the house for most of the movie, but it makes you laugh at the characters and what you would do in the same situation. As when you watch Seeking a Friend, at some point you also will start wondering how the movie might end. If you go into the film with modest expectations, you might enjoy the comedy of manners that takes place. To reveal much more would ruin your fun. It’s a Disaster stars Julia Stiles, David Cross, Rachel Boston, Kevin M. Brennan, and Laura Adkin.
Conclusion? Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and It’s a Disaster are two interesting minimal special effects end-of-the-world movies that are worth your time on a lazy rainy afternoon. While they are not great movies, they are somewhat unusual and might make you think a little while entertaining you. Of the two, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is more ambitious, while It’s a Disaster is a little more light-hearted take on a serious subject.
Other Reviews Because Why Should You Listen to Me? Rotten Tomatoes has mediocre ratings for Seeking a Friend for the End of the World from both critics (56%) and audience members (54%), perhaps reflecting the unevenness of the movie. By contrast, on Rotten Tomatoes, the less ambitious but more consistent It’s a Disaster gets a decent audience rating (68%) and an even better critics rating (77%). Jason Bailey at Flavorwire sums up It’s a Disaster as an “odd, funny, invigorating little movie.”
In the new trailer for Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, the sequel to 2004’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, we see that the famous San Diego news team led by Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) goes to New York City in the era of 24-hour news. The change in setting offers some promise that the new film will come up with some new laughs.
The trailer reveals that key characters Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), Champ Kind (David Koechner) and Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) return to the screen with Burgundy. Slate, which critiques the trailer, notes that reported cameos in the film include Kanye West, Tina Fey, Harrison Ford, Will Smith, and Nicole Kidman. Such an esteemed group ensures the movie will stay classy.
Do you think Anchorman 2 can match Anchorman’s laughs? Leave your two cents in the comments.
