Informationen zum Autor Saul Austerlitz is an adjunct professor of writing and comedy history at New York University, as well as the author of Generation Friends , named by Vulture as one of the 15 Best Books About TV Comedies; and Just a Shot Away , which The New York Times Book Review called the most blisteringly impassioned music book of the season. He is a graduate of Yale University and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Klappentext "From the author of Generation Friends, featuring brand-new interviews with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, a surprising, incisive, and often hilarious book about the film that changed comedy, Anchorman It's been nearly twenty years since Ron Burgundy burst into movie fans' lives, reminding San Diego to 'stay classy' while lampooning a time gone by-although maybe not as far gone as we might think? In Kind of a Big Deal, comedy historian Saul Austerlitz tells the history of how Anchorman was developed, written, and cast, and how it launched the careers of future superstars like Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd, also setting the stage for a whole decade of comedy to come and influencing films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Superbad, and so many more. But Kind of a Big Deal isn't only a celebration of Anchorman-it's also a cultural analysis of the film's significance as a sly commentary on feminism, the media, fragile masculinity, 1970s nostalgia, and more. Featuring brand-new interviews with stars such as Will Ferrell, director Adam McKay, and other key players, the book includes insider commentary alongside updated pop-culture analysis. And it also shares surprising stories and facts: from the film's original conception as a plane crash/cannibal comedy mashup to the surprising, real-life newscaster who inspired the character of Veronica. Overall, this is a celebration of a movie that millions love-but it's also an unsparing look back at what has and hasn't changed, since the 1970s and since 2004. Perfect for fans of the film and anyone who cares about comedy today, Kind of a Big Deal proves that the movie was, and is, exactly that"-- Leseprobe Introduction Every January, I welcome a new group of students to my classroom at New York University. After the preliminaries and icebreakers and perfunctory reading of syllabi, I slide open the tray of the classroom's DVD player and slip in a disc. And every year, when the DVD arrives on its landing screen and the students realize what movie we will begin our journey together with, I am greeted by an admixture of cheers, groans, and puzzled silence that never ceases to fascinate and surprise me. But before I get to the responses, I suppose I should explain myself. One of the great and all-?too-?rare pleasures of teaching is to watch a student reconsider an opinion or impression that they held without knowing precisely why they held it. I show Anchorman that first week of Writing About American Comedy to dive into the deep end of a debate we have been collectively having in American culture for decades about the meaning, import, and value of comedy. I put on Anchorman and ask my students to watch it with an eye to how they might put the movie in context. We watch together, and then in our discussion, their initial confusionwhy is the professor showing us this silly movie? is sometimes overcome. We settle into the story of the wildly popular San Diego newscaster Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell)who surpasses no one in his fawning self-?loveand the ways in which his world is changed, and threatened, by the arrival of his colleague and future love interest Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), and a nearly infinite array of themes and subthemes reveal themselves: the rise of second-wave feminism, masculine fragility, media satire, the grown-up Peter Pan protagonists of so many comedies of the early 2000s.<...

Autorentext

Saul Austerlitz is an adjunct professor of writing and comedy history at New York University, as well as the author of Generation Friends, named by Vulture as one of the “15 Best Books About TV Comedies”; and Just a Shot Away, which The New York Times Book Review called “the most blisteringly impassioned music book of the season.” He is a graduate of Yale University and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Klappentext

"From the author of Generation Friends, featuring brand-new interviews with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, a surprising, incisive, and often hilarious book about the film that changed comedy, Anchorman It's been nearly twenty years since Ron Burgundy burst into movie fans' lives, reminding San Diego to 'stay classy' while lampooning a time gone by-although maybe not as far gone as we might think? In Kind of a Big Deal, comedy historian Saul Austerlitz tells the history of how Anchorman was developed, written, and cast, and how it launched the careers of future superstars like Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd, also setting the stage for a whole decade of comedy to come and influencing films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Superbad, and so many more. But Kind of a Big Deal isn't only a celebration of Anchorman-it's also a cultural analysis of the film's significance as a sly commentary on feminism, the media, fragile masculinity, 1970s nostalgia, and more. Featuring brand-new interviews with stars such as Will Ferrell, director Adam McKay, and other key players, the book includes insider commentary alongside updated pop-culture analysis. And it also shares surprising stories and facts: from the film's original conception as a plane crash/cannibal comedy mashup to the surprising, real-life newscaster who inspired the character of Veronica. Overall, this is a celebration of a movie that millions love-but it's also an unsparing look back at what has and hasn't changed, since the 1970s and since 2004. Perfect for fans of the film and anyone who cares about comedy today, Kind of a Big Deal proves that the movie was, and is, exactly that"--

Zusammenfassung
***Vulture's Best Comedy Book of 2023*

From the author of Generation Friends, featuring brand-new interviews with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, a surprising, incisive, and often hilarious book about the film that changed comedy, Anchorman.**

It’s been nearly twenty years since Ron Burgundy burst into movie fans’ lives, reminding San Diego to “stay classy” while lampooning a time gone by—although maybe not as far gone as we might think? In Kind of a Big Deal, comedy historian Saul Austerlitz tells the history of how Anchorman was developed, written, and cast, and how it launched the careers of future superstars like Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd, also setting the stage for a whole decade of comedy to come and influencing films like The&#160;40-Year-Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Superbad, and so many more.

But Kind of a Big Deal isn’t only a celebration of Anchorman—it’s also a cultural analysis of the film’s significance as a sly commentary on feminism, the media, fragile masculinity, 1970s nostalgia, and more. Featuring brand-new interviews with stars such as Will Ferrell, director Adam McKay, and other key players, the book includes insider commentary alongside updated pop-culture analysis. And it also shares surprising stories and facts: from the film’s original conception as a plane crash/cannibal comedy mashup to the surprising, real-life newscaster who inspired the character of Veronica.

Overall, this is a celebration of a movie that millions love—but it’s also an unsparing look back at what has and hasn’t changed, since the 1970s and since 2004. Perfect for fans of the film and anyone who cares about comedy today, Kind of a Big Deal proves that the movie was, and is, exactly that.

**L…