Step Brothers: Better Than Citizen Kane? You Bet Your Ball Sack!

Yes Virginia, Step Brothers is better than Citizen Kane because Step Brothers is much funnier than Citizen Kane -- and shorter too.

For the record, cineastes, yes, I have seen both of films in question. I saw Step Brothers just last night at the ArcLight in Hollywood, and Citizen Kane once back in film history class at Cornell. I enjoyed both -- but as least as far as I can recall, there were absolutely no hilarious bunk bed gags in Citizen Kane. Also I believe only one of these two fine films featured a hilarious and tense scrotum-on-a-drum-set scene, and if memory serves, it wasn't the one with Agnes Morehead.

Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton -- hey, don't get me wrong, those two were quite good too. But as a team, one ultimately has to give Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly the edge here. Also to take the longer view, I'm ordering the Talladega Nights/Step Brothers combo plate every time over the Citizen Kane/Magnificent Ambersons. The Ambersons had their moments, but Step Brothers was magnificent.

Honestly, I had an excellent time at Step Brothers. Thanks to reading a number of mixed reviews, I went in with seriously diminished expectations, and proceeded to laugh consistently throughout, never more so than during a scene featuring a Billy Joel cover band called Uptown Girl that was determined to focus only on the Piano Man's Eighties oeuvre. For the record, I hope Uptown Girl tours because personally I like An Innocent Man much more than anything by Wagner.

So do yourself a favor, and don't listen to the film critics here. Listen to a human being who paid for it. Step Brothers is like a family reunion, but cheaper and more entertaining. By all means, go ahead and rent Citizen Kane, but see Step Brothers in the theater first.

P.S. Rosebud was his sled.

Comments

[freshpavement]

Although I found Step Brothers amusing at times, the script was predictably weaker than the Anton Chekov play it was based on.

[OldJewEyes]

Well played, Pavement!

[staciek]

The simple fact you used the words "Ball Sack" in your heading guarantees you my full support on your position. Thank you for coloring outside the lines . I'm hoping you wrote this while you were in your tighty whities too.

[OldJewEyes]

Thank you so much for the kind words, staciek. As four out of five male doctors agree, in all "Ball Sack" related matters, support is much needed, and very much appreciated as well.

I will continue to color outside of the lines, especially the ones I can't see.

DW

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

I hope your post is satire. Comparing Citizen Kane to any movie with WIll Farrell is like comparing a diamond to a goat's as s.

Oh, by the way: Rosebud was his childhood sled, but it was also a metaphor for a time in his life when he was poor but truly happy, wanting for nothing.

[Necron99]

Oh, and by the way, as the blogger seems to know, and you do not, "Rosebud" was the dig that pretty much ended Orson's career--it wasn't "really" a sled, or a symbol for childhood happiness--it was the nickname William Randolph Hearst gave to his girlfriend's um...um... & the story of it is a good illustration of what happens when you f**k with the bull.

[JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin]

I thought he was referring to the rarely seen 1975 film Rosebud, directed by Otto Preminger.

(snark).

[Jasel]

I just saw the movie last night too. Personally I think the story sucked but ya I did find myself laughing frequently throughout the movie.

[martinchill]

relax, everyone - this post is obvious satire.

anyone with a brain knows Red Dawn was the greatest american movie of all time...

[OldJewEyes]

A fascinating point of view, yet according to a recent study by the Friars Club, "Red Dawn" was not even John Milius' greatest comedy -- that would be 'Conan The Barbarian"

[martinchill]

ah, yes... to see crush your enemies and see them driven before you...

and the lamentation of the women...

[kellysmalltowngirl]

I just want to say I LOVE Talladega nights. If you watch it with an open mind you see alot of very positive things. Ricky Bobby is respectful of his parents, his competitors, even the gay ones, and he learns to be unselfish and a better friend. Check it out

[Aramingo]

I thought the Farrell movies had more in common with Eisenstein than Welles, particularly with the tracking shots and use of didatic montage.

[OldJewEyes]

No, it was John C. Reilly's sled.
And "Semi-Pro" was really about Patty Hearst.
But don't tell anybody

[jpcline004]

you just had to drop the Ivy league...

[DaveMacaray]

And Ivy League or not, it's not "ball sack." It's "nut sac," for crying out loud. Get it right.

[RobinLandseadel]

. . . .Balzac, if you want to be Ivy League about it. . . .

. . . . And it's Agnes Moorehead, fwiw.

[JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin]

Personally, I hope this post is snark/satire. If not, you're a bonafide idiot.

Your last post was praising Adam Corrolla's (the creator of the idiotic Man Show and disgusting Drawn Together (with an unhealthy obsession with fecal matter)) film, like it was the Citizen Kane of indie movies, and now your comparing a mediocre comedy by the overrated, overexposed Will Ferrell to one of the greatest films ever made.

Next you'll be telling us Myers's The Love Guru is really a brilliant satire on bad movies, and that we all missed the joke.

[mulegino]

I hope so too, and suspect it is. But it's not good satire.
Hollywood has been producing a steady stream of unvarnished crap for a long time. I don't know where the hell the writers (sic) are coming from-the material is on the intellectual and creative level of a scatalogical 5th grader. Look at the current crop of idiocy-Hancock, Hell Boy, Batman.
Hollywood is apishly imitative,derivative, and just plain idiotic-repetitive stunts and toilet jokes.
That is why American consumers must make an attempt to acquire a sovereign taste where entertainment is concerned and stop behaving like pigs at a trough, slurping up any slop that is dished out by these sleazeball directors and producers.
We all must become more aesthetically aware of what is truly great, sublime, and ennobling, as opposed to the cinematic sceptic tank that Hollywood has become.

[RedDogBear]

As Mulegino says below if this is satire its bad satire. OK, I admit I haven't even seen Step Brothers but since I watch the Daily Show and Colbert online I was subjected to endless repetition of the trailer and that was enough to convince me that its utter garbage. Of course comparing it to Citizen Kane is not even worthy of discussion but from the trailer and the reviews I've read this piece of crap movie isn't even comparable to Blades of Fury, the only Will Farrell movie I've ever enjoyed.

[OldJewEyes]

I do not worship "The Love Guru."
However, to me Fellini's "8 1/2" is at best a 7, while "Step Brothers" is an 8 1/2.

[JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin]

Your statement about Step Brothers being better than Fellini's 8 1/2, well, your brain must have ceased working many moons ago.

Next you'll be lobbying the Academy for a lifetime achievement award for Adam Corrola.

[jennifer Vizzo]

Dave, oh Dave...and you call yourself a critic? Comparing anything by Orson Wells in the same breath as anything by Will Ferrell is absurd. Will Ferrell was last funny in Elf. After that, we've seen way too much of his unattractive physique and heard too much of his potty mouth. Oh, wait...perhaps you are one of those puerile men who still laughs when someone farts.

[MrJoyboy]

Men? My wife laughs hysterically when someone farts.

[RealityBaseCamp]

Will Farrel has a sled??? SPOILER!!!