{"id":2705,"date":"2019-10-05T19:16:11","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T00:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/?p=2705"},"modified":"2019-10-06T16:50:31","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T21:50:31","slug":"between-two-ferns-the-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/between-two-ferns-the-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of Between Two Ferns: The Movie&#8211;Concentrated Comedy and Minimal Character Investment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While the list of feature films based on successful comedy sketches is quite small&#8211;<em>MacGruber <\/em>(2010), <em>Waynes World <\/em>(1992) and<em> Blues Brothers <\/em>(1980)&#8211;2019 adds another to list with the addition of <em>Between Two Ferns: The Movie. <\/em>One might attribute the absence of these films to the financial track record of comedy sketch features, as they are often hit or miss at the Box Office. So logically, the best way for a film of this category to get made is through a streaming platform, in this case Netflix. Starring Zach Galifianakis and Will Ferrell, <em>Between Two Ferns <\/em>takes a hilarious and entertaining attempt, at fleshing out an existing sketch show.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-2734 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/10\/between-two-ferns-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"376\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/10\/between-two-ferns-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/10\/between-two-ferns-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/10\/between-two-ferns-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/10\/between-two-ferns-1080x720.jpg 1080w, https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/10\/between-two-ferns.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 376px) 100vw, 376px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Between Two Ferns is an online video series with a simple premise, Galifianakis interviews a celebrity through means of backhanded compliments and aggressively playful beratement. Often to comedic effect, the interviews poke fun at both Zach and his A-List guests. In the online sketches, Galifianakis is presented as his actual self, behaving passively and cold towards his guests for laughs. However, in the film the audience is led to believe his character is just fantastically bad at giving interviews, but able to keep his career with support from Will Ferrell. After growing tired of being \u201claughed at\u201d and not \u201claughed with\u201d, Zach is given the task of collecting ten interviews in two weeks with the promise that he will receive his own talk show upon completed. Accompanied by a small film crew, the film quickly becomes a road trip movie for Galifianakis to complete interviews and encounter various road blocks along the way. <em>Between Two Ferns<\/em> is intentional with its resources, placing most of its eggs in the Zach Galifianakis basket, and prioritizing the audience\u2019s attention span with a quick pace.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Between Two Ferns: The Movie | Official Trailer | Netflix\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OjljgkCQv5c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>While the film runs through the essential steps of character and plot setup, it spends not a minute more than it required to begin the film. The only character development is invested in Zach, as we learn of his ambitions and a few other details to get the ball rolling. The few details we learn of other characters are of his crew members, which after watching, I still cannot recall their names. The film really revolves around the interviews, which make up almost half of the hour and ten-minute runtime. The interviews are then intercut with the plot progression in-between. The filmmakers seem hyper aware of the audience\u2019s attention span and move quickly from scene to scene. One reason for this might be the sketch\u2019s previous success on a digital platform, as the threat of viewers clicking away exists not only on YouTube, but Netflix as well. We see this in the film\u2019s structure too, pandering to audience members whose only interest might be to see Zach berate celebrities, as the segments in-between interviews last a few minutes at the most. The result of the film\u2019s pacing is that viewers aren\u2019t required to invest any attention into the film, the premise and humor is simple to understand and the story moves quickly. The downside of this is that the audience\u2019s emotional investment in the film is also very minimal and the story becomes almost disposable at the cost of quick entertainment.<\/p>\n<p>If you approach this film with the expectation to fully immerse yourself in a story, you may be disappointed. However, given a casual approach <em>Between Two Ferns: The Movie<\/em> will win you over with hilarious banter and memorable one liners like \u201c(Speaking to Chance The Rapper) You have a brother? What\u2019s his name community chest the rapper?\u201d. The film showcases Galifianakis\u2019s talents as a comedian and provides audiences with over an hour of his very best material, that both familiar and unfamiliar audiences can entertain themselves with.<\/p>\n<p>\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Between Two Ferns: The Movie is Zach Galfianakis&#8217;s latest attempt of translating his online comedy series into a full feature film, doing so with minimal character development but enough jokes to leave any viewer with tears in their eyes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":2708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[61,103,150,151],"class_list":["post-2705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-comedy","tag-harrison-mccormick","tag-netflix-original","tag-zach-galifianakis"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/10\/ph_unit_07776.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2705"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2770,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705\/revisions\/2770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}