Semi-Pro (2008) - A 70s Michigan basketball comedy for the Ferrell fans

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+ Best Michigan Movie of the Year + Best Sports Comedy of the Year + Career-Killer of the Year: Kent Alterman

The two personable co-stars pale in the sheen of Will Ferrell's ridiculousness on this simple poster for Kent Alterman's Semi-Pro

1970s Flint, Michigan: Local 'king of funk' Jackie Moon is a star with his hit song Love Me Sexy and his place on the Tropics basketball team. But now the future stands between death or the NBA for the team, who need to fight for survival.

Semi-Pro is written by Scot Armstrong (Road Trip (2000)) and directed by debuting Kent Alterman (After the Sunset (2004, executive producer)).
This comedy is a solid late-night pleasure; it lacks the great big screaming laughs that adorn Will Ferrell's (Bewitched (2005)) best comedies, but it still has a solid amount of chuckle-inducing scenes.
The film relishes its period setting, which is painted as male-chauvinist and uncontrolled compared to today's world, with Moon's promotion especially amateurish and pretty darn funny. 
André Benjamin (American Crime (2016, TV-series)), Woody Harrelson (I'll Do Anything (1994)) and Tim Meadows (Mr. Box Office (2012-13)) are also good here. Semi-Pro is a minor comedy nugget.

 

Related posts:

 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

Watch a red band trailer for the film here

Cost: 55 mil. $
Box office: 43.8 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.79 times its cost)
[Semi-Pro premiered 19 February (Westwood, California) and runs 92 minutes. Shooting took place in Michigan and in California, including Los Angeles, in and around February 2007. 7 weeks after the film's release, grizzly bear Rocky, who plays Dewie the Bear in the film, bit one its trainers in the neck, killing him. The film opened #1 to a 15 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent one more week in the top 5 (#5) and grossed 33.4 mil. $ (76.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 4.1 mil. $ (9.4 %) and Australia with 3.7 mil. $ (8.4 %). It was New Line Cinemas last film, before the company was absorbed into Warner Bros. Alterman has not directed or produced anything since, ending his more than 10 year career in films with the film. Ferrell returned in Stepbrothers (2008); Benjamin in 2 music videos and a TV-series before reaching the big screen again in Jimi: All Is by My Side (2013); Harrelson in Surfer, Dude (2008). Semi-Pro is rotten at 23 % with a 4.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Semi-Pro?

Diggers (2006) - Marino and Dieckmann's film is a pleasant, funny change of pace

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The pleasant, low-key poster for Katherine Dieckmann's Diggers

QUICK REVIEW:

We are in a fishing community just an hour away from Manhattan in the 1970s. Shellfish giant South Shell is taking the work from the local clam diggers there. A young guy, Hunt's fisherman father now dies and leaves his boat to his son.

Paul Rudd (Ant-Man (2015)) is great as the middle-aged, lonesome man, who bitterly 'protects' his sister and comes up with excuses for his own unrealized dreams. He shares one sexy clam scene with Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under (2001-05)) in Diggers.
The humor of the film bears witness of a large absurd-comical talent in writer/co-star Ken Marino (Role Models (2008)). Diggers presents a neat little story with well-balanced doses of warmth and reality. It's really funny to boot.
Katherine Dieckmann (Motherhood (2009)) directed it.

Maura Tierney and Paul Rudd in Katherine Dieckmann's Diggers

Cost: 28 mil. $ (reported)
Box office: 24 mil. $ (reported)
= Uncertainty
[Both numbers are from Diggers' Wikipedia page, but I am skeptical as to the truthfulness of both of them. The budget seems very high, and the film grossed just under 60k $ in North American theaters in its very small theatrical release there. It premiered simultaneously on the HDNet channel that funded the film, and was released on DVD just days after, much as with Steven Soderbergh's Bubble (2005). Diggers' commercial destiny is hard to probe, but I will count it as a flop. Dieckmann's next film, the maligned Motherhood with Uma Thurman, seems to have ended her movie career prematurely.]

What do you think of Diggers?