What Do The Critics Say?

"One of the most keenly perceptive comedies ever made about straight male bonding, fear of intimacy, and masculinity. Not to mention figure skating." Brian Juergens AFTERELTON.COM "There is a steady stream of laughs and narrative interest." Peter Bradshaw UK GUARDIAN "Yes, Will Ferrell is once again playing a macho jerk in dire need to learn some life lessons, in spandex and ice skates, no less. But honestly, can anyone else do it better? Finally starting to really shed his alter ego Napoleon Dynamite, Heder is in top form as the prissy MacElroy, the smart one, if you can believe it, in the duo. Good stuff. Blades is just dumb fun." Kit Bowen HOLLYWOOD.COM "loads of laughs and guaranteed to please audiences everywhere." Tom Long DETROIT NEWS "Blissfully silly, triumphantly tasteless and improbably hilarious." Joe Morgenstern WALL STREET JOURNAL "It's Ricky Bobby and Napoleon Dynamite on ice; the film for all the people who loved that Snickers Super Bowl ad and were upset when it was pulled. I laughed throughout the film, both at things I saw coming and also at things that came out of left field. "Blades of Glory" is easily one of the funniest movies of the year, and it’s going to be hard to beat on the comedy front. The film is exactly what you would expect it to be. It’s Ricky Bobby and Napoleon Dynamite on ice, and in that sense it’s brilliant." Kevin Carr 7M PICTURES

"Blades of Glory should be lukewarm, stinky, spoiled soup. But no. "Blades of Glory" is instead a very good, an incredibly funny, fresh, wild, wonderful comedy, the sort of movie you have to see twice because you were laughing so hard, you missed half the jokes the first time around. It is, plainly, the very movie I never expected to see." David Cornelius eFILMCRITIC.COM "The script is sharp and fast, and almost keeps up with the hilarious cast. The comedy is fast and very dry, blending Christopher Guest-style patter with outrageously staged slapstick goofiness. For the first half, we can barely catch our breath through the laughter." Rich Cline SHADOWS ON THE WALL "If there was an Olympics for purely fun movies, this would skate away with one of those pretty medals." Pam Grady REEL.COM "A gold medal winner with HUGE laughs. Check your brain at the door for this one and you won't be disappointed." Pete Hammond MAXIM "With Blades of Glory, Will Ferrell and Jon Heder stake an early claim to being the comedy couple of the year." Stephen Holden NEW YORK TIMES "To see seemingly regular guys utterly stripped of dignity and defense is cruel enough, but crueler still is the laughter that you cannot seem to stop from rupturing your lungs and aorta." Stephen Hunter WASHINGTON POST "The blissfully silly Blades of Glory is one of those rare comedies that puts a goofy smile on your face with the premise alone, and keeps it planted there right until its wacky finale." Michael Rechtshaffen HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

The Inside Story When Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld bought the spec script "Blades of Glory" for their company, Red Hour Films, they decided, as the sporting slogan goes, to just do it. "We got sent this script, which was about the first male figure skating team pair, these two brothers had written it, and one of them was working at a Starbucks, I think. Anyway, it was one of those scripts where you go, 'Wow, I can’t believe nobody’s done a movie of this.' It’s just such a funny idea, so we decided to try to get it made," says Stiller. Red Hour, which is committed to finding new talent, had been talking with a prominent directing pair from the field of advertising and music videos, Will Speck and Josh Gordon; the duo had made a quick reputation for themselves. "The thing I responded to most in their work was the comedy, which was based very much in character," says Cornfeld. "They were able to take an idiosyncratic character and were just relaxed enough to move him to a comedic place that was eccentric, but still totally relatable." Even though this is their first feature film, Stiller says, "Will and Josh have directed so many commercials that they’re actually incredibly experienced. They had to come in and work with a lot of different elements; they took the skating very seriously. They took the comedy very seriously. They skated themselves. I saw them out there. They definitely got their feet dirty, as they say." For Speck and Gordon, the world of skating presented a fertile ground for satire. "The commitment the two main characters have made to this sport, which has so many fantasy and fashion elements to it, opened the story up to many levels of comedic possibility. The thing we loved is that the world of figure skaters is such a specific sort of strange little universe that has its own brand of caste system, logic, sense of style, rules and celebrity," says Speck. "The fact that there’s this little world unto itself that we can explore, that’s very interesting to us," saus Gordon. "The script also had several unique supporting characters that go a long way toward populating that world. And that, to us, was very appealing." The question everyone wants an answer to is, how do two directors work on one film? "In pre-production, Josh spent a little more time on the technical issues, while Will focused more on the script," says Cornfeld. "But once we started shooting, it was very much a collaboration. They were always in sync when a decision had to be made." Gordon says it ws the lead characters that drew them to the script, "the dichotomy of the two leads. They’re such opposites. Chazz Michael Michaels is a guy who wears all his emotions on his sleeve, and yet is very vulnerable, whereas Jimmy MacElroy is someone who’s led a very sheltered life." "They perfectly mirror one another, yet both are completely dysfunctional. Each needs to learn from the other guy a little bit in order to get on with his life," notes Speck. Red Hour approached Jon Heder ("Napoleon Dynamite") and asked him if he’d be interested in the role of Jimmy, a young man who eats, sleeps and breathes skating. "What’s interesting about Jon," says Cornfeld, "is that he’s a very, very, very physical comedian and he’s got this loveable core. One of the tough things about a character like Jimmy MacElroy is that he’s a narcissist, and when you have that kind of character, you want an actor who can play him in a loveably narcissistic way." When it came to the role of Michaels, one name immediately leapt to mind: Will Ferrell. "Will Ferrell has been creating great characters for years, starting with 'SNL' and continuing in film. He is an amazing performer who’s so good at what he does that you forget that, as the saying goes, comedy is hard," Speck remarks. "He brings exactly the right mix to Chazz, which is part swagger and machismo, and part overgrown kid. He was really the only one we thought of in the part," Gordon says. Stiller adds, "skating is all about attitude. It's much less about technical, I don’t even wanna say, 'perfection', because it’s not even that level. It’s more like technical 'ability', which is, you know, not very high, but not very necessary when you have that much attitude. It’s like attitude-ability. Well, if I’ve got a lot of attitude, I don’t have to worry about my ability. So for Will Ferrell, to get out on the ice and do his thing and to see him, we call it the two A's, attitude and ability. And Will’s got big-A, little-A. Jon Heder’s got, like, little-A, much-bigger-A on the ability. And you put it together, and you get like, a quadruple A." "It struck me as a totally magical pairing," says Jacobs. Ferrell admits, "Just the premise of two men skating together made me laugh." And Chazz? "He’s this kind of bad boy of skating and so sexy. And I do sexy very well. Plus, I get to wear little facial tattoos, which is a real perk," he says. For heder there were two factors in taking the role of Jimmy. "I thought it would be fun to do something as physical and weird and fun as ice skating," he admits. "And then, to get to work with a comedy giant like Will Ferrell in a movie produced by Ben Stiller; well, how could I say no to that?" Real life husband and wife Will Arnett and Amy Poehler play brother and sister star pairs skating team, Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg. "I grew up in Canada, so I think that it’s part of your birthright to be able to skate," Arnett says. Speck and Gordon say, "Amy and Will walk that fine line in comedy that is so difficult to tread. Their work is just great and hilarious." The Stranz and Fairchild relationship is intense and a bit, well, off, according to Poehler who says, "They often have to do very intricate moves in very tight spaces. And some people feel that they’re a little too close." But what of Katie Van Waldenberg, played by Jenna Fischer ("The Office")? What sold Jenna was a particular scene, which I can reveal is extremely funny. "The scene that really made me want to do the movie is the one in which Katie reluctantly seduces Chazz. I loved the idea of a comedic seduction scene, because they really are so much fun to play," she said, "walking that tightrope between suggestive and silly. And since Will Ferrell was playing Chazz, I knew he was going to make it really funny." When it came to casting the coach in the film Craig T Nelson was the obvious choice. "You just accept Craig T Nelson as a coach," says Speck. "Craig is a great actor," adds Cornfeld, "and very committed. He’s more than willing to play the reality in an absurd situation and let the comedy come from that." "The thing about Coach is that he’s got a lot of issues, and the guy he’s attached to is trying to help him channel them through things like stained glass and pottery classes," says Nelson. Of course the film wouldn't be complete without a 'stalker'. Nick Swardson ("Malibu’s Most Wanted") plays Jimmy MacElroy’s obsessive #1 fan. "Hector travels around with a teddy bear and a scrapbook, a photo album of Jimmy that is very in-depth, very intricate," relates Swardson. "He’s put a lot of time into it; and a lot of glitter. Jimmy’s a little freaked out by him and has a restraining order out on him. But Hector shows up randomly throughout the movie and torments Jimmy. So, yeah, I guess you’d call him a kind of a stalker, but I think that’s a little harsh. When Jimmy is banned from skating, Hector’s whole world crashes down on him. So he finds this loophole that Jimmy can skate again if he’s part of a pair." "Blades of Glory" features some real icons from the world of ice-skating. One is former skating champion Scott Hamilton who says being in the film was "impossible to resist. Because I get to play a version of myself without having to be myself." And just incase you're wondering; Ferrell, Heder, Arnett and Poehler underwent extensive training. "You don’t realize how much work it takes to ice skate," says Ferrell. "Jon and I trained for months and it was a big accomplishment for us just to be able to move around on the ice and look somewhat graceful." "At the start, I had to train a couple of times a week just to get comfortable standing up on skates," says Poehler. "I have a great deal of admiration for professional skaters and how easy they make it look." Heder recalls, "the biggest chunk of time was learning the basics, to really get a sense of it. It’s very specific, like math. But when you do it right, you get this kind of exhilaration." And Arnett? Producer Jacobs says, "He got to the point that we didn’t really need a double for him. Most of his performance he was able to do himself, which sort of blew everyone away." The lead cast were fortunate enough to be able to work with one of the best professional skating choreographers around, Sarah Kawahara. "Both Will and Jon are natural athletes, in that they’ve played sports in the past. They also went through a lot of core training and physical training to learn how to skate, which helped them a great deal," she says. "Jon’s character is very ballet and dance oriented, so it was a lot of fun for him to do all these extensions and run on his toes. He really took to the ice quite well. I think that perhaps, in his heart, he’s a dancer. Will’s character is a real rabble-rouser, and involves the crowd in his routines, playing to them. He’s amazing because he is so subtle and then, magically, those subtleties get magnified because of how he plays them. It’s never over the top, but just one step away from pushing over the edge." "As serious as she is, Sarah gets the jokes," says one of her best students, Hamilton. "Sarah is married to a stand-up comedian, so she knows how to make an inside joke work and even go for broad comedy." Someone who deserves a big wrap for her work on "Blades of Glory" is Costume Designer Julie Weiss. For the record, her work has garnered the following awards: 1984 & 1995 Emmy; 2000 Costume Designers Guild Award; 1996 Saturn Award and in 2003, the Golden Satellite Award. Costume houses like Bill Hargate, Ray Aghayan and Bob Mackie helped construct the elaborate, and often bejeweled, costumes Weiss created. The final result is a very funny, clever, film. "Even as you’re laughing your head off," says director Speck, "you will be admiring the blood, sweat and tears that goes into figure skating." Gordon sums up. "For us, "Blades of Glory" is equal part comedy spoof and realistic sports movie. We hope that we paid homage to the athletes and performers who do it for a living." Synopsis

When the macho, swaggering Chazz Michael Michaels takes to the rink, he is the rock star of the arena, leaving a trail of thrashed ice and shrieking female fans in his wake. The only competitor who can match Michaels' scores is the driven former child prodigy, Jimmy MacElroy. Spotted as a youth executing triple lutzes on the frozen pond of an orphanage, MacElroy was whisked away to days of endless training, and now stands as the picture of poise, the personification of the highest ideals of the men's sport. The two skaters have met in finals rounds before, but their latest head to head at the World Championships, when they tie for first, is more than either one can bear. Their longstanding rivalry erupts into a no holds barred fight. Both skaters lose their medals and are banned for life. Over three years later a loophole emerges. They can skate again as the first male/male figure skating pair.

The Verdict "What makes "Blades Of Glory" so much fun is the contrast between the characters played by Ferrell and Heder. These two give exceptional performances to the point where you will believe they are champion ice-skaters. The film sends up everything including homosexuality, so if you're a 'homophobic', don't say you weren't warned. If you were a fan of "Napoleon Dynamite", "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy", "Zoolander" or "Stranger Than Fiction" then you'll know what to expect. If you weren't, Ferrell's style of humour you may leave you feeling a little 'left out of the loop' at times. "Blades Of Glory" will leave fans of Heder and Ferrell gasping for breath thanks to a barrage of comedy ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime. With an excellent support cast, exceptional choreography, flamboyant costuming and colorful characters, "Blades Of Glory" is irresistible. Very recommended. 4 STARS." Cast & Crew Bytes "BLADES OF GLORY" stars .......
Will Ferrell ["Melinda and Melinda", "The Producers", "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" and "Stranger Than Fiction"]; 2005 MTV Movie Award winner Jon Heder ["Napoleon Dynamite", "The Benchwarmers" and "School for Scoundrels"]; Will Arnett ["The Waiting Game", "Monster-In-Law" and "RV"]; Amy Poehler ["Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo", "Mean Girls", "Fast Track" and "Shrek the Third"]; Jenna Fischer ["Employee of the Month", "LolliLove" and "Slither"]; Screen Actors Guild Award winner William Fichtner ["Drowning MOna", "Pearl Harbor", "Black Hawk Down", "Crash" and "The Longest Yard"]; William Daniels ["The Graduate", "The Blue Lagoon" and "Blind Date"]; Katharine Towne ["The Bachelor", "What Lies Beneath", "Mulholland Dr." and "Evolution"] and EMMY Award winner Craig T Nelson ["Ghosts of Mississippi", "The Skulls" and "The Family Stone"] as Coach.
"BLADES OF GLORY" was .......
directed by 1998 Silver Hugo Award winners Josh Gordon ["Angry Boy" and "Culture"] and Will Speck ["Angry Boy" and "Culture"] edited by 2007 BAFTA Film Award winner Richard Pearson ["Drowning Mona", "The Score", "The Bourne Supremacy" and "United 93"]; costume design by Two Time Emmy Award winner Julie Weiss ["American Beauty", "Hearts In Atlantis", "The Missing" and "Bobby"]; production design by Stephen J Lineweaver ["Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls", "Jerry Maguire" and "Are We There Yet?"]; director of photography Stefan Czapsky A.S.C. ["Edward Scissorhands", "Ed Wood" and "Bulletproof Monk"]; original music by Melissa Ritter ["Blades of Glory"] and 2004 & 2005 BMI Film Music Award winner Theodore Shapiro ["Starsky & Hutch", "Along Came Polly" and "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story"]; produced by Stuart Cornfeld ["The Elephant Man", "The Fly I & II", "Zoolander" and "Starsky & Hutch"], John Jacobs ["Anger Management", "My Boss's Daughter" and "The Ringer"] and Ben Stiller ["Zoolander", "Starsky & Hutch" and "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story"]. Who's Who?

Will Ferrell Jon Heder Will Arnett Amy Poehler Jenna Fischer William Fichtner Craig T . Nelson Romany Malco Nick Swardson Scott Hamilton William Daniels Luke Wilson Katharine Towne

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Chazz Michael Michaels Jimmy MacElroy Stranz Van Waldenberg Fairchild Van Waldenberg Katie Van Waldenberg Darren MacElroy Coach Jesse Hector Sports Anchor Commissioner Ebbers Sex Class Counselor Female Sex Addict

Run Time 93 minutes Rated M [AUST] Copyright ©2007 - DreamWorks LLC - All Rights Reserved ©2007 All Rights Reserved - Protected by Australian & International Copyright. Trademark Laws Apply.