Bewitched (The One Where Will Ferrell Married a Witch)

This week on The Worst Movie Podcast, Ade and Aaron revisit Bewitched (2005), the big-screen adaptation of the beloved 1960s sitcom. Starring Nicole Kidman and peak-era Will Ferrell, the film opts for a meta “show-within-a-show” premise that never fully commits to being a rom-com, a satire of Hollywood, or a straightforward comedy. Directed by Nora Ephron and packed with an overqualified supporting cast, Bewitched isn’t aggressively bad—it’s just strangely flat, hesitant, and uninterested in letting its funniest actor actually be funny.

Transcript

Ade (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the Worst Movie Podcast. I'm Ade.

Aaron (00:03)
And I'm Aaron and this is a podcast where we watch the worst movies ever made in the hopes of finding a hidden gem

Ade (00:10)
Enjoy.

So what have you been watching lately?

Aaron (00:31)
Not much actually, this has been a pretty busy week for me so I finished Stranger Things Season 5 last week or the week before and then we just started back over at Season 1 so that's pretty much what we've been doing. Yeah, Season 1 was so good.

Ade (00:46)
Ha ha ha!

Couldn't wait.

Yeah, I did enjoy it.

Aaron (00:55)
Yeah. What about you?

Ade (00:58)
I've similarly been busy, there are two movies I don't think I've talked about on the pod. So full disclosure, I didn't just watch them, but watched them recently. First one, two Netflix movies, Wake Up Dead Man. Did you see that? Another Knives Out movie.

Aaron (01:14)
No.

yeah, I know, I've been wanting to see it.

Ade (01:20)
Yeah, you should take a look. It's enjoyable. It's a lot of fun. I liked it. I thought it was a little long, of, I don't know, stalled out in a few places, but good movie overall. And then second one, Train Dreams. Have I talked about that with you?

Aaron (01:38)
I don't think so.

Ade (01:39)
Also on Netflix starring Joel Edgerton and just a really, I don't think I can give it a synopsis that's going to sound appealing. It's about a guy who's ⁓ in the logging business. He's a logger. I don't know, business sense. he's a mogul or something. He's just chomping down trees in the early.

Aaron (01:57)
Mm.

Is he holding the axe or is he paying ⁓ paychecks?

Ade (02:09)
See, I've already butchered this movie. It's. No, no, no building. He's this is in the early 1900s or late 1800s. And.

Aaron (02:15)
Is his name on the building? Okay.

period piece,

huh? I heard that,

You've got a problem with those.

Ade (02:33)
see. Anyway,

it's a beautiful movie about life and family and relationships and I don't know all that train dreams.

Aaron (02:37)
You

What's that called again?

Huh, sounds interesting.

Ade (02:48)
⁓

Yeah, I'm sure I made it sound really interesting, but.

Aaron (02:55)
Yeah.

Ade (02:56)
⁓ If you want to know more about the logging business, no, it's nothing about business. ⁓

⁓ Let's move on from this disaster.

Aaron (03:08)
I've been wanting to watch that Knives Out one and I have also been waiting to watch one battle after another until I have like a big screen and enough time to sit and enjoy them.

Ade (03:21)
Are you like waiting for a new TV or something? What do mean waiting for a big screen?

Aaron (03:26)
Well, I usually most things that I watch are on my computer or my phone. I think that that, you know, that's just how it is now. And if I'm going to watch it on the TV downstairs, usually Amanda has to be into it, too. So I've just been waiting for the right time. Maybe I'll watch it this weekend.

Ade (03:33)
Yeah.

Yeah, you definitely

should wait for one battle after another until you see it on the big screen. The, ⁓ actually pre-ordered the Blu-ray 4K and I think it gets here at the end of the month. So I'll probably watch it shortly after you can come over.

Aaron (03:51)
Yeah.

⁓

What'd you give it on letterboxd?

Ade (04:10)
Five stars out of five. Not to set expectations high, it was my favorite movie of... Well, yeah. Yes, it was my favorite movie of 2025.

Aaron (04:12)
Wow.

I mean that's as high as they can be set.

Wow, nice.

Ade (04:28)
What was yours? Put you on the spot.

Aaron (04:31)
I don't have one. Yeah, I can't pick off the top of my head. And I also don't think that I I'm not like a. A trendy movie watcher, like I don't watch the latest stuff a lot of the time, like I I don't know, I don't know what it is. I don't go to the movie theaters that often, and I don't usually watch new stuff because of that.

Ade (04:53)
Yeah, you can still have a favorite though, even if you didn't watch all of them. I'm not saying it was the best one, it was just my favorite one.

Aaron (04:55)
So.

Let's see, let's see if I...

Ade (05:01)
I mean, it'll probably win

best picture, but.

Aaron (05:06)
Let's see if I'm going to look at I'm going to look at some top movies of 2025 2025 and see if I've seen any of them. ⁓ F1, I liked that. That was really good, actually. ⁓ So far, that's the only one I've seen on this list. no, I'm down to Jurassic World Rebirth, which is not a good movie. Yeah. Wow.

Ade (05:20)
Yeah.

No.

Aaron (05:36)
Yeah, I don't think I've seen. Yeah, I didn't. I liked Mission Impossible. It wasn't my favorite. Oh, Naked Gun was great. I love Naked Gun, Naked Gun or. F1 probably for me.

Ade (05:52)
They were both enjoyable. ⁓

Aaron (05:54)
Yeah,

not great, but fun.

Ade (05:57)
Yeah. Well, today's movie is Bewitched from 2005. This is part of our, the last of our month's themes of movie adaptations of 1960s TV shows. That's a mouthful. Awful adaptations. Directed by Nora Efron, who did Sleepless in Seattle. You've got mail, bunch of other.

Iconic Romcoms starring Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. It got a 23 % on Rotten Tomatoes, $85 million budget and made $131 million at the box office. Not bad. Had you heard of this movie?

Aaron (06:39)
Yeah.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I saw it in theaters. I don't think we would have rented it, so and I know I saw it when it came out, so I think it was a theater one for me.

Ade (06:51)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure we saw it as well. Maybe rented it, but I can't really remember much about this movie. Do you remember liking it? Yeah.

Aaron (06:58)
That was 21 years ago. I

enjoyed it enough. It was kind of right in the middle of peak Will Ferrell heyday. So and this was definitely not typical peak Will Ferrell for the most part. So it was a little strange, I think, at the time, but I enjoyed it.

Ade (07:24)
Yeah, it's probably since you brought that up, we should set some context. This was 2005. 2003 was old school and then Elf and then 2004 was Anchorman and then the next year was Bewitched. this was, I mean, it couldn't get any more peak Will Ferrell than this, right?

Aaron (07:48)
Yeah, that was ⁓ a good run for him through those. And he was in a lot of movies those like two or three years in a row. He was in like 10 movies, seems like.

Ade (07:57)
Yeah,

the early 2000s through the end of the decade, I'm looking at his IMDb right now and pretty sure it's one or two movies per year. He was cranking them out. But yeah, it was at a point where I'm sure there's I mean, he could have been in anything and I would have lined up to either get a ticket or put it on the top of my Netflix queue. Is that using Netflix back then? I don't know. Blockbuster.

Aaron (08:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

You're

getting DVDs in the mail probably.

Ade (08:29)
Yeah.

so I didn't have much background on this movie other than it's obviously based on the TV show that ran from 1964 to 1972. And there was this movie was in development for a long time. They were, I guess, trying to reboot it as a TV show and then the movie and then kind of back and forth about whether it was a straightforward reboot or what they ended up with, which was kind of like a meta.

I don't how you describe it, maybe you can give this synopsis. Yeah.

Aaron (09:02)
TV show within a movie.

I mean, that's basically it. Will Ferrell plays a struggling actor whose last his last movie had zero DVD rentals or sales, I think. ⁓ So he's struggling and he signs on to be on this bewitched reboot. But his plan is to find an actress who is an unknown so that he can basically outshine her. ⁓

He is a huge egotist and an asshole and he wants it to be all about him. So he's trying to find this ⁓ unknown actress that he can basically bully and get to do whatever he wants. And he finds Nicole Kidman, who is an actual witch in real life and ⁓ she gets cast and that's it goes from there.

Ade (10:00)
did you like the this time around?

Aaron (10:05)
It was OK. I was like 30. 35 minutes into it and I'm like, this is not a bad movie. It's not great. I laughed at several parts early on. I feel like the laughs kind of died off towards the end. When the like romcom start part really started. ⁓ But yeah, it was not bad. It was just kind of forgettable, a little bland. ⁓ I didn't.

Ade (10:15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Aaron (10:36)
I like Nicole Kidman. thought Nicole Kidman was really good in this. She did a good job. I don't know much about the original show, so I don't know if this was an impression of the original actress or if this was kind of her own thing. But I thought she was kind of quirky and fun and she was really good actress. Will Ferrell was Will Ferrell. So and I like Will Ferrell. So yeah, it was it was OK. It was just I mean, it's no.

Ade (10:59)
Ha ha ha.

Aaron (11:05)
It's no when Harry met Sally, that's for sure.

Ade (11:07)
Yeah, I feel similar to you. My. It wasn't bad. It wasn't a terrible movie. It wasn't. Great, like I. Yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't turned off by it, but I also wasn't like, this is, know, I won't watch it again. ⁓ Not a lot of jokes. I did laugh out loud at least once. ⁓

Aaron (11:29)
Yeah.

Ade (11:32)
You know, maybe a couple of times, but it just, there were long stretches where they weren't even trying to make it funny. And I didn't care at all about the, about the romance and the relationship. So kind of the, the ROM part fell flat for me and the calm wasn't there enough. So it was just kind of a meh romcom.

Aaron (11:41)
I know.

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. I think we both talked about it, but there was not a whole lot to talk about in this movie. It just kind of happened and there was nothing outstanding about it or even really offensive or bad or funny that we could make fun of. It just was a movie.

Ade (12:00)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron (12:14)
Do you think that this movie was made just to like keep a hold of the IP for some studio? Like they had to use it so they made this movie?

Ade (12:25)
I don't know.

Aaron (12:25)
because that's what it feels like to me.

Ade (12:29)
It, I didn't see anything about that. And I think that's, it's interesting. It, the only things that I read about it was that it was in development for a long time. And so it maybe felt like they were batting it around a lot and had a good seat of an idea. think I like the premise. I like that they didn't go straight forward. Like, let's just do a straight up reboot of it. And I think the setup.

Aaron (12:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Ade (12:57)
made sense. Like I think it was a foundation for a movie. I think probably if I had to guess and I've no information on it, if I had to bet on it, I would say they had Will Ferrell attached and he had a short window where he could make this movie before he went on to his next movie. And they're like, all right, we got to go. Like, let's crank the script out and probably just didn't have enough material there to actually serve the movie.

Aaron (13:16)
Yeah.

Ade (13:27)
And I think maybe they that's actually probably not that ⁓ uncommon for Will Ferrell vehicles at this time, because Will Ferrell is probably one of the best improv-ers of our generation. And so much of his, even in this movie, the time that I laughed the most was when there's a scene where ⁓ Nicole Kidman is

Aaron (13:45)
Yeah.

Ade (13:55)
upset with him and so starts putting hexes on him while he's trying to deliver line readings. And he's just like one line reading, he's doing it over the top Shakespearean, the other one he's talking in Spanish and he just like doesn't understand why he's he can't act all of a sudden. But it's

Aaron (13:59)
Yeah.

⁓ It was like

Steve Carell and Bruce Almighty when he was... Do you remember that scene when he was reading on the news? Yeah.

Ade (14:17)
Yeah, vaguely. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. But my guess is Will Ferrell was improving all this and it was just, you know, just prime Will Ferrell. It was hilarious. I was laughing out loud and I, I don't know why, but they should have just had more room in the script for him to do stuff like that. And I felt like he really only got to cook. ⁓

Aaron (14:28)
Yeah.

Ade (14:45)
few times during this movie, yeah.

Aaron (14:45)
few times.

Yeah, it was strange. Like I didn't it wasn't believable as a romantic movie. I don't I didn't think they had bad chemistry. I just don't see Will Ferrell as a romantic lead. It seems like a weird choice. Just make it more funny.

Ade (15:02)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They kind of tried to make the romantic side of it. The, the headliner and the comedy, you know, kind of a secondary, they should have flipped it. And I don't know. I just, maybe it was me. just didn't care about the characters enough to feel like they needed to have each other in each other's lives. And I didn't care if they got together, you know,

Aaron (15:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and it seemed like she only wanted to be with him because she wanted a man. Like she felt like that's what she needed in her life. Like there was nothing about him that was appealing. He was an asshole the whole time. And he was he was openly like he knows he's an asshole. He's not trying not to be.

Ade (15:47)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's terrible.

And even at the end, I was a little unsure of why he was really into her so much in the movie. He was like, I want her. Well, it started out, I want her because she's a nobody so I can. Chew up scenery and we can basically abuse her into not giving her much of a role in the show, whatever. And then it turned into, well, test audiences really loved her. So.

Aaron (16:13)
Yeah.

Ade (16:23)
I need her to be successful in this show for me to be successful. And she's the only one who can do the nose Twitch thing. And then by the end it's like, wait, is he, I guess I skipped over at one point she puts a spell on him. So he's in love with her. But then, yeah, at the end it's like, I don't really understand why he's hot for her. And yeah, it didn't make much sense.

Aaron (16:39)
Yeah.

Yeah, after this movie, after this movie, I went and watched when Harry met Sally again and I was like, man, this is this is so much better. This is like a great. Like, I love these two characters and with Bewitched, I was like, I I love Nicole Kidman and I love Will Ferrell. I don't love them together. It just didn't. It wasn't believable.

Ade (16:54)
yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I could love them together if they had different characters. It's just these characters I didn't care about. It is funny. At the end, was kind of like, am I just not a rom-com guy? And then I was kind of thinking about it. Like, yeah, there are movies I've seen recently where I like desperately want the characters to get together and I'm happy that they get together in the end. so, yeah, it's not just my cold, cold heart. It's just this movie didn't.

Aaron (17:18)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ade (17:39)
didn't click for me.

Aaron (17:41)
Yeah, do you think this was trying to be like more of a rom-com or like a reboot or like some sort of meta Hollywood thing? Like, I don't, it was this weird blend of all of those things.

Ade (17:57)
Yeah.

Yeah. And didn't succeed at any of it. I didn't really get them Hollywood commentary that much. I like Jason Schwartzman's character. I like him. But, ⁓ he played, yeah, he played Will Ferrell's agent and he was maybe the one that was most over the top. Like this could be a commentary on what people in Hollywood are like, but I don't know. It didn't really say anything super insightful.

Aaron (18:08)
Yeah. Yeah. He was like his agent.

Yeah.

Also, like the way women are treated in Hollywood.

Ade (18:33)
Yeah, but I don't think it's really said anything super point in or I don't know. It was, yeah.

Aaron (18:38)
No, I wouldn't say that.

I think it was trying to. Maybe.

Ade (18:44)
Yeah, maybe.

Aaron (18:45)
what was the thing that will Ferrell said to Jason Schwartzman that was super mean at the end? was like, I dunno, he fired him or called it, called him a name or something. And Jason Schwartzman just like, it was like water off a duck's back. He was just like, he says that all the time. Yeah, that was, I laughed out loud at that. I don't remember what the joke was now, but, he was a pretty good character.

Ade (19:00)
Yeah, I don't remember.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I just wish there was more. There was, ⁓ I can't remember what scene, but another one where little feral was just improv and you could tell people around. I think Jason was one of them just trying not to laugh doing that. And like, I don't know. That's just always. Yeah. ⁓ you talked about Nicole Kidman a little bit. Do you think she was the right casting for this?

Aaron (19:25)
Yeah, just they should have just let him go.

Ade (19:37)
Apparently they were looking at a bunch of other, think Sandra Bullock was originally attached to play Samantha and then, yeah, number of different actresses.

Aaron (19:43)
⁓

So I don't know that I'm the right person to ask. I don't know the original show that well. I don't know what the original Samantha was like. I thought, I mean, I think Nicole Kidman is a great actress. And I thought she was good in this. Like she was believable in her scenes, but the character was a little strange. It was like... ⁓

Ade (19:59)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron (20:16)
I watched this with Amanda, I kept telling her it's like it's her first day in a human body. Like she walks like with her shoulders all weird and she's like, I don't know, she's just kind of random and like ditzy and weird. And I don't know. I don't know if that's what the original Samantha was like, but I thought it was I thought the parts of it were a little strange, but I thought Nicole Kidman was great. So I don't hold it against her. I'm guessing that's the character and not a choice by her.

Ade (20:21)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I,

yeah, I watched the show a bunch as a kid. I don't remember it well. I meant to, ⁓ watch a little bit of a, ⁓ one of the old episodes, but I ran out of time. So I don't really remember the old Samantha. think it, I think it played similarly, but yeah, I don't know. It's been, you know, 30, 40 years since I've seen the original Be Witch. So I liked it though. I liked it a lot.

Aaron (21:10)
Yeah.

There was a joke in the movie. think Kristin Chenoweth said it was like 20 minutes into the movie, maybe more. And Nicole Kidman was telling her that she's going to be in the new Bewitched reboot. And she was like, is that the one with the genie? She was like, no, that's a different one. I was like, fuck, I was getting those mixed up in my own head, too. Like I did the same thing.

Ade (21:28)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

I just find it. She's, she made that mistake. then immediately she's like, yeah, I love that one. It's probably a lot of people at that era is like, yeah, that was, that was amazing, but it can't even tell you the first thing about either. dream of genie or be which. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. thought Kidman was, was great except her accent. I felt kept dropping in and out. every now and then I heard a little Australian accent come through and, ⁓

Aaron (21:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep, Amanda pointed

that out.

Ade (22:07)
not that I could do any better. I mean, yeah, I could try. You heard my, you heard my British accent last week. Just mixing different regions and time periods and, ⁓ yeah, different colonies.

Aaron (22:08)
Accents are hard. I couldn't do an Australian accent.

I mean, I could. I'd probably get canceled. ⁓

Yeah. ⁓

I have a really hard

time with Australian accents where it just becomes British as I go. So, yeah.

Ade (22:33)
Yeah. ⁓

So, ⁓

Aaron (22:39)
Australians like hillbilly British anyway, so.

Ade (22:43)
well you're gonna get canceled for that.

Aaron (22:44)
We might have to cut that.

They're not gonna like that. Nobody from Australia is watching this.

Ade (22:52)
Yeah, that's true. ⁓ I have a bunch of random things. First of all, can you do the nose switch?

Aaron (22:59)
No, I tried the whole movie. I kept trying to do it. I'm like, I don't think it's working. Can you?

Ade (23:02)
Hahaha

I'm pretty

sure I've tried that in the mirror as a kid. ⁓ I don't think I can either. don't know. No, can't. I mean, it's, it is, that is a little bit funny. It wasn't laugh out loud funny in the movie, but a big part of this movie hinges around the fact that they couldn't find an actress that could do the nose twitch.

Aaron (23:14)
I don't think so.

Yeah, I mean that might legitimately be a problem. I couldn't do it. Not well enough to do it on camera on command.

Ade (23:30)
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

Sure.

And several times in episode over and over. Yeah, I don't think most people can do that. I think ⁓ that was one of the fun parts of the original show. ⁓ Do you think witches are real?

Aaron (23:40)
Yeah. Yeah.

No, I mean other

than Stevie Nicks, she's the only one.

Ade (23:59)
⁓ What's the, does she have a song about being a witch? Or I don't understand the reference. Okay. All right. I will not do that. ⁓

Aaron (24:04)
No, she's just a witch. She. Look it up.

Ade (24:17)
There are

Aaron (24:18)
She

has a long history of having witchcraft as part of her kind of persona.

I don't know if she chooses it or if that's just assigned to her, but yeah.

Ade (24:34)
Yeah. There were a lot of very 2005 things about this movie.

Aaron (24:39)
I was gonna ask you what you thought felt the most dated.

Ade (24:44)
I mean, I, we've watched older movies recently and they felt more modern and this, was like, wow, this, this is bringing a lot of stuff back. So I have five things that I just, that I jotted down, Jason Schwartzman's Bluetooth. Headset. I don't know if that, yeah, I don't know if that was a, ⁓ parody.

Aaron (24:51)
Yeah.

It's like this big.

Ade (25:11)
Or that just was actually how big it was back then. mean, I know they were huge, but, ⁓ it's funny. I was, I was just talking to Kelly this week about how I feel like I remember the first time I saw or heard somebody talking on the phone with a, in public and a Bluetooth headset. like, that seems a little crazy. Like, cause you're just not expecting somebody just to be talking and then see this giant thing and everyone.

Aaron (25:16)
Yeah, I think they were that big.

Yeah.

Ade (25:40)
People still do this, but especially back then everyone would talk really loudly like way louder than they needed to To talk on those headsets I don't brought a lot of bad memories back Number two Bluetooth number one number two. This isn't an order. This is just the five things and then how about I have have you You can rank them number two bed bath and beyond as a thing. There's a whole scene in fact, I have to be on

Aaron (25:46)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so Bluetooth.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, like the first scene is in Bed Bath & Beyond.

Ade (26:13)
Yeah.

And, and it really hit home because for Samantha as a witch, she's like trying to, she wants to be, I don't know, a real, real human person and yeah, and be in a relationship. And she's like, sees a couple arguing about paint and she's like, Oh, they're arguing about paint. And the other, I'm like, that was 2005. That was, it was definitely me and Kelly walking through bed bath and beyond like.

Aaron (26:26)
She's giving up magic.

Ade (26:42)
several times a week and like try to figure out what to buy for our apartment or house and all that stuff. So, yeah.

Aaron (26:50)
Yeah,

Bed Bath & Beyond was great in those days.

Ade (26:53)
Yeah. Now kids these days just sit on the couch and order from Amazon. Don't get the real experience of fighting in bed bath and beyond in Ikea. ⁓ Number three, they're at a coffee shop and the bill comes out to $2.31. I don't know the last time I've had a bill for anything is like $2 and something.

Aaron (27:04)
Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, yeah, that was nice. I was also surprised by the cost of the coffee. It's like in L.A. too.

Ade (27:25)
Yeah.

Yeah. Number four, sitcoms, just in general. Can you name a sitcom today that's filmed in front of a live studio audience?

Aaron (27:40)
I don't know. Really? There's none?

Ade (27:40)
Spoiler, you can't. When's the last time you watched

this sitcom? I mean, there are. I'm just, I would be shocked if you've watched one of them lately.

Aaron (27:50)
So the last one that I watched out of morbid curiosity was, ⁓ I think it's called Shifting Gears maybe, it's the new Tim Allen, Kat Dennings show. ⁓

Ade (28:01)
you

You could have

given me a million dollars to answer trivia question on anything you just said and I would have lost. ⁓

Aaron (28:14)
It is called Shifting Gears. Let me see if it's in front of a live audience. It is filmed in front of a live studio audience. Bam. All right, I win.

Ade (28:27)
Well, nice. But how long ago was that that

you watched that?

Aaron (28:32)
months. I don't know. think they're in their second. yeah, yeah. I think they're in their second season now, maybe. And I think I watched like a handful of episodes of the first season.

Ade (28:33)
Okay, I mean, it's in the last year.

Aaron (28:52)
Not that long ago. I don't know. It's got, ⁓ it's got, ⁓ God, what's his name? Sean William Scott. The Stiffler is in it. I don't know. It was, it was planned. It's Tim Allen comedy.

Ade (28:54)
Yeah, I mean it.

You

Yeah. I mean, just for a genre that in 2005 and certainly in the decades before I could have named for you probably like top five ranked in order of, you know, Nielsen ratings and, or, I dunno. And just now I'm like, I have no idea.

Aaron (29:23)
Huge.

Ha ha ha

Yeah, I could probably give you like 10 or 15 from the 90s. Couldn't tell you any now other than shifting gears.

Ade (29:45)
Uh, number five on my list. And I wasn't too sure about this, but they, they, they film a scene at a diner and they're toasters on the table. I don't remember this at all. I mean, this had to have been a 2000 like, yeah, she's just, I guess, toasting her own stack of toast. Uh, it seemed cool. That's a great idea.

Aaron (29:59)
I don't either. I thought that was awesome.

She's made like a whole loaf of toast. It was like

20. I know, I thought that was awesome. I've never seen that before. I'm surprised though that you didn't mention the sunglasses.

Ade (30:18)
Yeah.

⁓ yeah, I don't know. The, I feel like sunglasses are such a staple even now. Like the Hollywood star you're talking about Will Ferrell sunglasses.

Aaron (30:31)
and the

And Jason Schwartzman, was just the style of them at the time. And also the boot cut jeans that Will Ferrell was wearing, where it's like flared at the bottom a little bit.

Ade (30:37)
Yeah.

I mean, those kind of came back, didn't they?

Aaron (30:48)
Yeah, but they were like, well, I saw that and I was like, this is 2005, definitely.

Ade (30:51)
Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So what's your number one then?

Aaron (30:57)
I don't know. think the Bluetooth was hilarious. He also slapped him in the Bluetooth like early on. They getting in a fight and he was slapping him and he was like, hit me again. And he slapped him like right on the ear. I was like, that probably didn't feel good, even like acting.

Ade (31:01)
Yeah.

Ha ha ha ha.

Yeah.

what are your thoughts on Will Ferrell? I mean, I guess it's maybe kind of obvious, but you like Will Ferrell. What are your top five Will Ferrell movies?

Aaron (31:25)
Yeah, I-

⁓ So I have an easy top five for you I Probably in no particular order because I don't know if I it depends on the day how I'm But Elf is definitely on there Anchorman is definitely on there Step Brothers I think is one of the funniest movies ever made And then my last two I'm not sure if you can consider them Will Ferrell movies, I guess it's up to you

Ade (31:42)
Yeah.

Aaron (31:58)
⁓ Old School and Wedding Crashers.

Ade (32:02)
I put old school on my list. Why wouldn't that be a Will Ferrell movie? Because he's not the number one. Yeah.

Aaron (32:08)
He's a side character. Yeah.

Same with Wedding Crashers, like it's a smaller role, but he had a few movies in there like that where he was just a character for a scene or two. Zoolander could probably be on there.

Ade (32:17)
Bye.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I Zoolander on my list. I must admit I've only seen Wedding Crashers once or twice. And maybe you're going to hate me, but same with Step Brothers.

Aaron (32:30)
What do you got?

⁓ no.

Ade (32:45)
I've been meaning to rewatch it recently, but yeah, I feel like I need to rewatch it before it goes on my list.

Aaron (32:53)
Yeah.

Shout out to my stepbrother, Ben. We saw this in theaters together and we both laughed our asses off and we were like, this is, this is just what being a stepbrothers like. Yeah, we loved it.

Ade (33:05)
Yeah. Maybe I just couldn't relate to it in

that personal way. ⁓ yeah, I kind of did a quick run of the list. ⁓ elf, did you put that on your list? Okay. I already forgot what you said 30 seconds ago. ⁓ yeah, my list, elf, cylinder, old school. ⁓ from there was a little tough. I just to be controversial, I'm going to put night at the Roxbury.

Aaron (33:09)
Yeah.

Ade (33:35)
how that was.

I loved that skit on SNL and I, I defiantly loved that movie. remember seeing that movie, I think in theaters and I think I was the only one that liked it. And I'm pretty sure it's a terrible movie. I wouldn't mind covering on this podcast because I don't think I've watched it since, but I had a lot of fun of that movie and, ⁓ I'll, I'll defend it.

Aaron (33:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ade (34:09)
loosely for now.

Aaron (34:10)
Was was that the movie? Did that have Danny Devito in it?

Ade (34:17)
I don't, it's been so long. don't remember enough about that movie to even tell you who else was in it

Aaron (34:23)
I'm trying to remember if that's the movie that had this joke where there was this really long conference table and I thought it was Danny DeVito was at one end and then Will Ferrell was at the other end of it and maybe Chris Catan and Danny DeVito is like, did you touch my ass? And he's like, we're all the way over here. And he's like, did you touch my ass? Do you remember that? Is that in that movie?

Ade (34:50)
I don't remember that. I don't see I'm looking at the letterbox page right now. I don't see him. But there's a huge cast here. So yeah, I don't doesn't say Danny DeVito is in this movie.

Aaron (35:03)
I think it is. Yeah,

it's maybe not Danny DeVito. I'm pretty sure it is from that movie, though. We might have to watch that. That movie.

Ade (35:11)
Yeah, I don't... Yeah, we do have

to watch it. ⁓ That was four. I don't know what my fifth one would be.

Aaron (35:19)
You

Ade (35:20)
He's in drowning Mona. That's another one that I want to watch.

Aaron (35:25)
You're kicked off the podcast.

Ade (35:28)
I

Kelly and I loved drowning Moda. ⁓ and I felt like, mean, we laughed so hard when we first watched that. And there were several groups of people that I remember having over to our place. And we were like, we should watch running Mona. And I'm pretty sure you were one of those people. And I don't remember anyone else liking it, but we're just like,

Aaron (35:51)
Probably.

Ade (35:54)
We just kept trying over and over with new groups of people. Like you guys should watch Drowning Mode. It's hilarious. I have no idea if it's aged well or not. I don't think we've seen it in 15 years or so, yeah. But yeah, I think there are a lot of Will Ferrell movies that I, I I love Will Ferrell. It's hard to dislike him. ⁓ I mean, you...

Aaron (36:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ade (36:19)
toyed around with doing a whole Will Ferrell month for this podcast. And I'm like, are there any Will Ferrell movies that like you hate?

Aaron (36:25)
I

don't think any are bad enough to qualify. I just want to watch Will Ferrell movies.

Ade (36:32)
Yeah, there are a handful that are poorly rated. I think the Holmes and Watson one they did ⁓ with John C. Reilly was very poorly rated.

Aaron (36:33)
Well, there are some. Yeah.

Yes.

I think kicking and screaming

too is also poorly rated.

Ade (36:53)
But I mean, he's one of those rare actors though, where as soon as he's on screen, I just kind of light up and I'm like, yeah, there's Will Ferrell and I think he gets so much, I don't know, credit or.

Aaron (37:00)
Yeah.

I'm looking at his ⁓ IMDB and I'm like, man, I could also put the other guys and the producers on my list and not feel bad about it at all. I just don't know what I'd take off. ⁓ Yeah. There's a lot of good, but none of these, yeah, Holmes and Watson is a 3.9 on IMDB. He was in something called Drunk Parents. It's a four, he's uncredited though.

Ade (37:21)
Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron (37:38)
Yeah, I don't know. I love Will Ferrell and I don't think that his movies are bad and I don't care if that's controversial.

Ade (37:46)
That's probably the least controversial thing you've said. ⁓

Aaron (37:51)
I don't know, are people

into Will Ferrell anymore?

Ade (37:55)
I don't think I've ever heard anybody say, I don't really think Will Ferrell's funny, or I don't like Will Ferrell.

Aaron (38:02)
What? His like brand of comedy. People were sick of it by the by the he's taken his shirt off in every movie that he's been in. He took his shirt off in this one. He got completely naked in this movie.

Ade (38:04)
You've heard.

I'm in.

That was just a dream.

Aaron (38:20)
But they filmed it. It was still his pasty body running around the set.

Ade (38:23)
It's a dream sequence.

I'm

sure there are people trying to be, you know, whatever, give their hot take that Will Ferrell actually isn't that funny and be all hipster-y in 2005, but everyone has laughed at Will Ferrell movies.

Aaron (38:42)
Yeah, I think so.

Ade (38:45)
Yeah. ⁓

Aaron (38:47)
I'm realizing now I should not have moisturized my face before this podcast. I am glistening.

Ade (38:55)
When is moisturizing ever a bad idea?

Aaron (38:59)
Right before you're going on camera, I think. Turns out.

Ade (39:02)
We're getting

way off topic. ⁓ Did we say, did we say there's not much to say about this movie?

Aaron (39:05)
You

We haven't even mentioned that Michael Caine is in a lot of this movie.

Why was he in this, do you think?

Ade (39:21)
I don't know. Like you mean him as an actor? I don't know. I think he, he probably wanted to work with Will Ferrell because everyone loves Will Ferrell. I don't know. I thought he was fine in the movie. He was a little funny. I was a little confused by, as tangential to it, but part of the storyline is him and Shirley MacLaine's character. She plays what they aunt, I forget her name.

Aaron (39:24)
Yeah.

He was...

Mm-hmm.

Ade (39:48)
Apparently she was a witch too. And it was just like in the last 20 minutes that she became a witch in this movie. That seemed kind of edited a little funky, right?

Aaron (39:57)
Yeah!

Yeah, I feel like there was a lot of story there like that got edited out or we missed somehow because they just kind of gloss over the fact that she's a witch the whole time. And they're just like nodding to it. You see her making weird looks or moving her hands and stuff happens, but they don't come out and outright say she's a witch till the very end, like towards the end of the movie. ⁓

Ade (40:25)
Well,

unless I miss it, she didn't do any magic until the end when basically a couple of times Michael Caine is trying to hit on young women and then she like hexes the young women. So they say weird things to turn them off. Like those are the only times that she's done that she did magic.

Aaron (40:27)
So there.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's maybe true. But she was, but she knew magic was being done by Nicole Kidman. She, Nicole Kidman did something with her ear and she said, like, be careful about the ear thing. People will notice that. But then they just completely moved on.

Ade (41:01)
But

no, but it was weird because it made you think, ⁓ she knows that she's doing magic. But then she says something that like, as an actor, we all develop twitches in one way or the other. it's going to hamper your acting. So it seems like at first it seems like she knew she was doing magic. And then it was like, no, as she's trying to help the actress not develop a twitch, isn't it?

Aaron (41:14)
Yeah.

But no, but she is a

witch and knew it was magic. So.

Ade (41:31)
Did she

or was she also just as an actress? It was really confusing.

Aaron (41:36)
We missed a scene or two, I think, in the edit that would have made this make sense. But the movie already is like an hour 45 something around there and felt long and they could have cut out more, another 15 minutes or a half hour probably, and it would have been fine.

Ade (41:40)
Yeah, yeah, I think that was cut.

Yeah.

Yeah, there was just a lot of, yeah, it dragged, like we said. My last note is there was a great supporting cast that was just wasted, that didn't do anything funny. Steve Cobayer, David Allen Greer. I don't know. Yeah, they just, you would.

Aaron (42:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Michael Moore is

in this, which was, I thought was strange. The documentarian.

Ade (42:25)
What, who was he?

Aaron (42:27)
He was part of the production crew with David Allen Greer and that was him. Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, it was a, it was strange. I thought that the production crew, like the David Allen Greer, Michael Moore group of those guys, I thought they were kind of funny. They had moments where they, I mean, they were all just like flabbergasted at the events. And so they're, they're incredulous and they were kind of comedic in that way. But, ⁓

Ade (42:32)
really? I didn't even recognize him. Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron (42:57)
Yeah, it was just, ⁓ it started strong, I thought. Like the movie started, I'm like, this isn't a bad movie at all. I don't know why we're watching this. And then it dragged for like another hour and I was like, okay, I get it. It's not offensive, it's just boring.

Ade (43:10)
Yeah.

And probably to your earlier point, I imagine this was, well, let me ask you this. So 23 % of Rotten Tomatoes, do you think that was affected upwards or downwards based on where Will Ferrell was in his career?

Aaron (43:31)
That's a good question. I feel like...

downwards. You and I might have different opinions on this because I felt like at that time people were starting to grow a little bit tired of the Will Ferrell schtick. Not me, because I was 18, but I feel like and he was also like around this time trying to transition to a slightly less

Ade (43:46)
Yeah.

Aaron (44:04)
comedic, a little more serious roles. And this was one of those first movies for him. And it was kind of. Not a a rousing success, I don't think, but.

Ade (44:06)
Yeah.

Aaron (44:15)
Yeah, I think people are getting a little bit tired of his a schtick by this point. so I don't know. That's a question. He is like a huge he was a huge star at the time. And. You probably did get a lot of people that just loved Will Ferrell, who are like, this is great. It's another Will Ferrell movie.

Ade (44:19)
Yeah.

Yeah. And you're, you're probably right too. And that we haven't really talked about it. I didn't really see much on what will wanted from his career at this point. And what I said earlier, we're like, why didn't they just let them cook and do his improv thing? Maybe he didn't want that. He was like, I want to try to play the romantic lead and play it a little bit more serious and not just do the same thing. But for me watching it 20 plus years later, I'm just like,

Aaron (44:49)
Yeah.

Ade (44:57)
Come on, do the old school thing. So yeah.

Aaron (44:59)
Take your shirt

off. He wanted to be Billy Crystal so bad.

Ade (45:08)
Yeah, yeah, that's probably a good, ⁓ good, cause, cause he did do stranger than fiction, ⁓ the year after this, think, or maybe two years after. So he was probably looking for those kinds of scripts that wasn't just the cookie. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. my guess is.

Aaron (45:16)
Mm-hmm.

little bit more challenging.

Ade (45:25)
If you put some random actor in this, this would.

Aaron (45:31)
Orion Gosling.

Ade (45:33)
Well, I really like Ryan Gosling. But if you just put a random, do you think you would like the movie better or worse?

Aaron (45:43)
Yeah, I was, I'm waffling on this because I don't know for one if this movie would have been better if they'd just done a straight reboot and not like a meta movie within the movie kind of thing. And then I also don't know like if, the casting was right. I like Nicole Kidman. I don't know that I would change Nicole Kidman, but ⁓ I do, I do think if you

Ade (45:52)
Yeah.

Aaron (46:09)
put a different actor in for Will Ferrell who doesn't bring the Will Ferrell baggage of like, I mean, one, I don't think he has a ton of range and two, he was like trying to get into a ⁓ niche in his career that he clearly didn't have a ton of experience in. So maybe if you brought somebody in who already could nail that role. ⁓ Because I mean, I don't know what in the original Bewitched was ⁓

Ade (46:30)
Yeah.

Aaron (46:38)
Darren more of like a straight character

Ade (46:38)
turn.

Yeah, I think so. That's what I remember. And I think I mean, this is long complicated, but the ⁓ I'm blanking on the actor who first played Darren. He ⁓ yeah, he's a straight character, but it was really more of Samantha's show. And the actor that played Darren had some debilitating injuries that they actually wrote him kind of out of the show slowly ⁓ in the first two years. And then finally, I think by the third year,

Aaron (46:57)
show.

⁓

Ade (47:10)
They switched to a completely different actor. maybe it was the fourth year. So, yeah.

Aaron (47:14)
They mentioned that in the movie. They

said they replaced the Darren actor and nobody even noticed.

Ade (47:20)
Nobody

noticed. Yeah, because they had there. There were a bunch of episodes where it was like he's he was away on business and they had more and more of Samantha's family, like her aunts and uncles coming in. And it was really Samantha's show. She was, yeah, she was the core of that. So.

Aaron (47:41)
Yeah, like I was kind of joking, but like maybe a Ryan Gosling would work where he's, he can play a straight character, but he's also got some comedic chops and it's funny where I feel like Will Ferrell has, he's got the comedic chops, but not a ton else. I don't know that he plays a straight man very well.

Ade (48:00)
Yeah, but

But ultimately the script was kind of flat. mean, I can't see anybody. I mean, the only parts of this movie that I enjoyed were really the funny parts of which there are a few. You could have brought in, know, Daniel Day Lewis and I don't think he could have conjured emotions in me to like really care about the romance side of this movie.

Aaron (48:07)
Right.

Yeah, I don't think that this movie gets better only with a recast. I think it has to have a different script. ⁓ I do think that a recast like could help a little bit, but like I think you could have kept Will Ferrell and just written this to be more funny and it would have been a fine movie ⁓ and nobody would care.

Ade (48:39)
Yeah.

Aaron (48:57)
Or if you're going to keep him as the straight man and do the meta thing, then I think you have to recast Will Ferrell because it just didn't seem to fit that well.

Ade (49:06)
Yeah, I mean, well at this point we're talking about completely different cast, different script, then let's just reboot the reboot. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron (49:12)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's fundamentally flawed. There's like a fundamental flaw with this movie that

it's not bad. It's just not good either.

Ade (49:22)
And again, I don't remember the TV show super well, but ⁓ the TV show was a comedy. It was all about kind of the fish out of water situation of the witch who's trying to give up magic but keeps using magic to do things. like the comedy of that, wasn't a romance.

Aaron (49:43)
At the beginning of the movie, she moves into a house. Did she just kick that woman out of her house with magic? And I don't know, and kept all of her furniture.

Ade (49:48)
Yeah. I did write that down. Who was living there?

Yeah, what happened to the people that live there?

Aaron (49:59)
I'm like, this woman probably has

a family that are going to be like, Mom, what happened to your house? I just let a witch move into it and I let her keep all my stuff and she didn't have any references.

Ade (50:04)
I sold it.

Yeah, is that family homeless now? Magic has some consequences that we don't really see on screen.

Aaron (50:16)
Yeah, that was weird.

Yeah, that woman's life is ruined.

Ade (50:25)
She sends, she sends

the, the ex wife to the other end of the world and, ⁓ has her give up her house and sign divorce papers and all this. And yeah, yeah, there, there really wasn't much distinction between like, let me conjure an umbrella and then let me steal this million dollar house. Yeah.

Aaron (50:33)
Yeah!

Yeah,

let me completely change the life of this person. For the worse, I'm going to take their house and all their stuff and kick them out.

Ade (50:55)
Yeah.

I mean, that is the problem with the magic. I feel like it would be hard to, I mean, once you have that power, you can have conjure anything and change anybody in the world. Like, uh, it'd be hard to put a rain on that.

Aaron (51:14)
Yeah.

Ade (51:15)
But you have to have a permit for a poison apple.

Aaron (51:19)
But you can do all these other things you can change people's free will

Ade (51:20)
in that universe.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. No consequence.

Aaron (51:30)
She also

dropped a whole lighting rig on ⁓ the set onto ⁓ Will Ferrell's ex-wife and was like, that was too mean, so she undid it. But I'm like, so you need a permit for a poisoned apple, but you can straight up murder people with accidents.

Ade (51:43)
Yeah.

Just crushing them. Yeah.

Yeah. It was an accident.

Aaron (51:55)
Yeah.

Ade (51:56)
Well, we should probably wrap things up. What are your all picks?

Aaron (52:00)
I picked Stranger than Fiction. It's like one of the next movies he made and it's still got the meta story within a story. I think it's better ⁓ movie than this one. I think he played that. I think he played a little more straight in Stranger than Fiction and it worked better. I kind of wish that that performance was in this movie.

Ade (52:09)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, I really liked that movie. ⁓ I guess I should have put that on my top five. I did buy the DVD. ⁓

Aaron (52:33)
Yeah, I didn't

put it on there because it was my alt pic. But and who doesn't love Emma Thompson? And Dustin Hoffman.

Ade (52:37)
Yeah.

⁓

yes. Yeah. Good cast in that movie. ⁓ my out pick is night at the Roxbury. just kidding. ⁓ I really struggled with all pick again. ⁓ I'm just constantly failing in this category because I'm like, I knew we would talk about all the welfare movies and then Nicole Kidman movies. The only one I really love is eyes wide shut, but I don't know. That's not it. That's

Aaron (53:08)
Did you see Cold

Mountain?

Ade (53:10)
⁓ Yeah, was a long time ago, right? ⁓

Aaron (53:14)
It was like 2003,

I think it was a year or two before this came out.

Ade (53:18)
Yeah, I don't really remember it. Yeah, I don't remember. Yeah, I thought it was my recollection is it was good, but it wasn't like I love this movie. And then I spent a bunch of time looking at like which movies and stuff like that. I'm like, they're not that many and certainly not not a bunch that I've seen. So, yeah, I'll yeah, drowning. That's my pick. Final answer.

Aaron (53:20)
Renee Zellweger

I like that movie.

Do you have

a favorite Nicole Kidman movie?

Ade (53:50)
I mean, as wide shut, that's what I said.

Aaron (53:53)
Oh, OK. I have not seen that movie.

Ade (53:58)
What?

Aaron (53:59)
Yeah, it's a Kubrick. It's the last Kubrick.

Ade (54:02)
my gosh.

Yeah, you have to see it.

Aaron (54:09)
I've seen parts

of it. I don't think I've seen it. I've maybe seen all of it. I don't know that I've seen it in one sitting. So I wouldn't say I've seen it.

Ade (54:16)
Okay, I mean that's...

That's a hard movie to watch in different sittings and different parts. ⁓

Aaron (54:28)
Yeah, that's what I found. And

I don't know, I was just I was not into what I saw, so I never came back to it. But. I do like Kubrick, so maybe I should finish it.

Ade (54:45)
There is a lot of nudity in that, so I will not be inviting you to watch that with me.

Aaron (54:52)
Does that make you uncomfortable?

Ade (54:55)
Yes, is that bad to say?

Aaron (54:57)
I

don't know.

Ade (54:59)
Yeah, okay, I'll make that my own pick so that I pressure you into seeing that. You gotta put that on your list.

Aaron (55:03)
Okay.

Okay. My alt pic is days of thunder then, and you have to watch that.

Ade (55:10)
I've seen days of thunder. think I haven't? I don't remember much about it. We're just engineering out picks just for each other.

Aaron (55:11)
All right. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. ⁓

Cold trickle. He's passing him on the outside.

Ade (55:26)
Yeah. ⁓ it's, been, I think I was, I feel like I saw it. Wait, year. that come out like eighties?

Aaron (55:36)
Uhhhh 1990

Ade (55:38)
Okay, I feel like I saw that like early 90s probably on TV. don't remember anything about it other than it's about racing. ⁓ And I definitely had zero interest in NASCAR at that time. It's NASCAR, right? Okay, see I don't remember anything.

Aaron (55:47)
Robert Duvall.

Yeah. Yeah.

Ade (56:04)
All right, well, got anything else?

Aaron (56:07)
That's it for me.

Ade (56:08)
All right, if you any questions, comments, the worst movie podcast at gmail.com, like, subscribe, all those things. I'm Ade

Aaron (56:19)
I'm Aaron, thanks for listening to the Worst Movie Podcast.