Anchorman; The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

           Will Ferrell plays Ron Burgundy, the lead news anchor for San Diego's Channel Four network news. Set in the 1970s, this biting satire does for the television news industry what Zoolander did for the fashion industry. Petty personalities, insipid news content about pregnant zoo animals, blow dried hair and toothy smiles, paltry humor, and blatant sexism remind us of the very thin border between film's fiction and whatever constitutes "real" news. Just last night on our "real" news the weatherman reported that San Jose had "four one hundredths of an inch of rain." And he was serious. Watched as parody and farce, this film works. Network news has come a long, long way from the comforting, paternalistic intonations of Walter Cronkite.