Long before the Is-Ricky Gervais'-Version-of-The-Office-Funnier-Than-Steve-Carell's? argument raged in bars frequented by comedy junkies, I spent way too much time debating similar question: whether Steve Coogan's BBC TV talk-show spoof Knowing Me, Knowing You...With Alan Partridge was superior to Garry Shandling's HBO series The Larry Sanders Show.
With The Office, I would take Gervais' side every time, but I could argue either side of the Partridge/Sanders contest because both shows were genuinely brilliant. So I'm thrilled, in a sour Steve Coogan kind of way, to see that the long-gestating Alan Partridge: The Movie will finally arrive in theaters this summer — at least in the U.K., where it opens in August &mdash. I'm also cheered that Coogan has not lost his edge as the extremely self-absorbed talk-show host. In this teaser trailer, he discusses some painfully bad titles for what sounds like a Die Hard-meets-Alan-Partridge radio-station siege movie that, if the host has anything to do with it, will include "heavy kissing and guns."
The clip even has the makings of a new debate: which is the more laugh-out-loud title: Colossal Velocity or Alpha Papa? I also quite like Hectic Danger Day . Leave your choices in the comments section below.
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