Ben Stiller
164 connections found
View:
Connections, in both directions
The inspiration for Speedman can’t be traced to one source (except for direct visual quotes of Willem Dafoe in Platoon and Brando’s Kurtz), and it’s a funny composite.
"Tropic Thunder" is both a parody of a big-budget action movie (Willem Dafoe's Christ-on-the-cross death spasm in "Platoon" is referenced not once, but twice) and a real one, too.
Tropic Thunder is the name of the film within the film—a cliché-driven Vietnam picture with echoes of everything from Apocalypse Now and Platoon to the Rambo series embedded like arrows in its derivative hide.
Here, borrowing tropes and images from movies such as Platoon and Apocalypse Now, Stiller’s subject is war movies and overblown action films – but also so much more.
The cast's awful experiences call to mind Apocalypse Now, but the film they are making (also called Tropic Thunder) looks more like a combination of Platoonand Rambo II: war is hell, but, if you discharge enough ordnance, it can make you a stronger human being.
The story takes this deranged quartet and thrusts them together into the Vietnamese jungle for the filming of a Platoon rip-off that is hindered by the mass of egos on set.
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
influenced Tropic Thunder (2008)
Visuals Themes
Tropic Thunder is the name of the film within the film—a cliché-driven Vietnam picture with echoes of everything from Apocalypse Now and Platoon to the Rambo series embedded like arrows in its derivative hide.
Here, borrowing tropes and images from movies such as Platoon and Apocalypse Now, Stiller’s subject is war movies and overblown action films – but also so much more.
The cast's awful experiences call to mind Apocalypse Now, but the film they are making (also called Tropic Thunder) looks more like a combination of Platoonand Rambo II: war is hell, but, if you discharge enough ordnance, it can make you a stronger human being.
And as the tone changes from "Rambo" to an "Apocalypse Now" vibe, it's good to have a grizzled veteran like Nolte around to keep things completely insane.
The film apes "Apocalypse Now," "Close Encounters" and more, slyly ridiculing production excesses and rampant egotism even as it subscribes to them.
Joining Speedman is Australian thespian Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), who has undergone a very controversial pigmentation surgery in order to portray an African American; Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), a comedian famous for playing multiple roles a la Eddie Murphy; Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel), a rookie actor and the smartest of the bunch; Cody (Danny McBride), a movie demolitions expert and finally, the director Damien (Steve Coogan), an artsy music video director determined to make a gritty masterpiece akin to Apocalypse Now .
Tras un prólogo criticando el mundo de la moda que quizá llega demasiado tarde –Zoolander lo hizo mejor hace veinte años-, Östlund se mete de lleno en lo que más le gusta, voltear las jerarquías y jugar con el poder que unos personajes ejercen sobre otros.
Triangle of Sadness è diviso in 3 parti precedute da un prologo che, come detto, è una scena in cui tanti modelli si contendono il privilegio di diventare volto di una pubblicità e, in qualche istante, sembra di precipitare in Zoolander .
This wild ride starts like an art-house remake of Zoolander (2001)…
Ein gewisses Echo von The Devil Wears Prada bis Zoolander lässt sich da nicht vermeiden.
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
Directed by Jay Roach
influenced Zoolander 2 (2016), Zoolander (2001), Tropic Thunder (2008)
Plot Themes
The jokes are repeated and the storylines are rehashed, and not in a witty, self-referential way as say Mike Myers did with the Austin Powers franchise.
This feels like a total rip-off of Austin Powers, with Zoolander and Hansel becoming spies, Penelope Cruz stepping in as the tightly clad female sidekick, and a daddy issues subplot involving Zoolander’s long lost son, not to mention Mugatu has become a sad riff on Dr. Evil.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that the original “Zoolander,” a 2001 Ben Stiller comedy based on a character he introduced in a 1996 short film, was 50 percent nonsense and 50 percent inspired nonsense, however often reminiscent of “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.”
Although never a box office dynamo, Zoolander , much like Austin Powers , found new life on home video.
What we got was a sixth rate “Austin Powers” clone that chases away the good memories from Derek’s Blue Steel gaze.
Zoolander, with its focus on a blundering agent of espionage, is reminiscent of the Austin Powers films, and suffers from most of the same flaws as the Mike Myers franchise: characters that tend to be one-joke ponies, gags that miss the mark, and an incomprehensible need to slop on unnecessary sentiment.
Mixing conspiracy themes not dissimilar to those found in The Manchurian Candidate, Soylent Green, and even the obscure Wild in the Streets (a ludicrous 1968 drama in which anyone over thirty-five is sent to retirement camps and fed a stream of hallucinogens), Derek Zoolander, with an assist from "humorless" Time Magazine journalist Matilda Jeffries (Christine "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" Taylor, a.k.a.
There’s sentimental work being done by geeky Jay Baruchel (“Tropic Thunder”) and gorgeous Alice Eve in Jim Field Smith’s “She’s Out of My League.”
This young Canadian actor, part of the scenery in Knocked Up and Tropic Thunder, ascends to stardom as Kirk, a scrawny loser working at an airport, who’s laughed at by his buddies when “perfect 10” Molly (Alice Eve) takes an interest.
As a love story, "She's Out of My League" is slight and underdeveloped, but there is a bit of appeal in the pairing of Alice Eve and Jay Baruchel (2008's " Tropic Thunder ") as Molly and Kirk.
Jay Baruchel, the scarecrow-thin star of Fox’s “Undeclared” and “Tropic Thunder,” scores in his first lead role as Kirk, a guy with chronically low self-esteem who works with his buddies as a TSA employee at Pittsburgh’s airport.
In League, the average guy is Kirk (played by Jay Baruchel , of Tropic Thunder, Knocked Up, and 2010's Sorcerer's Apprentice,) -- an unassuming "6" -- who works in airport security and one day, through a series of only slightly unbelievable events, finds himself meeting and dating the aforementioned perfect girl, Molly -- a "hard 10." Naturally, Kirk can't figure out why Molly is interested, so enter Kirk's knucklehead friends and family who offer no support, ridiculous advice, and eventually beat Kirk's self-confidence to a pulp... so much so that there's nothing left -- for Kirk or for Molly.
The missed opportunities, even in something as low-concept as this, are everywhere, including a chance for Eve — a British actress whose turn in "Starter for 10" made her feel like a young Nicole Kidman — and Baruchel (" Tropic Thunder ") to move beyond caricatures.
Forrest Gump (1994)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
influenced Tropic Thunder (2008), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
Themes Characters Plot
Tropic Thunder skewered the trend with its depiction of Simple Jack , but I always find myself returning in these instances to Edward Norton’s performance in the otherwise forgettable The Score.
The scene in which the derisive Alpa Chino nails Lazarus' recitation of black-uplift homilies as nothing more than the lyrics to the "Jeffersons" theme is funny; but the one in which Lazarus quietly explains to Speedman that his "Simple Jack" character failed because he made the mistake of going "full retard" — rather than softening his character with cuteness in the manner of "Forrest Gump" — is so on-the-nose accurate, it takes your breath away.
His biggest hit, it seems, was the Forrest Gump-like story of a saintly rural imbecile, Simple Jack.
In the most famous example, the film has run into flak from disabled advocates for its repeated use of the word "retard," referring to Speedman's previous bid for artistic respectability, a sentimental "Forrest Gump"-style Oscar bid by the name of "Simple Jack."
This brings a lecture from Lazarus who explains to Speedman that the reason he failed to get accolades that actors like Billy Bob Thorton (Sling Blade), Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump) and Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man) received is that he went "full retard."
Films like Forrest Gump or Radio, that use disabilities to opportunistically manipulate, would be more appropriate subjects for offended anger from Shriver & co., and it's a point in Tropic Thunder's favor that Stiller is willing to call out his colleagues on this.
The result combines elements of "There's Something About Mary ...," "The Player" and "Team America: World Police," and yet almost nothing in "Tropic Thunder" is predictable or cliched.
It plays like a melding of Robert Altman's "The Player" (1992) and Wes Craven's "Scream" (1996).
Not since The Player has the American film industry endured such vicious caricature.
As a jab at the movie business, “Tropic Thunder” is flailing and unfocussed, hardly in the league of “The Player,” and if you want an exposé of the combat movie, strewn with compromise and creative sacrifice, watch “Hearts of Darkness” (1991), about the making of “Apocalypse Now.”
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016)
Directed by Michael Bay
influenced by Tropic Thunder (2008)
Frankly, the best writing in the film is featured in a clip from “ Tropic Thunder ” that is shown and considering what that movie is about—a group of actors going off to film a war story that proves to be not quite as accurate as advertised—its inclusion comes across as either the sickest joke imaginable or a weird bit of meta-commentary that somehow got slipped into the mix.
The characters refer to other films: "Black Hawk Down," "The Bourne Identity," "Tropic Thunder."
So, Rone and his team are a mile away at the CIA base, a once-private walled compound next to a slaughterhouse, spending their day off playing video games, watching “Tropic Thunder” and calling their families.
But that reference is as true to this group’s history as their love for Robert Downey Jr. proclaiming in Tropic Thunder , “I’m the dude playin’ the dude, disguised as another dude!”
Some read Joseph Campbell, some Facetime with their kids and wives, some quote "Tropic Thunder" and all look out for one another.
From its brilliant opening sequence—three bogus “pre-title” trailers establishing the characters and careers of action star Tugg Speedman (Stiller, channeling Stallone), comedian Jeff “Fats” Portnoy (Jack Black, mocking multi-character Eddie Murphy fart-fests like The Nutty Professor ) and multi-Oscar-winning Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr., taking down Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson on his way toward Iron Eagle -era Louis Gosset Jr.), Tropic Thunder marks a clear and welcome return to the sketch-comedy priorities of Stiller’s influential television work.
Black plays Jeff Portnoy, a comedy superstar whose films are a thinly-veiled attack on Eddie Murphy's feature-length fart-gags The Nutty Professor and Norbit.
Joining Speedman is Aussie character actor Kirk Lazurus (Robert Downey Jr.), who undergoes a pigment operation to darken his skin for his role, and Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), a comedy actor who made a name for himself in The Fatties – think Eddie Murphy and his many roles in The Nutty Professor and throw in some added farts.
…la Eddie Murphy in "The Nutty Professor."
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Directed by David Fincher
influenced The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
Plot Visuals
A jokey reference to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at one point underlines some similarities to that film, which also mushroomed out of a work of short fiction by an iconic American writer working in a fabulist vein.
There is a whole sequence that’s a The Curious Case of Benjamin Button themed gag about romance and at one point a European mistakes the word “eruption” with “erection”.
In one fantasy scene that recalls the broader, sketch-style comedy of “Tropic Thunder,” Stiller and Wiig spoof, for no apparent reason, “ The Curious Case of Benjamin Button .”
In the midst of this misery, he consoles himself by imagining himself in a bespoke remake of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button , reverting to babyhood while Cheryl grows old beside him on the porch.
What we get are gimmicky accents that seem left over from The Ben Stiller Show and random send-ups of cultural artifacts like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button .
There’s an odd throwaway sequence with Stiller and Wiig lampooning “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” then a musical interlude with Wiig serenading Stiller on guitar (a passage that at least advances the plot).
But it’s tired — the jig has been up on the Rain Man/Shine/I Am Sam stunt for years now, and parodied more bitingly on Mr. Show, South Park and elsewhere.
But Speedman went too far, like Sean Penn in the disastrous I am Sam.
The offense is taken at a plot point which has Stiller's Tugg Speedman, an action hero desperate to be taken seriously, playing a character in the mold of Sean Penn's in I Am Sam.
Apparently, doing so diminishes your chances of walking away with a golden statue, à la Sean Penn in “I Am Sam.” Satires, however, are the complete opposite.
After his character's speech about actors who don't get Oscars when they go "full retard," it's going to be really interesting when Robert Downey Jr. runs into "I Am Sam" star Sean Penn at the next Vanity Fair party.
Sean Penn gave the most professionally shameful, cruelly wrongheaded performance ever nominated for a Best Actor Oscar in 2001’s “I Am Sam” — a film that deserved the bullshit-calling buckshot fired its way by “Tropic Thunder.”
(It’s kind of like Sternberg’s Shanghai Express (1932) with flying viscera, gross-out humor and rampaging bad taste.)
Some cameos are amusing, such as Susan Sarandon and Kiefer Sutherland playing themselves but referencing their characters in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and 24 respectively.
There's a line in Woody Allen's classic Annie Hall where a pompous party guest says, "Right now it's only a notion, but I think I can get money to make it into a concept... and later turn it into an idea."
Nevertheless, two movies later (not to be forgotten, but “Fallen Kingdom” now looks like an Oscar contender compared to “Dominion”), Pratt can’t be bothered to show a silver of emotion, only smoldering close-ups that might rival Ben Stiller in “Zoolander.”
The Inglorious Bastards (1978)
Directed by Enzo G. Castellari
influenced Tropic Thunder (2008)
Characters
(Film scholar and critic Dave Kehr has pointed out that Downey's black GI seems to be modeled on the one played by blaxploitation icon Fred Williamson in "The Inglorious Bastards," the 1978 Italian movie that's currently on the verge of being remade by Quentin Tarantino.)
Hector and the Search for Happiness (2014)
Directed by Peter Chelsom
influenced by The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
Visuals Themes Plot
It's almost doubly disappointing that Chelsom ditches Skarsgård to cut to a snowy Sherpa hike sequence, which is practically shot-for-shot the same as the one in Ben Stiller's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, another film about an uptight white man who searches for his soul in Asia.
The tone of the adventure is a little like last year’s remake of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, except more dry and British.
As adapted for cinema by the British writer-director Peter Chelsom (Hear My Song) it resembles Ben Stiller's recent misbegotten version of The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, except much worse.
Hector and the Search for Happiness is part fable, part self-help manual with echoes of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty , but like that film, there's a considerable gap between its deeply profound objective and the soft handling.
Mixing conspiracy themes not dissimilar to those found in The Manchurian Candidate, Soylent Green, and even the obscure Wild in the Streets (a ludicrous 1968 drama in which anyone over thirty-five is sent to retirement camps and fed a stream of hallucinogens), Derek Zoolander, with an assist from "humorless" Time Magazine journalist Matilda Jeffries (Christine "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" Taylor, a.k.a.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Directed by Michel Gondry
influenced The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
Characters Themes Visuals
Ben Stiller is perfect for the leading role, with his restraint echoing Jim Carrey's turn in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind.
KRISTIAN: Going into “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, I was cautiously optimistic: I’m not the biggest Ben Stiller fan in the world, but the material seemed to lend itself to the possibility of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” territory.
From the perspective of someone who isn't familiar with the short story the film is based on or the original 1947 film, the most appealing aspect of " Walter Mitty " going into it was that it looked very similar to " Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ."