Tropic Thunder

Ahh... The beauty of controversy... Especially when the people who are kicking it all up have either not seen the thing their complaining about, or completely missed the point. Tropic Thunder is Ben Stiller's first time back in the directing chair since Zoolander, a film that made fun of the idiocy of the modelling business, and male models, in particular. This time around, Stiller is taking on the idiocy of his own breed - actors and directors. With a well-rounded out cast of talent, including once, and now current, golden boy Robert Downey Jr., Steve Coogan, Danny McBride, Jack Black, and Tom Cruise (in a surprisingly hilarious role), Stiller is out to win your heart for this movie with a lot of R-rated laughs.

The film centers around the production of a war movie, also titled Tropic Thunder, which is being led by an ego-maniacal director, Damien Cockburn (played by Steve Coogan). Cockburn has wrangled up several of Hollywood's leading actor's, including action star Tugg Speedman (Stiller), comedian Jeff Portnoy (Black), and Kirk Lazarus (Downey Jr.), an Australian multi-award winner. After only a week of filming, the production is hopelessly off schedule and over budget, and the actors aren't cooperating with Cockburn's direction. Fearing his eminent dismissal by the head honcho's in charge, Cockburn decides to gather up his leads, along with explosives expert Cody (played perfectly by Danny McBride), and the author of the source novel, Four Leaf Tayback (played by a very grungy Nick Nolte), and head out into the jungle to shoot the film guerilla style, in hopes that this will inspire his actors to deliver the performances he's looking for. Needless to say, things go awry from the moment they touch down, and soon enough, the whole Tropic Thunder crew is living out the movie there supposed to be making.

This film was hilarious! That's it. That's all I can say. One of the funniest things I've seen all year. And, it's sort of like The Dark Knight of comedy's - you feel like you could watch it over and over, and it would never stop being funny. Everybody's performances were great, and Stiller did an amazing job for being co-writer, director, AND actor. I can't imagine what that process must have been like.

The controversy, though, centers around the inclusion of a movie that Tugg Speedman did, as a chance to get an award, called Simple Jack. That "film" was about a mentally challenged individual. Several mental disability advocate groups have taken to saying that the film makes fun of the mentally disabled. I got news for you - It doesn't. If they had SEEN the movie, they would know that. Simple Jack isn't about showing mentally disabled people as stupid or people to be made fun of. It's purpose is to show the idiocy of actors who try desperately to attach themselves to projects like that, because they think it will get them awards. Tugg Speedman is an action star. He doesn't get any real respect, so he goes out and makes a movie like Simple Jack thinking that everyone will love it, and be challenged by it, and they'll heap awards on him. Instead, people laugh at him, and scorn him (until he finds some people who DID like the film, but I won't ruin that for you). It's the same concept that he's using for Downey Jr.'s character Kirk Lazarus. Lazarus lobbies to play the part of the platoon's black leader. There's only one problem, though - he's white. So he goes through an operation to have his pigment darkened so he can play the role. AND THEY HIRE HIM! Why would anybody, in their right minds, hire a white, Australian guy to play the part of a black, southern platoon leader? But that's the point! It's to show the ridiculousness of some of the decisions that Hollywood makes sometimes. And if you watch the movie, and you don't get that fact... Honestly, I'd feel a little sorry for you...

Tropic Thunder is great. It's almost constant laugh's, a great satire of one of the largest entertainment industries in the world, and its done with great skill and loving care. Don't believe the negative hype about this film - go see it.

Margot At The Wedding

Margot At The Wedding is Noah Baumbach's latest film. Some of you may know Noah, primarily, from The Squid and the Whale, but he has several well made films in his catalog, including Kicking and Screaming, his debut, which is now available on Criterion DVD.

Margot (Nicole Kidman) is a New York writer who, along with son Claude, is on her way out to the country for her sisters wedding. She doesn't approve of the man she's marrying, and, honestly, doesn't care for her sister very much either, but is going to get away from her husband, whom she is no longer in love with. When she gets to the large, Cape Cod style house, we meet her sister, Pauline (played by Baumbach's wife, Jennifer Jason Leigh), Pauline's daughter, and her soon to be husband Malcolm (played by Jack Black), a "super smart" guy who, basically has amounted to nothing.

As the film clips along, the tension between Margot and everyone else rises substantially. Margot is one of those people who is eternally unhappy, and, not only completely unable to experience happiness herself, but she also seems to find it a necessity to make sure those around her are unhappy as well. Baumbach has written Margot with an acute awareness of how the character's personality is like a surgical instrument in the hands of a psychotic maniac - always slicing away at everyone else, while she's completely unable to focus on solving any of her own problems.

The film also shares a little bit of its focus with her son Claude, who, unfortunately, ends up being a bit of a cliche mash up of other indie film characters. We see Claude face a lot of situations, but he never really does anything beyond what you would expect him to do.

Jennifer Jason Leigh, as Pauline, delivers a fantastic performance as the sister who has never particularly accomplished anything, and simply drifts through life, attaching herself to whatever comes along, which, in this case is Jack Black's character, Malcolm. Black turns out a decent performance, considering he doesn't rely on any of his trademark schtick.

The film is quite amazing, really, in the way it portrays such a messy side of family togetherness, neurosis, and selfishness. My only problem with it is that Baumbach (or perhaps a studio exec?) doesn't always allow us to let it all sink in. Cuts are made VERY quickly in this film, to the point that, sometimes, a cut to the next scene happens directly after a punchline or a reveal. The film doesn't give you any time to take in what has just happened, and, in doing so, feels like it is moving at the pace of a bullet train. You feel that, by the time your done, you've been on a bit of a roller coaster ride, with your eyes closed, so you have no idea what just happened. It is taut, but maybe a little too taut...

All in all, I would definitely recommend Margot for Baumbach fans, but, not for Kidman fans or casual film goers. For instance, my Mom asked me if she would like it, and I told her no. The main reason I told her no was the fact that Baumbach's humor is extremely dry and razor sharp, but there's also other little Baumbach twists of the arm, like Margot's masturbation scene, that would probably make my mom feel incredibly uncomfortable. So, the verdict is, go watch The Squid and the Whale. If you don't like that, there's NO WAY you'll like Margot At The Wedding.