Tropic Thunder Red Band Trailer and The Real Ben Stiller

This red band trailer for Ben Stiller's upcoming comedy Tropic Thunder (coming out August 15), has been online weeks ago. But I'll highlight it here:



And here's the link for high quality version (Quicktime and iTunes required):
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/tropicthunder

and why do I post this?

well what do you think is the one movie I anticipate most this summer?

What is that I hear you say? The Dark Knight? The Incredible Hulk? Bah, none of them. Excites me as much as Tropic Thunder.

Why is that? Well, for starters, the Real Ben Stiller is finally back. Forget about Meet The Parents movies, forget about the Night At The Museum, forget about Dodgeball , forget about Along Came Polly and heck, forget about the great There's Something About Mary (which is more like a Farrelly Brothers movie). The Real Ben Stiller is perhaps the best spoof artist working in hollywood right now, who spoof stuffs so funny, the makers of *whatever genre - Scary, Epic, Date whatever* Movie movies should be put on death row. I mean after all, this is the guy who made Zoolander in 2001, the comedy masterpiece that sends up male models. I can't think and recall fondly a funnier, smarter spoof movie, and one which I can watch repeatedly and still laugh at the same jokes, than that. I mean just look at the quotes from the title character, Derek Zoolander:



"Rufus, Brint, and Meekus were like brothers to me. And when I say brother, I don't mean, like, an actual brother, but I mean it like the way black people use it. Which is more meaningful, I think."

"Have you ever wondered if there was more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?"

"At the Derek Zoolander Center For Children Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too, we teach you that there's more to life than being really, really good looking."

and those are just a few of my favourites. and also, don't forget the walk off scene between Zoolander and Hansel (played by Owen Wilson), refereed by David Bowie, set to the tune of Michael Jackson's "Beat It". That was brilliant. Whoever came up with the idea of putting those guys, David Bowie and "Beat It" should win a Nobel Prize.

Still don't believe me, here are some works Ben Stiller had done in the past:

Backstreet Boyz, a spoof of Backstreet Boys


Mission Improbable - Sending up Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible 2


Heat Vision and Jack. A 30 minute pilot about an austronaut and a talking motorcycle made in 1999 that didn't get picked up. Featuring Owen Wilson and Jack Black before they became super famous.


and look, the original Zoolander short skit:


What you don't find them funny? Dude, something is really wrong with your sense of humour. Just kidding, hahaha.

But seriously, I hope you can see that Ben Stiller doesn't just randomly spoof stuffs or randomly creates jokes; when he spoof something, he creates really well made characters and/or situations that closely mimic (but not too close) the real things he's trying to spoof. He's a great writer too (or helped by great writers). In some ways, his method is like the works of method actors who usually research on the characters they're playing. That's why the works of the real Ben Stiller is memorable, funny and not cheap.

and Tropic Thunder reflects that. Just so you know, it's about a bunch of famous actors making a troubled war movie who gets thrown into a real warzone and realize that they're not making a movie anymore. It's trying to spoof grim epic war movies like Apocalypse Now and Platoon. But don't just look at the story. Watch the trailer I put above and can you see what the characters spoof?

Ben Stiller's Character - The Action Guy - spoof Arnold Schwarzenneger

Jack Black's Character - The Comedian - spoof Eddie Murphy and his unfunny fake suit movies

and best of all, Robert Downey Jr's Character - The Award Winner - about an award winning method actor so serious about his craft that he undergoes a skin colour change operation to play the african american character. just read that!
I guess it spoofs Russell Crowe and serious method actors like Daniel Day Lewis

and if you notice, there's a black guy character in the trailer too. you know what's the character's name? Alpa Chino.

So, yeah, I hope you guys will watch this movie and make this movie do well in box office this august. If it does well, that means Ben Stiller can make more movies that's closer to his spoof sensibility than the usual Night At The Museum craps. It's been 7 years since Zoolander and that's really long. So yeah, I hope it does really well and I pray one day, Zoolander 2 will come out.

Thoughts on The Indiana Jones Movies

Just finished watching Indy 4 on a company sponsored screening. Some thoughts:

First, Arnold came back from the future as The Terminator in 2003



then, Sylvester Stallone came out of retirement in Rocky Balboa in 2006



... followed by another adventure in Burma in Rambo this January



and don't forget Bruce Willis also returned for another yippee kay yay mother-(PG13 censored)-ing time in Live Free or Die Hard



Now the return of the 80s Action Heroes come in full circle with Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull.



(... as of this writing, there are plans to bring back Eddie Murphy for a 4th Beverly Hills Cop movie. I guess a 4th Godfather movie with Al Pacino can't be that far behind either)

Before I start talking about the movie, let me just go over briefly my thoughts on the franchise. Until about 3 weeks before the movie opens, I have sadly, never watched a single Indiana Jones movie. I remembered watching the 3rd movie, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, in theaters when I was a kid and got freaked out by it I asked my dad to leave the theater.

So 3 weeks before the movie opens, I finally netflixed the 3 movies. However, I could only watch the first 2. So here's what I think:



Raiders of The Lost Ark: Many people, filmmakers, critics consider this movie as one of the most beloved film of all time. I mean, if a film is so powerful that it inspired 3 kids to spend 7 years of their life making their version of a shot-for-shot remake, it must be something so god damned special right?

Sadly, no. Like another popular film made by George Lucas, the very first Star Wars movie, I just couldn't bring myself to love and worship it like many others. It's a good movie for sure. On the outside, yeah it has an ingredient for a perfect movie: adventure, romance, comedy, various exotic locales, nazis as villains. But somehow I felt that I've seen these stuffs before. Which bring me to my next point, this movie has aged, become a victim of its own success and a formula of its own. Films like this probably didn't exist before 1981, that's why the audiences who watched it for the first time remembered it so fondly. But it spawned endless imitators that's still going until now. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing (after all, many good movies and characters owe their existence to Indiana Jones, including Die Hard's John McClane, I can't help but observe), but it's hard to love and appreciate this film after you've seen the stuffs that come after it first, just like Star Wars.

But let me just mention the good stuffs: Harrison Ford is just iconic as Indiana Jones. Then, Marion Ravenwood, played by Karen Allen, is probably the only romantic foil that should complement Indy, no others. And the truck chasing action sequence is still very tense and exciting as ever; and interestingly, it wasn't shot by Spielberg but his 2nd unit director Vic Armstrong. Other than that this movie has aged. you're welcome to see what it's all about and if you could experience it like those who saw it back when it played the first time, then you're one lucky person. (rating: 3.5/5)



Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom: I'm going to bring up a Star Wars again. I love the Star Wars trilogy even though I wasn't impressed by the first movie. That's because the 2nd movie, The Empire Strikes Back was just a great movie that has this great story that makes the whole Star Wars saga more than just another space adventure story. The 2nd movie was so good that it made the first movie better too.

Now for Indiana Jones, the 2nd movie made me think about the first movie better too, but for totally different reason: The 2nd movie is just bad, so bad it makes the first movie looks good.
The first movie, even if it has aged, does so many things right that the 2nd one doesn't: establish the characters, story and mythology well. In the first movie, Indiana Jones together with Marion Ravenwood, who have a history of a love/hate relationship, chase after The biblical Ark of The Covenant against The Nazis, who is helped by the only man who could equal Indy, Belloq. In the 2nd movie, Indiana Jones get stuck in India with an chinese kid sidekick and an annoying damsel in distress and have to help a local village recover a magic stone from an evil cult. Can you see the difference? I don't know how the idea brainstorming goes for this movie, but it probably goes like this:

===

Spielberg: How can we top the first one?

Lucas: You know what would be a great Idea, let's make it a prequel so that we don't have to feel like we have to top the first one.

Spielberg: That's great. We need an exotic setting, so where should we put Indy this time?

Lucas: I don't know let's see ... I just read about these magic stones and cult stuff in India ... That's it, let's set it in India with those magic stones and cult there.

Spielberg: that's cool, what about Marion and the others?

Lucas: This is a prequel, remember? We don't have to care about Marion. In fact, I just have a great idea again, let's start the movie in Shanghai where Indy picks up this beautiful club singer damsel in distress and a sidekick who's a chinese kid and they go to India!!

Spielberg: Let's do it!

===

That's totally imaginary. But that's how I felt about the 2nd movie, things happen arbitrarily just to get Indy to an adventurous location and do his stuffs and both the annoying sidekick and damsel in distress are just there to fill the space. The only good thing about the 2nd movie is the action scenes in the mines. But that's about it, everything else is a waste of time. (Rating: 2.5 / 5)

I haven't watched the 3rd movie. So, onto the 4th film.



Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skulls: I understand that people have been waiting a long time for this, about 19 years since the last movie came out. It's understandable if people have great expectations for this. However, just don't expect this to be a great movie. The motive of this film is only to give a final farewell gift to the fans (just like Rocky Balboa), perhaps. So everything plays out straight like the previous movies, with not much messing up, nothing less, nothing more. Because of that longtime fans will probably love everything here. But for other people like me, maybe not so much, as the movie even show how much the action adventure formula created by the first movie, like its star, has aged.

(SPOILERS ALERT)

Good stuffs about this movie: Harrison Ford is still as good as ever as Indy, although he does show his age. Shia LaBeouf isn't as bad as people thought he'd be, he's actually quite good in it. Best of all, Karen Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood and (like i said, this is a movie for fans) get to finally marry Indy this time around.

The bad stuffs: there are a lot of actions towards the end, but they are not as exciting as the set pieces in the previous movies. That's due to the lack of good villains. The communists are actually dangerous in the first half of the movie, and actually that's where the movie's best moments are, but they become less dangerous later on. and what's up with the aliens? I understand Indiana Jones have dabbled in supernaturals before but putting aliens there is just stretching it.

(End of Spoilers)

Rating: 3/5

So there you go, my thoughts on the Indiana Jones movies. I enjoyed, but don't love them. Lastly, Harrison Ford is the one and only Indiana Jones. So I hope that there will be no Shia LaBeouf Indiana Jones movie.

Quick Review: Iron Man

It's  a good movie, with a good story. Stays pretty faithful to the origin story in the comic as far as I know.

Robert Downey Jr is great as Tony Stark. He's a great actor, but I doubted he could pull off Tony Stark because he lacks "star power" to pull off such flamboyant character. But Downey really nailed it, make him very human even.

Iron Man suit is awesome.

However,  for a summer movie, it's somewhat really lacking in awesomeness. Lots of explosion, but not enough action. and the final battle really blows. (Spoiler) It's Iron Man VS War Monger, another robot vs robot better that was done better last year in a certain sucky michael bay movie (end spoiler)

Let's expect more awesomeness to come in the sequel. See below

Rating: 3.5/5

(Possible Spoiler)

For the sequel, please do the following:

- bring a powerful villain

- James Rhodes, War Machine - makes it happen

- It's not so secret that Samuel L Jackson filmed a cameo for this film as Nick Fury, agent of SHIELD. I was waiting for him to appear. But instead, SHIELD is only mentioned in passing in the movie. Bah, so please bring him in next time!

UPDATE: Nick Fury does appear! wait until the end credits finish

- and another marvel superhero crossover, come on, we know Tony is going to be in the upcoming incredible hulk film