The wife is out of town, so I took the opportunity to see a movie that she didn’t want to see. It just shows how much better her judgment is than mine. The movie is Tropic Thunder.
Just a few impressions from what turned out to be wasted time and wasted money.
1. It’s a very fast-paced movie, with quick cuts and rapid dialogue. I think this might have to do with younger kids and media. Everything moves fast for them. I’ve noticed this with my own kids – they are very quick and I have a hard time keeping up with them. In the movies there’s hardly time to catch one’s breath. It’s too fast for me. I’m much more into plot and character development, and this movie has little of either.
2. The humor is edgy and crude, often absent – maybe one of three jokes work. The f-bomb is used so much that it isn’t even offensive. Jerry Seinfeld said once in a magazine interview that if a comic has to resort to vulgarity to get a laugh, he’s either not funny or he hasn’t worked his material hard enough. In movies and on premium channels there are no restrictions on language, and it brings out the low-talent in today’s set of comic ‘geniuses’. The New Yorker, in reviewing this movie, called it a lack of elegance.
3. There are special effects galore. Yawn.
4. Tom Cruise is getting high praise for playing a balding overweight Hollywood executive. I knew it was him going in, and wonder if I would have figured it out without advance notice. He brings intensity to the scenes he’s in, and took a real risk doing this. He’s pretty good.
5. There is really, really low and vile humor about mentally challenged people – retarded people, we used to call them. The movie mocks them.
I know – I should stick to my own demographic. I think back to comedy movies I enjoyed when I was in my twenties – Airplane, Blazing Saddles, for instance. David Zucker and Mel Brooks had a whole lot more talent going for them than the current crop, in my humble opinion. Maybe I’m just dating myself. I sound old.
Come to think of it, Blazing Saddles did have a fart scene.
Piece of Mindful 
Hold on to your hat.
I couldn’t agree more. Movies that pass for comedy today are little more than an extended version of the Howard Stern show — stretching the envelope only to shock and nothing more. With Brooks, Zucker, etc., there is a slapstick element, but there’s also something more going on in there. Dare I say “social commentary?”
I blame American Pie.
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“Come to think of it, Blazing Saddles did have a fart scene.”
Yeah, another neurotic Jewish boy trying to deal with his toilet-training trauma.
If you want real comedy, try Harold Lloyd in “Safety Last” or “The Freshman.” And then there is Buster Keaton in “The General” or “Steamboat Bill Jr.” That last film set the mark for special effects with its hurricane scene!
If you want something serious and relevant to today’s financial situation, see Frank Capra’s “American Madness.”
I figure if you are going to date yourself, you might as well date yourself to the 1920s and 30s.
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“The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That’s where we computer professionals come in.”
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I never did see American Pie, Craig. What you say – that they are pushing the envelope to shock and nothing more was apparent in Tropic Thunder – there’s a scene where a man’s head is blown off, and Ben Stiller holds it and tastes the blood – I cringed, did not laugh.
Woody Allen deliberately makes people uncomfortable in social settings – it’s part of his signature. Stiller takes it beyond reason – he is a Philistine – a poor excuse for comic talent.
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You are such an old fart.
Don’t watch Dark Knight, that will be completely wasted on you, especially the cuts. Too fast, those whippersnappers.
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Time and chance overtake them all … I can’t help that I’m getting older and my tastes are more refined. I’ve just got to stop falling for the ads for these teen movies.
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Actually, the Dark Knight is genius. Everything you heard about Ledger’s performance is true: it’s possibly the scariest bad guy ever (because there’s no sense of unreality: you know he can die just like you, he’s just got endless brains and positively no fear whatsoever. He has no goal other than chaos). I was worried Dark Knight pacing combined with its complexity would leave you flattened.
By the by, you would still like Iron Man: it was very well done. It’s essentially a very well done Rich Guy Having Fun movie, and the whole politics is well done enough to satisfy just about everyone who watches it.
And the star, Robert Downey, had the same complaint about Dark Knight I assume you’ll have- you won’t want to “watch a movie you need a PHD thesis to interpret”.
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I haven’t seen Dark Knight or Iron man, though I want to. My wife and I alternate – her choice, my choice. Her last choice was Mamma Mia. We don’t go to many movies, and alternating as we do, I don’t see many when they are in the theaters.
I have to choose carefully. With Tropic Thunder, I blew it. Movie stunk.
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Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers thinks that Ledger will probably get a post humus Oscar nomination. (He was superb in Brokeback.) I’ve heard much about his performance, about how people close to him think that the dark mood behind the performance might have contributed to his death. I am anxious to see it.
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The girlfriend had an interesting theory. Having watched a couple interviews with Ledger, she suggested (I am extremely offended here) that Heath had trouble as one of your personality (NF) trying to play an extreme version of mine:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uKa-aDga1fE
I think that pisses me off. I’m not a psychotic, thank you. I do understand Ledger’s problem though: he played someone without any compassion (seriously, thanks for the implication in advance, Mark). Playing someone like the Joker who understands compassion so he can use it, but is himself without any compassion whatsoever, I can see as something hard to do. I understand it watching historical figures like Ghenghis Khan- you always feel a disconnect as a Westerner listening to people essentially beyond what we consider fellow feeling.
I could see how it could drain a guy to play someone so fundamentally heartless as the Joker. There’s just nothing to grab onto- when your side goes nutty, you go totally savage (because NF/idealists are jilted lover types), but not this type- the Joker was clearly bad to begin with (or maybe not, he has scars, but lies about how he got them: but he plays them like they’re not the reason he’s crazy). There’s nothing good to grab onto. He’s just flat evil.
Either way, Christ, Dark Knight is so much better than that fag 60’s comedy (all hail the great Adam West).
You know, I like this girlfriend. Insulting bitch. Good stuff? Advanced degree in psychology (understands ENTP/ENFP). Bad? Wears black, has a bunch of metal shit in her face (I mean c’mon).
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I guess I don’t need to respond, as you have done it for me in advance.
I haven’t thought much about the personality profiles in ages … I would think of them as silly pop psychology if I hadn’t scored so off-the-chart idealist. But don’t make too much of them – Myers/Briggs assumes normal non-psychotic non-narcissistic non-stressed people are answering their questions. There’s another aspect to it all – when under stress, we assume our opposite.
So a typical accountant is ISTJ and I’m INFP – my professional self is me under stress, or visa versa.
I will see Dark Knight in a couple of weeks here – if it is still in the theaters. It sounds like a grown-up movie.
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I don’t believe in the Meyers Briggs stuff, she just brought it up. In fact, I don’t know how to approach it: my One Big Theory in psychology is evolutionary psychology.
If I can’t explain things in terms of psychological adaptations of advanced apes living in small communities of 12-24 families over a short gestation period of about 100,000 years/5,000 generations (about how long humanity has existed), I don’t bother giving the theory any credence at all. Had the Meyer’s Briggs thing not read like a personal description I wouldn’t pay it any mind at all. Seriously, a four way map of human personality traits? In what universe would a natural phenomenon map out on a ven diagram? Give me a fucking break. It’s practically voodoo, from my perspective.
The girlfriend got a normal college education: which is to say she got a bunch of theories but no synthesis of the information, and thus she’s just a grab bag of
random things a lot of guys who are WAY wrong thought, but psychologists who can’t be bothered to figure out what is wrong don’t get rid of. So she got the Myers Briggs system. Seriously, what other system would continue putting old disproven bullshit alongside the new stuff? Physics doesn’t have the old Copernican system still floating around being taught mathematically. It pisses me off people don’t/can’t think. (head turns, fixes eyes, slowly shakes fist).
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Also, I’m curious about one thing when you see the movie- how did you react to the Pencil Trick?
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