(Ben Stiller, 2008)
This uber-comedy tries to all things as once, and just about succeeds. It is a Hollywood satire, mocking actorly pretension (brilliantly through Downey Jr's Russell Crowe skit, Kirk Lazarus, so deep in character he doesn't know who he is anymore), Executive arrogance (Tom Cruise having a great time riffing on Harvey Weinstein), agent desperation and obliviousness (Matthew McConaughey just on the verge of the McConnanaisance), and various stripes of movie star awfulness (Jack Black going cold turkey in the jungle, Ben Stiller trying to become a "serious" actor, Brandon T Jackson obsessing over his "Booty Sweat" branding), "visionary" British theatre directors (Steve Coogan) and generally just destroying cinema excess by almost personifying it. The opening sequence - after a series of genuinely hilarious and note perfect fake trailers - is a massive, epic battle in the Vietnamese jungle, parodying Platoon and other Vietnam movie cliches and culminating in an immense explosion.
Stiller seems to be telling us just how ridiculous Hollywood movies are, how obscene the expense and the spectacle, then going to ridiculous expense in order to deliver outrageous spectacle. The story picks up near the end of the shoot of a hugely ambitious and expensive Viet-epic called Tropic Thunder, based on the memoir by grizzled, hook-handed vet Nick Nolte. Fading action star Tuck Speedman (Stiller) leads the cast, supported by Downey, Jack Black's gross-out comedian, Jackson's crossover rapper, and Jay Baruchel as the lucky character actor given a small supporting part. But the director (Coogan) is over his head and unable to corral his cast of egos, and after a disastrous scene loses millions, he drags the principals out into the jungle to shoot guerrilla-style, and is promptly blown up by a mine, leaving the squabbling actors trekking through the jungle, pursued by armed drug militia and unsure of what is real and what is not.
Part of why Tropic Thunder works so well is because Stiller has gone to such lengths to make sure it looks, sounds and moves like one of the spectacles it so mercilessly mocks. Shot beautifully by John Toll and scored by Theodore Shapiro, it is only the script - alternately razor-sharp and full of deadpan stupidity - and the brilliant performances which make it clear it can be both broad and subtle by turns. The climax features a huge gun battle, jungle buildings exploding in huge orange fireballs, while also highlighting Downey Jr having a literal meltdown, shedding character personas like old lizard skins.
It is magnificently quotable - "Never go full retard" is just the start of it, and each of the main actors has at least one great or hilarious moment, exploring their characters many issues and insecurities.
It's one of the great comedies of the last decade, and it rewards multiple viewings.
Showing posts with label Steve Coogan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steve Coogan. Show all posts
Saturday, 1 August 2015
Sunday, 15 December 2013
ALAN PARTRIDGE: ALPHA PAPA
(Declan Lowney, 2013)
The opening fifteen minutes of Coogan's first big-screen Alan Partridge production are the highlight of the film. They depict Partridge, still every inch the pumped-up, insecure, awkwardly semi-aware "presenter" bore familiar from several classic UK tv series in his natural environment; presenting an afternoon music & chat radio show on Norfolk radio while living in Norwich. The show sounds abysmal but is beautifully observed, Partridge joshing and judging his way through it alongside a sheepishly wry sidekick, playing classic hits and making dreadful puns, bantering with callers while his younger, hipper co-workers mock him behind his back.
This material is so good because it gets right to the core of what makes Partridge such a joy: the minute attention to human foibles, pomposity and prejudice. Coogan knows people, and Partridge allows him to move between sharp caricature and agonising realism with dazzling fluidity. This is the appeal of teh tv shows and its the appeal of the early stages of this film.
The problem with Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa is that sooner or later, an actual plot has to kick in. In this case its a plot including an armed siege, police SWAT teams and Partridge plunged in at the deep end. And it's not bad. It remains funny throughout, no matter how silly the storyline gets, with a couple of set-pieces that showcase Partridge at his best (worst?): his peacock act once he realises he has an audience outside the siege, for instance, and his rambling story about karaoke and retitling Brian Adams "Summer of '69" "Summer of '29". It is rare to see Coogan in such a straight-ahead comedic role as this in cinema, but here he gurns and grimaces and pulls faces throughout, and his judgement is usually terrific about what he can make work.
The rest of the cast is solid, the plotting workable, and the direction no more than efficient, but none of that really matters: they all exist to support Coogan in delivering his greatest creation in a vehicle for cinema, and it just about works.
The opening fifteen minutes of Coogan's first big-screen Alan Partridge production are the highlight of the film. They depict Partridge, still every inch the pumped-up, insecure, awkwardly semi-aware "presenter" bore familiar from several classic UK tv series in his natural environment; presenting an afternoon music & chat radio show on Norfolk radio while living in Norwich. The show sounds abysmal but is beautifully observed, Partridge joshing and judging his way through it alongside a sheepishly wry sidekick, playing classic hits and making dreadful puns, bantering with callers while his younger, hipper co-workers mock him behind his back.
This material is so good because it gets right to the core of what makes Partridge such a joy: the minute attention to human foibles, pomposity and prejudice. Coogan knows people, and Partridge allows him to move between sharp caricature and agonising realism with dazzling fluidity. This is the appeal of teh tv shows and its the appeal of the early stages of this film.
The problem with Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa is that sooner or later, an actual plot has to kick in. In this case its a plot including an armed siege, police SWAT teams and Partridge plunged in at the deep end. And it's not bad. It remains funny throughout, no matter how silly the storyline gets, with a couple of set-pieces that showcase Partridge at his best (worst?): his peacock act once he realises he has an audience outside the siege, for instance, and his rambling story about karaoke and retitling Brian Adams "Summer of '69" "Summer of '29". It is rare to see Coogan in such a straight-ahead comedic role as this in cinema, but here he gurns and grimaces and pulls faces throughout, and his judgement is usually terrific about what he can make work.
The rest of the cast is solid, the plotting workable, and the direction no more than efficient, but none of that really matters: they all exist to support Coogan in delivering his greatest creation in a vehicle for cinema, and it just about works.
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
RUBY SPARKS
(Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris, 2012)
Its a likeable film, Ruby Sparks. It has a great, impressively starry cast, it's directed with an energetic freshness and a nice sense of Los Angeles, it has a soundtrack filled with French language pop classics by Plastic Bertrand and Sylvie Vartan, and it makes something interesting from its premise.
That premise is quite high-concept. Calvin (Paul Dano) is a twentysomething novelist who became massively successful with his first book, published while he was still in his teens. Now, years later, he finds writing difficult, finds relationships more difficult, and lives in a beautiful house in the hills above L.A. with his dog Scotty, seeing few people beyond his Psychiatrist (Elliot Gould) and his brother Harry (Chris Messina). His loneliness is nicely evoked in the first act, in the way he talks to Scotty, the way he comports himself at a book event, the way he avoids his brother's questions. Following a simple writing task assigned by his shrink, he writes about a literal dream girl and finds himself enraptured by her. And then, incredibly, she appears, flesh and blood, in his house. Her name is Ruby (Zoe Kazan), and she is another in that recentish strain of "Manic Pixie Dream Girls" who have started to appear like nervous tics in indie romcoms.
The difference here is that Kazan (who wrote the script) and the directors Dayton and Faris know that this is what Ruby is, and they fully intend to interrogate this odd screen stereotype.
This is first signalled by Harry's response on reading Calvin's manuscript: "You don't know jack shit about women." he says, pointing out that girls like Ruby don't exist in the real world, that people are complicated, that women are mysterious creatures.
Ruby Sparks then functions along two parallel lines. One is a straight indie romcom; somewhat twee, nothing we havent seen before, with scenes of young love and passion, with pop music and exciting, colourful visuals. The other is far darker and more interesting, taking on the male gaze and relationships in general. Calvin idealises Ruby and is disappointed by her. He vows not to write/invent her anymore, but once their relationship begins to drift, he cannot resist the urge to fix them (by fixing her).
This is all an obvious metaphor for any relationship, but it works because the treatment of the fantastic elements of the story is so straight-faced, because the cast is so good, and because the pain, when it comes, seems quite real, quite true.
Dano makes Calvin a complex individual, whose lonely vulnerability in the first act is thrown into a slightly different light as we learn more about him, his control freak tendencies, his lack of interest in others. Kazan's Ruby is a typically annoying Manic Pixie Dream Girl early on, but her later articulation of sadness, emptiness and rage gives both the film and character another dimension. But it is the supporting cast who really lift the material; Messina is always good, in everything, and he is the most believably human person in the film, warm, funny, amazed. Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas, Gould and Steve Coogan all do great work too.
The whole thing is a mite predictable and the ending seems slightly out-of-keeping with what has gone before, but overall this is an enjoyable, surprisingly honest look at love and relationships, told through an interesting mix of fantasy and comedy.
Its a likeable film, Ruby Sparks. It has a great, impressively starry cast, it's directed with an energetic freshness and a nice sense of Los Angeles, it has a soundtrack filled with French language pop classics by Plastic Bertrand and Sylvie Vartan, and it makes something interesting from its premise.
That premise is quite high-concept. Calvin (Paul Dano) is a twentysomething novelist who became massively successful with his first book, published while he was still in his teens. Now, years later, he finds writing difficult, finds relationships more difficult, and lives in a beautiful house in the hills above L.A. with his dog Scotty, seeing few people beyond his Psychiatrist (Elliot Gould) and his brother Harry (Chris Messina). His loneliness is nicely evoked in the first act, in the way he talks to Scotty, the way he comports himself at a book event, the way he avoids his brother's questions. Following a simple writing task assigned by his shrink, he writes about a literal dream girl and finds himself enraptured by her. And then, incredibly, she appears, flesh and blood, in his house. Her name is Ruby (Zoe Kazan), and she is another in that recentish strain of "Manic Pixie Dream Girls" who have started to appear like nervous tics in indie romcoms.
The difference here is that Kazan (who wrote the script) and the directors Dayton and Faris know that this is what Ruby is, and they fully intend to interrogate this odd screen stereotype.
This is first signalled by Harry's response on reading Calvin's manuscript: "You don't know jack shit about women." he says, pointing out that girls like Ruby don't exist in the real world, that people are complicated, that women are mysterious creatures.
Ruby Sparks then functions along two parallel lines. One is a straight indie romcom; somewhat twee, nothing we havent seen before, with scenes of young love and passion, with pop music and exciting, colourful visuals. The other is far darker and more interesting, taking on the male gaze and relationships in general. Calvin idealises Ruby and is disappointed by her. He vows not to write/invent her anymore, but once their relationship begins to drift, he cannot resist the urge to fix them (by fixing her).
This is all an obvious metaphor for any relationship, but it works because the treatment of the fantastic elements of the story is so straight-faced, because the cast is so good, and because the pain, when it comes, seems quite real, quite true.
Dano makes Calvin a complex individual, whose lonely vulnerability in the first act is thrown into a slightly different light as we learn more about him, his control freak tendencies, his lack of interest in others. Kazan's Ruby is a typically annoying Manic Pixie Dream Girl early on, but her later articulation of sadness, emptiness and rage gives both the film and character another dimension. But it is the supporting cast who really lift the material; Messina is always good, in everything, and he is the most believably human person in the film, warm, funny, amazed. Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas, Gould and Steve Coogan all do great work too.
The whole thing is a mite predictable and the ending seems slightly out-of-keeping with what has gone before, but overall this is an enjoyable, surprisingly honest look at love and relationships, told through an interesting mix of fantasy and comedy.
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