GREENBERG

Written and Directed by Noah Baumbach
Starring Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans and Jennifer Jason Leigh

Florence: Hurt people hurt people.

Noah Baumbach, the Oscar-nominated writer and director of THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, has a knack for creating characters that are troubled and difficult to be around. His fascination with giving a voice to those no one wants to hear, shows his immense sympathy as a writer and director, but it also means that his characters are not easy to endure for two hours straight. In his latest film, GREENBERG, he gives us another gem of a man – complicated, broken and the kind you would desperately avoid if you could.

Ben Stiller is this man, one Roger Greenberg. Fresh from his time in a mental hospital for a nervous breakdown, Greenberg has left the comforts of New York City to do nothing for a while at his brother’s place in Los Angeles. While in the city, he meets up with buddies and ex-girlfriends from his rock star youth days but not because he wants to. He does so because it is a lot easier than forming any new relationships in his life. The supporting cast - Rhys Ifans and Jennifer Jason Leigh representing the old and Greta Gerwig charmingly representing the new - struggle too but the way they handle themselves only further shows how little dealing Greenerg is actually doing. Still that naïve, failed rocker, he has not progressed past his glory days and he is quickly realizing that they weren’t so glorious to begin with.

Stiller doesn’t have to try very hard to be unlikable but he still does the depth of Greenberg’s sorrow justice all the same. Successfully capturing a character that is so narcissistic and oblivious not an easy feat. The more successful you are though, the more you run the risk of alienating everyone watching. You want to like Greenberg; you can tell the people around him want to like him; but until he actually considers liking himself, there isn’t a lot to like about him. Fortunately for him, at least Baumbach still has his back, and fortunately for us, Baumbach still has ours too.

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TROPIC THUNDER

Written by Justin Theroux and Ben Stiller
Directed by Ben Stiller
Starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Jay Baruchel and Steve Coogan


Tugg Speedman: Are you really just going to abandon this movie? We're supposed to be a unit.
Kirk Lazarus: Suck my unit.

Hollywood is hilarious. They’ve got agents ready to cover up dead hookers upon demand and actors with mandatory Tivo in their contracts. They’ve even got heads on the ends of rifles and people biting into live bats. Wait. That isn’t funny. It’s just plain dumb. There’s a fine line between crazy funny and scalping a panda you just killed to wear on your head. TROPIC THUNDER never figures out how to walk that line, falling on either side of it for some pretty uneven results.


In his first directing gig since the, and I can’t believe I’m writing this, infinitely more cohesive, ZOOLANDER, Ben Stiller takes a bunch of pampered actors and drop them in the middle of Vietnam so that they can shoot the greatest war movie ever (as if APOCAPLYPSE NOW would just crawl into a ditch with a live grenade or something). It’s funny in theory, sure, but even Stiller drops the concept early in. With the plot left behind, the men are left to trip over each other in the jungle, which is occasionally cool given that Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black are fine company to keep but mostly it’s just meandering. I think they’re trying to make it home but who cares really when we keep cutting back to a bald headed, furry-chested, Tom Cruise as a Hollywood executive who just loves telling people to (bleep) themselves whenever he feels like. (Seriously though, he’s pretty funny.)


Thank you, Ben Stiller, for showing me just how hilarious Hollywood likes to think it is and for reminding me just how far out of step it is with the rest of the world. One minute, you’re laughing hysterically at them. The next, they’re the only ones in on the joke and they’re laughing all by themselves. Lucky for them, most of their laughing happens all the way to the bank.