09th Jan2018

Brad’s Status (Film)

by timbaros

Image 09-01-2018 at 00.23Ben Stiller is having a major life crisis in the new film Brad’s Status.

Ben plays Brad Bloan, a late 40’s something father of a teenage boy who is about to fly the coop and head to college. But Brad has a lot more on his mind. He’s worried that he doesn’t have enough money to take care of his family, he’s worried that his job is on the lower end of importance, he hopes that his wife Melanie’s parents (Jena Fischer) will leave him with all their money, and he’s a bit (a lot) jealous that all his schoolmates have very successful and high profile careers (one is even retired). And with all this in mind, he goes with his son to tour colleges on America’s East Coast.

It’s a father – son bonding week. Brad’s son Troy (Austin Abrams), a wanna be musician, takes his father’s anxiety in stride. This trip, which takes from their home in California to Boston, will also test their relationship. Troy sorely wants to get into Harvard – but at the same time he’s dealing with his father’s angst and regret of not being extremely successful in his job life. We get to see Brad’s visions of all his very successful friends (Luke Wilson, Mike White, MIchael Sheen and Jemaine Clement) all very rich and successful but, unfortunately, Brad’s career choice does not come close, in fact he’s way behind these guys financially and socially. It’s his status that he’s not happy with.

‘Brad’s Status’ is a melancholy journey of one man’s lament at his perception that he is not good enough. He’s got a happy wife, a happy son, a happy home – but is there something that’s missing? And leave it to Ben Stiller to convey a man with mixed messages. Stiller nails his character – it’s a role that he was born to play. Writer and Director Mike White nails most scenes on the head, including a pivotal scene where Brad and Troy run into one of Troy’s old friends at Harvard (a perfect Shazi Anya) who opens up Brad’s eyes a bit more for him to realize that he’s not really connected to the younger generation. ‘Brad’s Status’ is a bit sad, and makes us take a long hard look at our own lives, and isn’t that what films should really do?

Off
15th Oct2017

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) – Film

by timbaros

MeyerowitzStoriespic1-600x429A dysfunctional family deals with the illness of its patriarch in the new film ‘The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected).’

Including a cast of very famous actors, ‘The Meyerowitz Stories’ is, appropriately enough, about the Meyerowitz family, their lack of cohesiveness and irregularity in ways that gets a bit too much at times. There is constant yelling and a general unlikeability (and lots of continuity errors) in this film that could’ve been made by Woody Allen (it’s written and directed by Noah Baumbach).

Dustin Hoffman is Harold, the patriarch of a family with children who come from different mothers. The children include Adam Sandler, who is very good as Danny. With no place to live due to bad luck, he decamps back at the family home with Harold’s fourth wife Maureen (Emma Thompson). Danny has a daughter who is Eliza (Grace Van Patten), a college student studying film who makes raunchy and disturbing lesbian films, even though she’s straight. Matthew (Ben Stiller) lives in Los Angeles and is a powerful and wealthy businessman with a family of his own. Then there’s the miscast sister Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), whose awkwardness in appearance and behavior alludes to an abnormal upbringing. When Howard falls ill and is sent to the hospital, all hell breaks loose. Matthew flies in to be by his father’s side (with eyes on selling the family home for big bucks), and it’s him and Danny and Jean who practically fall apart and can’t cope, not only because their father is gravely ill, but also because of the mess their relationships, with each other, and with their father are in. Very bad shape doesn’t even come close.

‘The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)’, brought to us by master storyteller Baumbach, is one film that’s a bit hard to sit through. While all the actors are fantastic in their roles, the script is, as mentioned, a bit too much to take, and a bit unbeiveable. There’s also a scene where Sandler completely damages a car in broad daylight, in front of the hospital where his father is, but is not challenged or arrested. And it’s get very overdramatic in the hospital scenes where we know that all is going to be ok in the end. It’s worth a watch for the fine acting but that’s about all.

Off
16th Feb2016

Zoolander 2 (Film)

by timbaros

Do not go see this movie. It’s not funny. It’s so bad that you’ll kick yourself for spending money, and time, seeing it.

Zoolander 2 is everything the original Zoolander film wasn’t. A take off on the fashion world and it’s fashionistas and models, the original 2001 film Zoolander was funny because it parodied the world it was celebrating. And it showcased Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson as male models in a cutthroat industry was just what America needed a few weeks after 9/11. It was a box office success. Fifteen years later and we get reintroduced to the two male models and it’s a reintroduction of the worse kind.

The plot, and the jokes, go downhill from the start. The film begins with Justin Beiber (!!) being chased through the streets of Rome by a masked gunman, who eventually kills him, but not before takes several selfies with a “Blue Steel” pout on his face. It’s a look that’s been captured on the faces of other celebrities who have recently been killed. So it’s up to interpol detective Melanie Valentina (Penelope Cruz) to investigate these murders. She remembers that look from years ago – it was the look that male models Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson) were most famous for. So she tracks them down. Zoolander is grieving the horrible death of his wife (Christine Taylor) who was killed in the collapse of their building built in the shape of books and called the Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can’t Read and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff. He’s in wintry Northern New Jersey (looking like the alps), living all alone in a cabin. Hansel, meanwhile, is living in the sand dunes of Malibu, in a relationship with an orgy. Yes, he called them the orgy and it consists of 11 people, both men and women, old and young, a goat, and also Keifer Sutherland. And they all happen to be pregnant, by Hansel. But luckily for both Zoolander and Hansel Billy Zane comes knocking at their doors with an invitation by Rome-based fashion queen Alexanya Atoz (Kristen Wiig) to come to Rome to perhaps become hot again. Valentina ends up recruiting the men to infiltrate the bizarre and unusual fashion world to help put a stop to the murders. Zoolander gets reunited with his son Cyrus Arnold in Rome. Cyrus happens to be in a boarding school because Zoolander couldn’t cope taking care of him after his wife died. But Zoolander is disappointed because Arnold is fat and not good looking. The plot thickens (?) because supposedly Cyrus is embedded with the Fountain of Youth and Derek’s rival Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrell) wants it and will do whatever it takes to get it. Throw in cameos by lots of famous people including Sting as a priest, Kanye West, Katy Perry, Kendall Jenner, Kim Kardashian, and in a really overly stupid scene Susan Boyle. ‘Zoolander 2’ comes to a crashing end (and you will be happy when it does) when all the world’s most famous fashionistas converge on in a castle outside Rome to perform a secret ritual on Cyrus to extract the fountain of youth from him. Attending this ritual is Tommy Hilfiger, Marc Jacobs, Alexander and Very Wang (no relation), Valentino (!!) and Anna Wintour (all playing themselves, with most of them with lines to speak)! It’s one ending that couldn’t be more stupid than the rest of the film, but it is.

And who created this dribble? The blames lies entirely on Ben Stiller. He directed, co-produced and co-wrote it (along with Justin Theroux – Jennifer Aniston’s husband). They wanted to create a sort of Da Vinci Code idea based on the fountain of youth but it just doesn’t work. It’s huge disappointment from the man who gave us ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.’ I wonder if all the huge stars who participated in this film realized it was going to be this bad. Though Benedict Cumberbatch is delicious as omnisexual supermodel All and Cruz is way too sexy for her own good. Filmed entirely in Rome on a $50 million budget, Zoolander 2 is a right mess and I recommend that you give this movie a miss, and tell all your friends to do so as well.

Off
24th Apr2014

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty – DVD

by timbaros
images-50It seems like Ben Stiller has been making movies for decades. As a matter of fact, he has. His first acting gig was given to him thanks to his mother (Anne Meara) making a call to a director asking him to hire her son. Luckily for us, he did, and the rest, as they say, is history. Stiller (whose father is the very funny comedienne Jerry Stiller), while not an Academy Award winner, has impressed us with a amazing repertoire of films. And now he impresses us even more with his newest film – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
Directed, co-produced and starring Stiller, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a remake of the 1947 film which starred Danny Kaye. It is about a daydreaming magazine photo editor on a mission to finally meet his magazine’s top photographer. It is also a story of Mitty having a first go on a dating website and at the same time trying to impress a divorced mom he works with at the magazine.
Stiller is Mitty, a lonely man, while happy at his job in the photo department at Life Magazine, is stuck in a rut. He daydreams as well, in scenarios where he saves a dog from a burning building, where he beats up a member of the magazine’s management team, and he even dreams that he can fly. He has also just joined the dating website eHarmony where he tries to send a wink to Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wigg), the woman he works with at the magazine. He is unable to send the wink so he calls eHarmony customer support and speaks to an eHarmony representative (the voice of The King of Queen’s Patton Oswalt). This voice relationship is carried throughout the film, with the representative doing all he can to spruce up Mitty’s profile so that he can get a few winks from females on the site, which hopefully may lead to some dates. Meanwhile, at the magazine, the new management teams announces that it will no longer be publishing but that an online version will be the way forward (scary to think about), so most of the staff have been told that they will be fired, and this includes Walter and Cheryl. Meanwhile, the magazine’s star photographer Sean O’Connell has sent Walter the photo (still number 25) that is to be used for the cover of the final issue, and Walter can’t find it. It is not in the envelope O’Connell sent with other photos, so Walter feels that it is up to him to track down O’Connell (and the missing photograph). Using the other photos as clues, and determined to get that photo and to finally meet Sean, Walter travels the globe to places he has only seen in photos, going from one beautiful location to another, and he sets off on an adventure of a lifetime. He goes to Greenland, where he jumps from a helicopter into a shark-infested ocean, to Iceland where he escapes from an exploding volcano, and to Afghanistan, where he climbs the snow-capped mountains. And as a added bonus, he can also include these adventures on his eHarmony profile, as he had not done anything exciting in his life prior to this. At the same time, all his sister talks about is her new acting role as Rizzo in a church production of Grease, and their mom (an underused Shirley Maclaine) is in the process of moving to a smaller flat.
Stiller has done an amazing job in not only acting in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but also directing it. It is an excellent effort in that it shows Stiller’s range as a director, taking the movie from scenes in the middle of Manhattan, to foreign countries, to rough oceans and to high mountains. Even the quirky romance between him and Cheryl is charming. This movie is not your typical Ben Stiller film, who for the most part makes fare to middling comedic movies (such as the Night at the Museum film and it’s sequel, and The Fokkers films). Stiller, however, proved back in 2008 with Tropic Thunder that he is a moviemaker to be reckoned with, and with The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, he ups his game. The rest of the cast is fine, Wiig doesn’t have much to do, just smile and talk about her son, while Adam Scott is good as the new manager who has to fire the whole staff. But the film is all about Stiller. And while the Production values are very good, and the cinematography is excellent, it is a real feat that Stiller could pull this one off. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is highly recommended.

 

27th Dec2013

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty – Film

by timbaros

images-51Ben Stiller directs, stars and co-produces The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a remake of the 1947 film which starred Danny Kaye about a daydreaming magazine photo editor on a mission to finally meet his magazine’s top photographer, and at the same time trying to impress a divorced mom who also happens to work with him on the same magazine.

Set in New York City, Stiller plays Mitty, who works in the photo department at Life Magazine. He also daydreams quite a bit, in scenarios where he saves a dog from a burning building, where he beats up a member of the magazine’s management team, he even dreams that he can fly. He has also just joined the dating website eHarmony where he tries to send a wink to Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wigg), the woman he works with at the magazine. He is unable to send the wink so he calls eHarmony customer support and speaks to an eHarmony representative (the voice of The King of Queen’s Patton Oswalt). This voice relationship is carried throughout the film, with the representative doing all he can to spruce up Mitty’s profile so that he can at least get a few winks from females on the site, which hopefully may lead to some dates. Meanwhile, at the magazine, the new management teams announces that it will no longer be publishing but that an online version will be the way forward (scary to think about), so most of the staff have been told that they will be fired, and this includes Walter and Cheryl. Meanwhile, the magazine’s star photographer Sean O’Connell, has sent to Walter the photo (still number 25) that is to be used for the cover of the last issue, however, Walter can’t find it. It is not in the envelope O’Connell sent with other photos. So Walter feels that it is up to him to track down O’Connell (and the missing photograph). Using the other photos as clues, and determined to get that photo and to finally meet Sean, Walter travels the globe to places he has only seen in photos, going from one beautiful location to another, and he sets off on an adventure of a lifetime. He goes to Greenland, where he jumps from a helicopter into a shark-infested ocean, to Iceland where he escapes from an exploding volcano, and to Afghanistan, where he climbs the snow-capped mountains. And as a added bonus, he can also include these adventures on his eHarmony profile, as he had not done anything exciting in his life prior to this. At the same time, all his sister talks about is her new acting role as Rizzo in a church production of Grease, and their mom (an underused Shirley Maclaine) is in the process of moving to a smaller flat.
Stiller has done an amazing job in not only acting in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but also directing it. It is an excellent effort in that it shows Stiller’s range as a director, taking the movie from scenes in the middle of Manhattan to foreign countries, to rough oceans, and even the quirky romance between him and Cheryl. This movie is not your typical Ben Stiller film, who for the most part makes fare to middling comedic movies (such as the Night at the Museum film and it’s sequel, and The Fokkers films). Stiller, however, proved back in 2008 with Tropic Thunder that he is a moviemaker to be reckoned with, and with The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, he ups his game. The rest of the cast is fine, Wiig doesn’t have much to do, just smile and talk about her son, while Adam Scott plays the new manager who has to fire the whole staff, and, in Walter’s word, being a dick about it. Production values are very good, and the cinematography excellent, with amazing scenery that will take your breathe away. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is highly recommended.