Product description
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Tropic Thunder DVD 2-Disc Set Jack Black
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It's not really a knock to say that nothing in Tropic Thunder is
funnier than its first five minutes, so sly that--especially for
people watching in theaters--you don't realize right away they
are the opening minutes of the movie. This outrageous comedy
begins with a series of fake previews, each introducing one of
the main characters in the film-proper (not that there's anything
proper about this film) and each bearing the familiar logo of a
different motion picture studio: Universal, DreamWorks SKG, et
al. Such playing fast and loose with corporate talismans verges
on sacrilege, but it's an index of how much le tout Tinseltown
endorses the movie as a demented valentine to itself. The premise
is that the cast of a would-be "Son of Rambo" movie shooting in
some Southeast Asian jungle get into a real shooting war with
drug-smuggling montagnards. Don't ask--though the movie does have
an answer--why such highly paid, usually ultra-pampered personnel
as superhero Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Mozart of fart comedy
Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), hip-hop artist Alpa Chino (Brandon T.
Jackson), and five-time O-winner Kirk Lazarus from
Aus-try-leeah (Robert Downey Jr.) should be running through the
jungle unattended and very vulnerable. It matters only that the
real-life cast has a high time kidding their own profession and
flexing their comedic muscles. Bonus points go to Stiller for
co-writing the script (with Justin Theroux) and directing, and to
Downey, brilliant as a white actor surgically turned black actor
for his role and utterly committed to staying in character no
matter what ("I don't drop character till I done the DVD
commentary").
Be warned: The movie, too, is committed--to being an
equal-rtunity offender. Its political incorrectness extends
not only to Lazarus's black-like-me posturing but also Speedman's
recent, Sean Pennstyle O bid playing a cognitively
challenged farmboy--or, in Lazarus's deathless phrase, "going the
full retard." Others in the cast include Steve Coogan as a
director out of his depth, Nick Nolte as the Viet-vet novelist
whose book inspired the film-within-the-film, Matthew McConaughey
as Speedman's sun-blissed agent back home, and Tom Cruise--bald,
-suited, and profane--as an epically repulsive studio head.
Two hours running time is a mite excessive, but otherwise, what's
not to like? --Richard T. Jameson
Stills from Tropic Thunder (Click for larger image)
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Set Contains:
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As promised, Robert Downey Jr.--or is it Kirk Lazarus?--is still
in character as Lincoln Osiris for one of two commentary tracks
on Disc One. In addition to reminiscences by Downey, Ben Stiller,
and Jack Black (who sends out for a cheeseburger), there's a
session with the filmmakers, including Stiller-as-director and
ace cameraman John Toll. These are amusing and reasonably
illuminating--especially regarding choices about good stuff left
out of the theatrical version--and anticipate some of the
material covered in Disc Two featurettes. Among those, "Before
the Thunder" recalls the 10-year period when Stiller and
co-writer Justin Theroux e-mailed scenes to each other as they
gathered ideas for the eventual movie. "The Hot LZ" supplies
details on FX work and the state-of-the-art video storyboarding
used in the production. "Blowing S#%t Up" you can figure out for
yourself, while "Designing the Thunder" testifies to the mass of
detail that was imagined, Stroheim-like, for the film even though
much of it would never be . And "The Cast of Tropic Thunder"
includes the inside story on how one actor's rapport with a water
buffalo led to her subsequently born calf being named "Jack
Black."
Still, the high points have to be two hilarious
pseudo-documentaries, "Rain of Madness" and "Dispatches from the
Edge of Madness," which treat the making of Tropic Thunder like
living through Apocalypse Now. These feature Justin Theroux doing
a spot-on imitation of Werner Herzog, awestruck at his own
metaphysical in as he whispers of "the madness of
Whee-ett-nahm." Steve Coogan participates in character as the
raddled film-within-a-film director, and in "Dispatches" Robert
Downey Jr. plunges off a still deeper end into the backstory of
Lincoln Osiris. Amazing stuff. On the downside, a half-hour's
worth of "full mags" showing cast members (e.g., Danny McBride)
digging for improv gold are strictly for students of process.
--Richard T. Jameson
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