Comfortable and Furious

Zoolander

Directed by Ben Stiller

Written by Stiller, Drake Sather and John Hamburg

Starring Stiller as Zoolander, Owen Wilson as Hansel, Christine Taylor as Matilda and Will Ferrell as Mugatu

The Award Winning Pornographer Decrees…

Zoolander, you’re serious? If they spent more than twelve dollars total on this film they got ripped off. The most telling part of this movie is when Stiller walks listlessly around Time Square looking downtrodden while the music sings, “I started a joke, which set the whole world crying, if I could only see, that the joke was on me.” If Stiller could see that joke he might have saved us from two hours that only leave us feeling like we took “crazy pills.”

Seriously, why is it whenever Ben Stiller attempts comedy that the only way he can get a laugh is by humiliating himself beyond comprehension? There are only so many times anyone can watch that, kind of like there are only so many times in a row you can watch a fat man fall down and still laugh. Blows to the crotch though, I think are funny all the time. No matter what. They should have a channel of nothing but guys getting their gonads racked. The Crotch Shot Channel. Somebody dig Ted Turner out of his fucking grave. Football in the groin.I digress.

So, you want my honest opinion then? Stiller should be more selective after a comedy as good as Meet The Parents. Then again, as an award winning pornographer, I find something heart warming and visceral about the fact that Stiller has his real-life-Marsha-fucking-Brady-look-a-like wife (Christine Taylor) starring as the bulimic reporter that screws both Zoolander and Hansel (Owen Wilson) as well as some Andelusian midgets and Tibetan monks. I respect the fact that they’re about as discreet with their swinging as Rosie O’Donnel was about her homosexuality. Hey Ben, when you’re ready to take it up a notch you call me and I’ll have a hundred guys in clown masks perform a Bukkake on your old lady. [Ed Note – I just like how “Bukkake” passes the Word spell checker. What is Redmond trying to tell us?] You can even hold her panties to your face and watch.

Stiller even puts his father, Old Man Jerry Stiller, into this film as Zoolander’s conniving agent. What a set that must have been to work on, all that family fun!. It reminds me of the time that I hired this eighteen-year-old crack whore to take it in the ass from these two German guys and her mom showed up and demanded a pimp fee. I thought that the point behind Jerry’s Friar’s Club Roast was to get him to stop trying to act. Am I wrong?

Will Ferrel, by the way, is gay. He has to be. Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay. So what? At least he doesn’t try to hide it like David Duchevny, who pops up, surprisingly enough, in the role of the conspiracy theorist. David, can you play a role that doesn’t involve a conspiracy? This guy is more type cast than Gilligan, than Gomer Pyle.

Finally there is Owen Wilson, who puts in a stellar performance as Hansel. I had to keep asking myself, why is this guy always saving some one else’s movie? First Jackie Chan and now Stiller. Can somebody get this guy his own movie please? He’s amazing. If anyone else was in this role I would have taken the DVD out and tried to use it as a diaphram in my next movie. My favorite scene with Owen is when he tells Stiller that he was smoking peyote buttons for six days straight and thought he was falling off the side of a cliff. Ah, good times.

The real problem with Zoolander is the plot. Zoolander is brain washed into thinking he has to assassinate the Prime Minister of Malaysia or the Prime Rib of Propecia and blah, blah, blah. Who cares? If I had to listen to Frankie Goes To Hollywood one more time I was going to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Now, if someone could be brain washed into killing Fred Durst, then that would be worth spending $4.50 on any applicable Zoolander late fees.

In all fairness there are some good, not great, parts to this film, but they are few and far between. I once threatened to take Ben Stiller out the back of an L.A. nightclub and kick his teeth in if he didn’t stop telephoning my girlfriend. I’m sure that scarred him, so I guess I should be nicer to Big Ben. Here’s what The Pornographer suggests; get really stoned, pop in Zoolander, and try not to think too hard about all the pretty pictures that meaninglessly drift by on the screen. You’ll probably have a good time. Be sure to keep a copy of BUTTMAN IN BUDAPEST and a bottle of lube handy, just in case.

DVD Extras

They’re better than the movie, but this isn’t saying a lot, and, unfortunately, Winona Ryder is still in them. Ben Stiller is annoying to the point of nausea. He’s really, really, ridiculously annoying.


Ruthless Ratings

  • Film Overall- 3 -1 (Fred Durst Penalty) = 2
  • Direction- 0 – 1 (Fred Durst Penalty) = -1
  • Acting- 5- 1 (Fred Durst Penalty) = 4
  • Story- -2 -1 (Fred Durst Penalty) = -3
  • DVD Extras- 5 -1 (Fred Durst Penalty) = 4

FUN FACT! – Ben Stiller will run like a girl if you threaten him, fleeing the club, and forcing Jeanine Garbanzolo to find her own ride!

Pretty much your standard issue bad comedy. The good thing about a bad comedy, as opposed to bad drama, is that it can still be good here and there, and Zoolander is. I guess the normal way to review such a film is to ruin some of the jokes. Ok. Here goes. I’m going to ruin the movie for you. Or make it so you don’t have to see the whole thing to hear the good jokes. Whatever, you’re warned.

When the Matilda confides to Zoolander that she used to be “the fat girl” in seventh grade, he says “ew.” When she says she became bulimic, Zoo says, “you mean you can read minds?” When she explains, Zoo and Hansel are surprised to learn purging is seen as bad thing, because it is such a great way to loose a few pounds quickly. This is easily the best part of the movie. Mostly because of the “ew.”

When Zoolander goes back home to see his father and says, “can’t you even pretend you’re happy to see me?” His dad replies, “I’m a coal miner, not a professional film and television actor.”

At the awards, they show a puff piece on Zoolander that flips through his calendar. Each picture is identical except for his wearing different shirts. This is pretty much a visual joke, so I ruined it for no reason.

That’s all I can remember, but I laughed or almost laughed on perhaps two other occasions. Also, Owen Wilson, in addition to being omnipresent, is always amusing. For a goy.

Bad stuff: someone doing dances from the eighties does not constitute a joke. That’s the sort of thing that passes for a joke in one of those Adam Sandler flicks Jonny is so high on. Ben Stiller can do better.

Fred Durst is in the movie. Twice. He is not maimed in either scene.

“It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.” Part of the trick is that, when you’re creating characters for a satire, they can only be as stupid, or slightly more stupid than real people, otherwise the jokes are stupid. Spinal Tap toed the line perfectly. Zoolander doesn’t. In Spinal Tap, it’s funny when a character confuses the notation for feet and inches and winds up with a Stonehenge prop that is “in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.” People are that stupid. I know I am. It’s not very funny when Zoo confuses a small model of a building with a real building. Nobody is that stupid. It’s a little funny though.

I disagree with Jonny in that I think Will Farrell is funny. But not in this movie. Maybe his shtick is getting old afterall, although I think it’s more a case of a character who’s too absurd. There’s no connection to reality. Who is he supposed to be making fun of ? It’s just a really weird looking guy, like if a character dressed up like Kiss if Kiss didn’t exist.

DVD Extras

The extras feature the regular stuff, outtakes of people messing up their lines and so forth. There are also some sketches from the real VH1 awards, like an ad for Zoolander’s modeling school. It’s about as funny as the movie. The commentary by Stiller and his co-writers is totally run of the mill: who wrote what; how good this or that actor is; yada. I made it through 20 minutes, then skipped ahead to see if it got any better. It didn’t, although they talked about a scene that was written out, but that sounds pretty funny, in which Farrell’s character has a Dr. Moreau style island where he crosses famous models with animals.


Ruthless Ratings

  • Film Overall- 4

  • Direction- 4

  • Acting- 6

  • Story- 3.5

  • DVD Extras- 6

FUN FACT! – There has never been a good film about the fashion industry!


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