Word: thunderations
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...movie house, waiting for Tropic Thunder to begin, but first you have to sit through the commercials and previews of coming attractions. There's a spot for--wait a minute--Booty Sweat, an energy drink from the rapper Alpa Chino. Then a trailer for Scorcher VI, a Rambovian sequel in which the Stallone figure closely resembles a bulked-up Ben Stiller. A teaser for The Fatties: Fart 2 seems awfully Eddie Murphy, with one comic playing multiple members of a morbidly obese family, yet the actor under all that latex could well be Jack Black. Finally, a preview...
...then the DreamWorks logo appears, and Tropic Thunder storms onto the screen...
...parody of war movies and a pinprick in the helium balloon of Hollywood egos, Tropic Thunder caps a hectic summer of action films and star-driven comedies and is designed as a blend and a semiloving critique of both genres. The picture is savvy to the max, maybe to excess; but Stiller, who also directed and co-wrote the movie, surely figures that in the blogosphere age, no film can be too inside--it's where everyone is. He's been there all his life, as the son of (Jerry) Stiller and (Anne) Meara, a comedy duo of over...
...current entry, Pineapple Express, is more of the blow-'em-up, slap-happy same. Forget its similarities to earlier summer fare. This is one of two action films this month with mammoth, John Woo-movie-like explosions in parody form; next week's Tropic Thunder is the other. It is also the second movie this week in which a major plot point is an older man's promise to meet with his student girlfriend's parents. (Cf. Elegy, a romantic drama that has nothing else in common with Pineapple Express.) Finally, it's the third picture this summer...
...this show contains four vast canvases, part of a series called Bacchus that he completed in 2005. In each, a maelstrom of overlapping vermilion loops bleed thin trails of pigment toward the floor. The gods are dead? Don't tell Twombly. Even in old age, he can still summon thunder from Olympus...