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IF IT'S WEDNESDAY IT MUST BE FRIDAY Wednesday, August 13 2008 Yet another major release -- this one, DreamWorks/Paramount's Tropic Thunder -- is debuting on a Wednesday, raising the question of whether Wednesday is becoming the new Friday so far as film studios are concerned. Last week, analysts speculated that the debut of Pineapple Express had been moved to Wednesday in order to avoid having to compete with the opening of the Summer Olympics. This week, some are speculating that Thunder was moved to Wednesday to (more) DREAMWORKS TURNS ASIDE TROPIC THUNDER Monday, August 11 2008 DreamWorks on Sunday rejected complaints from a coalition of disabilities groups that the upcoming Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder subjects the intellectually disabled to ridicule and fosters hatred toward them. In a statement, DreamWorks spokesman Chip Sullivan said that the movie was intended to satirize Hollywood "and makes its point by featuring inappropriate and over-the-top characters in ridiculous situations." But when asked by the New York Times whether the disabilities groups might launch a boycott (more) |
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Advocates for the mentally disabled may be denouncing the Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder. Movie critics, by and large, are not. In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert awards the film three and a half stars, writing, "It's the kind of summer comedy that rolls in, makes a lot of people laugh and rolls on to video. It's been a good summer for that." Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News was apparently still chuckling over the film when he wrote, "Fun-impaired critics who complained that last week's Pineapple Express went over the top ought to get a load of this week's R-rated laugh riot, Tropic Thunder. Mount Everest would look like a speck from this one's extreme altitude. Which is exactly how it should be. Ben Stiller's latest sends up all things overblown about Hollywood, and the perfect volume setting for this kind of satire is 11." The Los Angeles Times's Kenneth Turan is a bit more restrained, calling the film "simultaneously smart and dumb, mixing clever satire with way over-the-top raunch and unrelenting profanity." Claudia Puig in USA Today agrees, commenting: "There are some wildly funny scenes, a few leaden ones and others that are scattershot, with humorous satire undercut by over-the-top grisliness. Still, when it's funny, it's really funny." Lou Lumenick sums up in the New York Post: "Tropic Thunder is "all over the place, but it's hard to get too tough on a Hollywood satire that in the end loves Hollywood so much that it's just not going to take any prisoners." But Rick Groen in the Toronto Globe and Mail isn't laughing. "Tropic Thunder is an assault in the guise of a comedy," he writes, "Watching it is like getting mugged by a clown. Sure, by my bruised reckoning, there are a few chuckles here, but you'll definitely pay a price for them." And apparently referring to reports that the film cost $150 million to make, Michael Phillips writes in the Chicago Tribune, "In the end Tropic Thunder is an expensive goof about an expensive goof, and the results are very impressive and fancy-looking ... too impressive, really, to fully unleash the humor in the situations." 
