Ben Stiller

Along Came Polly

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Along Came Polly. Jersey Films 2004.

Before watching the movie:

I think I was aware of this movie as a title floating out there, but that was pretty much the end of it. Even watching a trailer, I thought this was There’s Something About Mary for a moment. I wouldn’t have expected Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston to appear together in anything.

Total opposites romantic comedies, especially where the cautious guy’s world is opened by a wildcard girl, are pretty common (off the top of my head, Something Wild fits the bill), but what the concept reminds me the most of is Yes Man. It’s something about the mix of extreme activities that he never would have agreed to without this change in his life, I think. I don’t really have a whole lot more to say about a movie I barely knew existed, just how much it reminds me of more well-regarded movies.

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Tower Heist

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Tower Heist. Universal Pictures 2011.

Before watching the movie:

I passed by this a few times because I generally don’t consider crime movies to be my kind of thing. But then I noticed that it has comedy actors leading it, so I looked closer, and saw that it’s not just about stealing money, it’s about folks who lost their retirement funds to a scummy hedge fund manager stealing it back, and that interests me a lot.

I get the sense that a lot of “revenge on the Wall Street crooks” movies came out in the years after the 2009 collapse, but I mainly get that from having seen Fun with Dick and Jane in the last year, which was very very loudly about surviving a Wall Street implosion (looking it up, I realize that movie in particular wasn’t about the 2009 collapse, but the timing seems more like it was about Enron).

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Mystery Men

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Mystery Men. Dark Horse Entertainment 1999.

Before watching the movie:

I have hardly any idea what this movie is like, and it kind of occupies the same headspace with Mystery Team, another cult movie that I think is ensemble-based that I need to get around to, but it looks like of the large ensemble there are a lot of big names, but only one I’d expect to be involved in something like this. My early impression is something like Watchmen by way of Kick-Ass. A deconstruction of superhero narratives, but as a farcical parody.

The timing of the movie should make an interesting tone. The late 90s were a time where superhero movies weren’t very popular, and sometimes not very well made. After Superman and Batman fell apart, the superhero genre struggled in movies, but the technology was starting to provide the ability make more convincing effects than the stunning work of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, but the cynicism and assembly line pop culture of the post-Dark Knight/cinematic universe era hadn’t yet come in. Without global tentpole scrutiny from the studio, maybe a superhero movie could even Say Something. That’s probably a lot to ask of a failed spoof, but the possibilities are there.

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Heavyweights

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Heavyweights. Caravan Pictures 1995.

Before watching the movie:

How did I not know about this movie until right now? It came out in the mid-90s with Disney backing and it’s about put-upon fat camp kids taking over the camp. Why was I not all over this as a kid? Where was the hype?

Sure, it’s hardly a tentpole movie. Ben Stiller and Judd Apatow are the biggest names on it, and both near the beginning of their careers. I don’t expect it to be to modern standards of body positivity, but how often do you see the plump kids as the heroes?

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Zoolander

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Zoolander. Paramount Pictures 2001.
Zoolander. Paramount Pictures 2001.

Before watching the movie:

I remember all my classmates in middle school going nuts about this movie when it came out. I had no idea what it was other than a funny name and some incessantly repeated, grammatically shaky line about a school. I later learned Zoolander is a fashion model, and he has a rival model, and that’s about it. Apparently there’s an international assassination plot that he gets involved with somehow, but that’s not funny enough for people to talk about, I guess.

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