Tropic Thunder (Unrated Director's Cut)

undefined

Product description ------------------- Tropic Thunder DVD 2-Disc Set Jack Black .com ---- 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 Penn–style 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) P.when('A').execute(function(A) { A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse', function(data) { window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100); }); }); Set Contains: ------------- 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 See more ( javascript:void(0) )