It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Far back as I can recall, I’ve always gotten a somewhat “mean” vibe off of many of the now megastar, formerly “alternative” comics who broke in L.A. in the early-to-mid 90s. The Stiller crew, the Mr. Show guys, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I have MUCH respect for that gang and they’re great comics, but the arch, above-it-all posturing always seemed a little cold and cruel – Stiller, Garofolo, Black and Gass, especially David Cross, etc. Always too cool for the room, kind of a condescending undercurrent. Just merciless in the way they ragged on anyone and anything that wasn’t up to their lofty, “edgy” standards.
And time has proven that act just a tad disingenuous, since, their elitist, deconstructionist shtick to the contrary, they’ve individually and collectively gone on to make some of the crassest, most mainstream, lowest-common-denominator comedies imaginable.
And good, even great stuff, too… but really, what’s more honest: Dane Cook or Larry the Cable Guy doing jerkoff shtick and fart jokes, or some guy who spends half his career mocking that kind of thing AND its audience… then every movie turns around and flat-out does the same jerkoff shtick and fart jokes.
I second that, Dave and Lex G, so forgive me if I am ploughing too much the same furrow.
I know the argument I am about to present can be punched clean through the centre, but for me, although I have enjoyed a couple of Stiller’s movies, he always plays guys who are so clearly idiotic that any offence they may cause is part of the joke. That is fine; one of comedy’s functions is to puncture taboos. But I also get the feeling that he uses that part of the joke as his get out clause: That’s not me, that’s the character. Anchorman was funny in stretches but it was the same thing: Ron was an asshole and an easy target to make the rest of us feel good about how liberal we have all become. Because of this, I think Will Ferrell’s greatest work was in Elf. A brilliant film.
I think it takes a really gifted comic to play a normal person and find the humour in their NOT being a jerk. Steve Martin did it in Roxanne. Bill Murray is crusty in real life (to say the least) so we expect and respect his crustiness.
Again, I know this argument may not hold water but for comedy, eash to their own.
I kind of agree with Lex, esp. about David Cross, whose character work is often brilliant but whose standup always seemed really callous to me.
I don’t think I’d paint Garofalo with that brush, though…notice how she and Stiller seem to have severed their professional relationship after they wrote that book together.
Everything can be funny when on the screen, and turned up to eleven.
This is likely the first time I have seen Murphy’s Nutty Professor role described as ‘complex’.
I think it is the lack of sincerity in the comedians. Richard Pryor found humour in his own heartaches…Bill Cosby in the foibles of his life growing up…the best comedians do this. They open up a window to themselves and we see if we can relate. They are storytellers. Even Jerry Seinfeld plays on his own vanity as a punchline.
Too much of the new comedy is based on the age of irony-too cool for the room- type of humour.
David Cross in particular is a great example for this. I remember a friend telling me how much he loved Cross’ stand up and he played me a CD of it once. I do not remember the whole bit but the punch line was how hard it was for Cross to be in a relationship because he and his girlfriend were on their 3rd abortion or something like that.
As my friend howled, I realized the joke didn’t actually work because even if Cross were telling the truth, you get the impression it wouldn’t faze him in the least. He presents himself as too cool. Hence the piece is not about him revealing perosnal information about himself but how cool it is to have had to pay for three of your girlfriends abortions.
I think much of this type of humour can also be traced to the influence of David Letterman in the 80’s who mixed this sort of smarm with mocking himself. Too many of modern comedians lose the self-mocking part though.
I find Black in particular very unfunny.
As everybody above mentions, David Cross’s humor is indeed very mean at times. The strange thing is that Cross is a very perceptive watcher of human behavior– a lot of his performances are packed with the sort of small human details that you can only use when you really understand what makes people tick. And that’s what makes the mean-spiritedness so disconcerting. Usually somebody who can understand people like that will have a bit more empathy, too.
Cross also plays up the humor of selfishness in the same way that Stiller does. The abortion joke that Nicol mentioned wasn’t about abortion being funny per se, it was about Cross believing that paying for abortions is as difficult as raising kids.
I’ve always thought that Bob Odenkirk is just as funny and sharp as Cross but is a little empathic. He’s slightly warmer and more generous with the subjects of his humor and it makes a big difference.
I agree that Cross can suffer from a lack of self deprecation; however, that bit that Nicol refers to about abortion is just a quick throwaway punch line not some huge bit about talking a girl into getting abortions. I think the line is something about how his friends keep telling him how hard it is having kids and if you think that is hard think about hard hard it is trying to talk your girlfriend into her third consecutive abortion.
I never thought of Alexander Payne as hating his characters; if so, he should have hated Chuck and Larry way more.
This Stiller thing strikes me as fake outrage from people who don’t like the movies combined with some misguided protests from interest groups.
It’s funny this whole thing has come up (the “boycotting” of TROPIC THUNDER) because just the other day, I saw a whole group of people at a sporting chuckle when a “retarded” person was shown in the stands on the jumbo tron.
Look, I’m not saying it’s right, but people laugh at “retarded” people. I don’t look to movies like TROPIC THUNDER to change the way society is and if anyone does, well, they got problems. Isn’t it all a reflection on what makes people laugh? Isn’t that why every kids movie has the kick in the balls shot at least three times?
In fact, I too was stunned that they showed a “retarded” person on the jumbo tron because as Roger Ebert alluded to last year, “normal” people in America don’t like to see those with ailments.
I always thought the Farrelly’s included the disabled in their films so they could say they really weren’t making fun of them cuz…”LOOK! We have one in our movie!!” That’s like the racist or homophobe friend we all have saying “I’m not a racist or homophobe…my cousin is black/gay.”
Now, TROPIC THUNDER may suck AND make fun of those less fortunate, but that I don’t know about…
“The abortion joke that Nicol mentioned wasn’t about abortion being funny per se, it was about Cross believing that paying for abortions is as difficult as raising kids.”
Yes, Reynoldz and Eric, it is just a throwaway line, but the joke doesn’t work because not for once do you get the impression that Cross would actually care if his girlfriend had three abortions. Based on his humour, he wouldn’t find it “difficult” at all. Hence the joke becomes about the shock of him saying, in your face, that he has gotten his girlfriend to have three abortions.
Understand, I am only using this example not to talk about abortion, but because the subtext is so different than what Pryor talked about. Pryor actually had pain and tried to find the common humanity in it. For Cross, not once do you think he would care about the issue of three abortions, it is more about the “I’m so above it all” shock of saying what he says. It is not about finding common humanity at all. It is about mocking people who would take issue with what he said.
Much of Cross’ stand up is in this vein.
That is why someone like Pryor could use extreme vulgarity but still find a massive mainstream audience, but Cross will always be a sideliner. Pryor found common humanity, the new group does not seek this.
Nicol, though I see some of your points, I have to join in those saying you’re sort of missing the point of that joke. I don’t think it’s about how cool abortion is, with or without smugness from Cross; that joke is, like a lot of Sarah Silverman’s jokes, about the joke-teller’s callousness. So ironic, yes, but use irony as a dismiss-all seems simplified, as irony has been employed in humor long before 1992 or Letterman in the eighties or where-ever people would pretend it started.
Maybe you meant to say that it’s about Cross being “cool” enough to use abortion as a punchline, in which case I’d see your point (though I still don’t think it’s a bad joke).
It’s interesting, too, that you raise this point about irony and then say you find Black particularly unfunny. I don’t think much of Black’s humor is based on irony, or, as The Pope mentions, acting like a jerk. Well, his role in High Fidelity is funny mainly because of how much of a jerk he is, but that’s not really his creation. In movies like School of Rock and Tenacious D, a big part of the humor is Black’s all-encompassing, lunatic enthusiasm.
The area of comedy I find really empty — and this may be an easy target, but I think it’s an outgrowth of the better versions of what many of you dislike — is the VH1/Best Week Ever/talking heads phenomenon, where comedians are encouraged to come up with quasi-snarky sound bites about fish-in-barrel targets. Michael Ian Black, who really should know better, has fallen into this pretty badly, where lots of his “jokes” are just him saying something with a vaguely “ironic” tone, except he’s not really being ironic about anything.
I can see how there’s maybe a little bit of arrogance in Stiller’s work; I believe it was someone at AICN, actually, who brought up an interesting point about how Downey and Black are both, to some extent, playing with their reps (Downey as a serious actor, Black as a comedian), even if they’re also obviously ribbing other actors (Eddie Murphy, Daniel Day-Lewis), while Stiller just casts himself as a ripped action star. While Stiller is quite good at poking fun at that kind of egotism (which is why he made such a funny male supermodel in Zoolander despite, you know, not looking like one), I do see the point that having an actual action star poke fun at himself would be more of a piece with the rest of the cast (though I haven’t seen the movie and, as I say, generally like Stiller). He also played a buff, desirable rabbi to Edward Norton’s lovelorn priest in Keeping the Faith… although I actually found that to be a nice reversal.
Anyway, generally Stiller has terrific comedy chops; he just spreads his main persona a little too thin. A little bit of meanness in comedy isn’t necessarily a bad thing to me. Stiller seems capable of getting in touch with a more human side, anyway: look at his work in Zero Effect, The Royal Tenenbaums, Keeping the Faith, and Mystery Men. Zoolander even comes off as kind of a sweet guy. What a great run of movies he did in that 1998-2001 range.
Finally, one more all-over-the-place point: I wouldn’t characterize Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy character as based around pure jerkiness. Some of the best jokes in the movie revolve around his lost, confused, or aghast reactions to the death of his dog and his love of Veronica. He’s always shown as slightly less of a jackass than his newsman compatriots.
If anything, a lot of comedians go too far into trying to be the likable leading man; think of Eddie Murphy, who gets cast as a not-particularly-funny hero in a lot of therefore not-particularly-funny comedies (Pluto Nash being the most egregious example), or Steve Martin, playing the affable dad in Cheaper by the Dozen. So I appreciate that Ferrell can stay on the funny side of that (and even go further; I could see the argument that Step Brothers is a mean or unpleasant movie though I found most of it hilarious).
I think a large part of the ironic sort of mean spirited humor really comes from nerds when you look at it. It’s like a defense mechanism, and a lot of times, since nerds don’t have the looks or maybe even some specific talent, humor is their way to fit in. And being snarky or mean spirited is their way to put the world in its place.
Like that comic con guy telling the incest joke David posted on here a week ago. That’s nerd humor.
But I’d agree with jesse in that Jack Black’s humor comes from ethusiasm, not snarky mean spiritedness. And yeah, Ben Stiller may have made fun of fat guys at the end of Dodgeball, but the rest of his performance was making fun of guys who have this need to get ripped. Besdies, he didn’t write it.
And let’s face it…they showed Radio the other day on tv, which I’d never seen before, and the opening credits where you see Cuba Gooding Jr. run around with a dumbass retarded smile on his face was funnier than any ten comedies.
Maybe its just me, but with this topic and the Tropic Thunder review, I’m getting the impression that DP has a personal problem with Stiller, and that its influencing his perceptions of Stiller’s work.
Calling someone a “nasty little turd of a man” does lend that impression …
I always thought the Farrelly’s included the disabled in their films so they could say they really weren’t making fun of them cuz…”LOOK! We have one in our movie!!”
Actually, I think the Farrelly’s are genuinely tying to get at some sort of comedic transcendence since their films are so based on physical attributes. I always think of the scene in MARY with the friend on crutches trying to stand and it’s not presented as a “lookit the gimp!” moment, it’s quite odd in fact…
And yes, the talking heads on all those endless VH1 shows are staggeringly unclever and unfunny — and I think they know it.
I think the turd thing is a little out of context. I did not call him that. I said he becomes that in the work when he goes certainly places.
It’s not about Ben personally… I am all for allowing someone who was a bit of a problem child the right to be reconsidered as a grown up. He was not shy about kicking people out of the boat in the early days. And his nose runneth over. But that was a long time ago.
That said, men do express their better and their worse selves at times. I would say that Stiller suffers from oddly Napoleonic movie star issues and finds himself frustrated by having most of his success as the butt of the joke. So when he strikes back with what he seems to think of as edgy, he gets very small indeed.
The greatest opportunity in Tropic Thunder, the Downey character, is not developed enough to be special. Why is he kept in the back seat? Incompetence or intent?
The same ego rage thing surely can be said of Robert Rodriguez. He’s so busy trying to break the rules that he forgets that there is a reason for rules and that you must master them before breaking them to be effective draamtically. The petulant overwhelms the cool all too often… which is a shame, because the cool can be pretty damned cool. (I expect a masterpiece from him in about 20 years, following a bunch of burned bridges and fallow working years.)
Tarantino has the burden of real talent as a writer to protect him from ever becoming truly tiny on screen.
And as far as The Farellys, the relationships they have with the challenged are real, aside from the movies. Just as they push their crews to the front, they sincerely like to support the idea of the handicapped being different, but like you and I. But when they do something like The Ringer, people defintely wonder where that line is.
Shallow Hal… mean fat joke or insight into us all being “just folks” on the inside? And how does having Jack Black as the shallow guy – no natural beauty himself – fit in? It gets interesting.
Finally, if you look at the work Murphy has done, particularly in the stereotypical giant black woman of Norbit, you can’t say it’s simplistic. You may not like the joke. You may be offended. But his work is truly remarkable.
You mean ‘remarkable’ re: Murphy on the level of the craft of performance, right? Stick those characters into a movie with a better script and people would love it, but that’s not what happened.
Nothing is off-limits.
If you can laugh at the world ending in a nuclear holocaust, you can laugh at anything.
Said it before, say it again: Eddie Murphy deserved his first Best Actor nom for THE NUTTY PROFESSOR – just like Jerry Lewis deserved it in 1963.
It’s definitely better work than what he did in Dreamgirls, but since it lacked a smack addiction he was never going to be taken ‘seriously’.
Bernie Mac (RIP) is one I’ve always had a bit of a likability problem with as well. Evident in the following clip is him referring to one of his sister’s kids (a six year-old boy) as a “faggot”. And not just once or even twice.
Not that I want to see him roast in Hell for that or anything so severe, but I’d certainly like to see him being confronted with having to suck St. Peter’s cock to get through the Pearly Gates.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RviYo3WsqjU
Dammit,wrong clip. The festivities begin around 4:30 into it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC4ul_FYnlQ&feature=related
The Alpa Chino thing… that shuck and jive character is a CHARACTER. In the movie. I don’t want to spoil anything, but that’s the whole joke of Chino’s reveal – he isn’t that guy, he’s putting it on just as much as Downey is putting his black on. Whether or not you like that joke is another thing, but it’s not just ‘Haw haw coloreds.’
But that’s the problem, Devin… it’s always the nasty joke then the excuse.
It’s “RETARD FUNNY!!!!” and then “But Asians feel empathy to the menatally handicapped, so it’s okay.”
As Murphy says to Nolte in 48 Hrs after Notle apologizes… “Nigger.. and watermelon… I didn’t mean that stuff. I was just doing my job… keeping you down.”
Murphy responds, “Well doing your job don’t explain everything, Jack”
Equally brilliant is Frank McRae’s response to Nolte defending his newly respected convict friend to him… “Just ’cause you say it with conviction, it don’t mean shit to me!” The racial indifference of McRae. played against the obvious racial set-up of the movie is the kind of unspoken sophistication that Stiller just isn’t up to delivering. He’s still having the white guy in black face using The Jeffersons’ theme as enthic poetry… Steve Allen’s 40 year old gag… cheap laugh…
Speaking of offensive stuff…
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Spanish-basketball-team-poses-for-offensive-pict?urn=oly,100152
Oh, you zany Spaniards….