Moribund mishmash of the usual us-versus-them(-but-we're-more-alike-than-we-realize) political thriller tropes sidelines its capable headliners in favor of leaning too heavily on the same four or five swarthy day players who tend to portray the Tom, Dick and Harari in every example of this demi-genre. The story is well-meaning but insipid, hedging its stereotypes with politically correct sermons while the plot trudges toward the only surprise in the entire movie—an almost Flannery O'Connor-ish turnabout that feels airlifted in from one of the Saw movies. The twist is presumably meant to register as poetically just and profound; instead it wrings some much-needed laughs from an otherwise glum, dumb current-events lecture. Grade: C-
Artist: Santogold. Album: Santogold.
The trouble with lavishly overproduced satires about how expensive and not that good most Hollywood blockbusters are is that the takeoffs frequently end up being expensive and not that good themselves. And so it is with Ben Stiller's latest sendup. To his ongoing credit, he helms the comedy with visual wit and an eye for detail that few of his peers aspire to. To his discredit, he's essentially mounted a series of steroidal MTV Movie Awards sketches, episodic and discrete. The sense of compartmentalization extends to the performances, where every headliner is given his own carefully tended plot of scenery to chew over and over-chew. Even Tom Cruise's vaunted "loose, funny" prosthetics-reliant cameo as a studio honcho is essentially a meta prank banking on the audience's awareness that the star is in on the joke for a change, and not really that amusing on its own grating one-note terms. Ultimately Tropic Thunder ends up feeling as phony and self-indulgent as the industry it parodies. Its bark may be Dolby Digital Surround EX, but the bite is all veneers. Grade: C
At this point reefer-movie madness is suitably pandemic that it may be time to reconsider the meaning of the term potboiler. Pineapple Express nevertheless manages to feel fresh and funny for the majority of its running time. The story's coked-up weedy rhythms cross-pollinate the verisimilitude of Out of Sight with the manic intensity of the first Kill Bill, with Seth Rogen and James Franco sustaining a believable, dewy dude-on-dude chemistry that mostly sidesteps the more predictable gay-panic tropes (with one gratuitous exception). If anything belies the loose anything-goes sensibility, it's that some of the exchanges, while still uproarious, have a slightly worked-over sketch-comedy feel. Still, a laugh's a laugh, especially in the heat of August. Grade: B+
Artist: Brandi Carlile. Album: The Story.
Artist: Os Mutantes. Album: A Minha Menina.
Artist: Enur. Album: Calabria 2007.