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Review: Zoolander
In the theater where I saw this movie, the audience was laughing throughout. It's not entirely clear how much of this was the quality of the movie, how much that people obviously needed to laugh.
The premise is great. An evil band of international fashion designers want to kill the prime minister of Malaysia after he announces he's raising the minimum wage of sweatshop workers who make designer clothes for Americans. Apparel prices will skyrocket. They threaten top designer Mugatu (Will Ferrell) with destruction if he doesn't find some vapid, gullible male model to do the deed at the annual fashion show, which the prime minister plans to attend.
"Fabio?" suggests one of the villains? "Too smart," is the decision. The obvious choice for Mugatu is famous, shallow, supermodel Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller), the four-time Male Model of the Year winner, soon to be embittered and unseated by arch-rival Hansel, played brilliantly by Owen Wilson. Female supermodels have long been the target of satirists, but this is the most head-on assault yet on the men.
Zoolander is likeable, stupid, self-absorbed, and manipulable. He gets absolutely nothing about the world beyond the fact that he is "wonderfully, incredibly good-looking." He has his verbal mannerisms. He's about to get an education in how the world really works. He and Hansel vie for top male model spot, including a hilarious "walk-off" on a basement runway to decide who's on top. Neither has ever turned on a computer.
Zoolander comes from a character Stiller helped create for a sketch he did on the l996 VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards. If any event or industry is ripe for vicious parody, it's this one. Stiller is merciless. There's a terrific scene up front involving Stiller's gorgeous but bubble-headed roommates playing at a gas station in the style of stupid TV ads. They get their just desserts here, though the movie is as good-natured as it is biting.
Derek's agent, Maury Ballstein, is played by Jerry Stiller, Ben's dad, who is great as the crude, pompadoured head of the world's biggest modeling agency.
There are targets, spoofs and cultural references galore in Zoolander, including a play on The Manchurian Candidate spot-on blasts at the way the media worships the glam/celebrity culture, and the way in which pop culture can sometimes patronize the people who worship it. David Duchovny does an uncredited walk-on as a conspiratorial ex-model whose face is never shown, but whose hand -- used in cosmetic ads -- is instantly recognizable to Zoolander from catalogs.
American culture, one of the most powerful forces on the planet, is the big target here, especially its consuming valuelessness. Stiller grasps the cultural irony for many of us. As much as we love pop culture, we also recognize that it is becoming sillier, greedier and less honest and creative by the day. It diminishes us, he suggests, as well as the people who create it. Stiller sees popular culture as corrupt and infanticizing, celebrating trendiness above all. In worshipping the empty and the vapid, he seems to be saying, we can't help but become more empty and vapid ourselves. He's got a point.
This movie is wonderfully weird and funny. Ferrell's over-the-top Mogatu is great, as are the Finnish dwarfs and freakazoid orgy. The movie has a score of cameo appearances from fashion world muck-a-mucks, models and celebrities, but the modeling culture is only a stand-in for the celebrity machine that has engulfed publishing, music, TV, film and the arts.
This is a scathingly wonderful movie, as amusing as it is on target.
I really wish I had known you'd post a reply to this article.
Because then I would have known not to read the comments. As it stands, I read and suffered yet another Katz bashing.
Is that cool to do these days? Do you get a cheque in the mail every time you rag on Katz for posting to Slashdot, with no other reason than because he's Jon Katz?
Please stop, because it's really getting tiresome.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...the computer-altered New York City skyline (the Twin Towers are gone -- replaced by odd-looking new skyscrapers in several shots looking South...
Am I the only one who thinks this is wrong? I mean, obviously the sight of the WTC in these movies may be upsetting to some people, but in my opinion, wiping them out of movies and tv shows like they never even existed is extremely disrespectful to the memories of those who lost their lives in the disaster.
What I'd like to know is, why are they editing the WTC towers out in the first place? Are they now going to go through geography or tourism books and retroactively edit out the towers from them, too?
Where does it end? It's editorial abuse. I find it a perversion of the 9/11 incident, and the people who died there, that someone thinks that all photographic memory in pop media should be wiped of any trace of its former existence. And what excuse do they offer up for doing it?
"It might hurt someone's feelings."
What a cop-out.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
They're editing out the WTC I assume so we wont be reminded of the disaster? As if we're going to forget anyway.
.... and then be reminded of the attacks.
If they leave the towers in, people will be reminded of the attacks. If they edit the towers out, people will say "look, they edited the towers out!:
I say leave them in. That's what it looked like when it was being filmed.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
A lot of us need some escapism these days, but I don't think that the best place to be finding it is in a movie that pokes fun at muslims and considers their one of their contries (Malaysia) inconsequential.
Ebert's point that I liked the best was that, "If the Malaysians made a comedy about the assassination of the president of the United States because of his opposition to slavery, it would seem approximately as funny to us as "Zoolander" would seem to them."
Comedies like this add to the dislike of America that was exploited by a few crazy lunatics to lead to the Sep. 11 tragedy; how sad is it to see that the first big comedy to come out of the States after those events just pours salt on the wounds of the have-not countries of the world; especially since Malaysia has tried very hard to improve its possition in the world (witness the Petronas towers and the F1 grand prix).
In light of these concerns I think that those who are sensitive to the pain that certain American attitudes can cause to the people of other nations would do well to avoid this film.
David Duchovny does an uncredited walk-on as a conspiratorial ex-model whose face is never shown, but whose hand -- used in cosmetic ads -- is instantly recognizable to Zoolander from catalogs.
Whose face is never shown? Katz obviously didn't see the movie.
Of course Duchovny's face is shown. The joke is, he's hideous except for his hand. Duhhhh.
I hate to break this to you, but the last thing this movie was was a commentary on fashion or pop culture. Its such a funny yet completely ridiculous take on the fashion industry that if you saw some kind of message in there then you've got bigger things to worry about. There's no jabs at real designers or at people who buy from them just surreal characters and situations designed to deliver three gags per minute.
Saying this movie has social value is like saying dumb and dumber put the rich elite in their place. Its typical Stiller and Wil Ferrel comedy turned up to 11. Some of the gags don't work, but this kept me laughing quite a bit.
Not to mention its got Milla Jovovich playing a very sexy fashion henchwoman. Natalie Portman makes a cameo too, in fact every celebrity in the known universe makes a cameo.
Are you okay?
Where are the deep messages against pop culture in this funny yet completely brainless movie? Complain about the industry all you want, but if you bothered to see this you'll see Jon is seeing what he wants to see and he's got you hook, line, and sinker.
Of all the comedy actors out there I'd rather give my 5 bucks up to Ben. If you ever saw his old TV show or his role in Heavyweights you'll know exactly why.
Because it's disturbing to some people?
Some people have mentioned before that it dishonors the memory of the building, and the fine people that were in it, and i totally agree.
So some people will be offended, what happens if those people watch older movies on video that prominently show the WTC Towers? is Hollywood going to grab all the films off the shelf, and edit them out of there?
Personally I'm offended by the fact that they were edited out. It's a great piece of our modern history, and Hollywood is afraid of having anything to do with it.
You mean any pictures of the WTC where they aren't blowing up or already blown up, right? Because right now, you can flip to pretty much any news channel, and see what the WTC looks like destroyed. And if you wait long enough, they'll replay the planes crashing, for dramatic effect or whatever..
Personally, I think it's all propoganda. The media feel that it's their responsibilty to make sure that when the public thinks of the WTC, they only think of it as being blown up. There seems to be a need in today's media to reinforce fact in everybody's mind. (Maybe they think we're all stupid and we'll forget..?) They want us so we won't forget, and so that they'll be in full support of whatever the president decides.
Now I'm not saying this is a gov't conspiracy. Far from it; I think the media honestly believes that this is their responsibility. They feel that they should be doing everything in their power to make sure that their viewers feel the devestation just as strongly as their reporters did. Which I don't think is a bad thing, if you're only giving a special report. But whenever you have continuing coverage for more than.. oh.. say.. two weeks? That's when you get into brainwashing territory.
I noticed something equally disturbing in the first few days, however, and that was how the media was already taking it upon itself to question the usefulness of the country's intelligence bureaus. This is not the job of the media--especially in a time of crisis. The job of the media is to report the news, not make suppositions about it. It should be a watchdog group who's doing that kind of report, and presenting it to the media for reporting to the public. Having the media making such observations and suggestions on their own is completely unprofessional.
The problem is that it's not the gov't that runs the country in cases like this; it's national opinion. The gov't doesn't actually make decisions on foreign policy; they follow the lead of the american populace. And when they want to find out the national opinion, who do they turn to? CNN.
So allow me to put this into perspective for you; when the gov't wants our opinion, they watch CNN. Whenever we want to find out what our leaders are doing, we turn to CNN, fox, etc. So who's really running the country?
And people wonder about buildings being removed from movies.. here's a question for you; who owns CNN? AOL Time Warner. And what do they own? Warner Bros., New Line Cinema..
Wait, sorry, that is a conspiracy theory.. oh, never mind...
I feel sickened that people are trying to avoid the "hurt feelings." Pictures of the WTC shoudl be reminders of what happened, and while it may hurt some peoples' feelings, it may help others remember the event a little more clearly -- which is what we need to do.
Can't allow ourselves to forget that it happened.
~ravyn
___
I'm an exhibit on the mounted animal nature trail.
We don't erase images of our fallen war heros. We don't erase images of our assassinated presidents. Why change history now? When they filmed the movie, they were standing. Now they're not. So what? I'll tell you a litle story... My favorite pizza joint is Nat's New York Pizzeria (I'm not in New York, but these guys claim to do an authentic NY style pizza). So I'm sitting there a few days ago, chowing down on a couple of thin slabs of za. And I turn to my left and nearly choke in awe to see a huuuge photo of the Twin Towers framed on the wall. It's about 6 feet by 4 feet and includes the Brooklyn Bridge in the forground for added context. Anyways, beautiful picture and it's been there forever (I asked). I guess I never noticed it. But I'm glad I did now and I'm glad they didn't erase their history. (I'm also glad to see that they're not playing it up at all to take advantage of it.)
If they start doing it to older movies, I'll be somewhat angry. That's a little bit too 1984 for me.
I find it interesting that they would remove images of the WTC from movies yet they show the planes exploding inside the tower and guys falling 100 stories on TV in an endless loop.
actually, i think something cool to do, (don't know if anyone thought of this yet) would be to have films with the WTC in it. they just shoot the NYC skyline, and insert the WTC in with a computer (3d graphics?). sort of like, hahaha, you'll never take the WTC away. (verses the opposition of what they are doing now, taking away the WTC from movies that already had it there.)
Please, please Hollywood, don't remove the World Trade Center from any movies that are supposed to occur before Sept 11 2001.
This is altering history in the same manner that the Soviet Union was infamous for. Officals in the USSR who had fallen from favor would be airbrushed-out of archival photos and histories - re-written with the goal of making the "un-person" not only cease to exist, but to cease to have EVER existed. (See Orwell's 1984 for the mechanics of this)
This is wrong in a free society that (I hope) values truth over pleasing fiction. We have to get over the idea that we can wish troubling facts and events away.
For better or worse, our children and future generations seeing old movies should see towers where there were towers in the first half of 2001. If that leads kids or others to uncomfortable questions about what happened to those tall buildings, maybe a history lesson would not be such a bad thing...
Jon, this film WAS a send-up of female models. It is simply more politically correct to use male models. Otherwise the movie would have seemed vicious rather than funny. You can get away with much more by being indirect.
I took the movie as being set in an alternate universe in which male models are popular in that same way that female models are in ours.
As long as I'm posting, let me say that the trailers contained every funny moment from the film with the exception of the gas station scene. In fact some scenes were funnier in the trailer. The David Duchovny scene was hilarious in the trailers, but fell flat in the movie itself due to less frantic timing.
If you want to go to a funny movie, go see Rat Race. It really exceeded my expectations. Zoolander had a great concept (you're right on that point Jon, congrats) but the execution wasn't there.
Lasers Controlled Games!
I agree there's a time for historical accuracy, but this movie really isn't it if you ask me.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."