Comments on: There’s something happenin’ here…

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:51:46 +0000

No he was talking about getting choked up at The Royal Tenenbaums not Dodgeball.

By: Skully

Skully — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:30:55 +0000

Movie - you got choked up … at Dodgeball? Dude, what is wrong with you? Step away from the remote!

By: hokumboy

hokumboy — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:51:10 +0000

DODGEBALL’s sorta the next generation’s UNCLE BUCK. Not a great movie, but a great movie to watch.

By: Will Pfeifer

Will Pfeifer — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:17:52 +0000

I do like DODGEBALL. It’s not a great movie, but it has so many little jokes and quirky supporting characters that you can tell a lot of effort went into it. And I have to admit, Ben Stiller’s scene at the end with Gene Hackman (”It’s been a tough year, dad.” “I know, Chazzie”) always gives me a lump in the throat. No kidding.

By: elDizzle

elDizzle — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:31:08 +0000

Not sure what Brian considers work by Stiller? Director, Writer, Actor…all of the above? The only other movie he directed between Reality Bites and Zoolander was The Cable Guy. Of those, the only one he wrote was Zoolander.

As far as his acting work goes, I thought he was great in The Royal Tenenbaums. I suppose Dodgeball could also be considered one of my guilty pleasures.

Oh and I love Will’s reviews, he’s the only critic besides Roger Ebert that I even care to read.

By: Charlie Rainman

Charlie Rainman — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:36:26 +0000

Brian sounds like a bit of a know-it-all. Pretentious even. Perhaps if he needs more in-depth coverage of movies he can subscribe to Hollywood trades. This blog is actually fun and entertaining and provides more than sufficient coverage and reviews of movies for the average Rockford resident.

Ben Stiller is over-rated. I have a feeling this move will be a dud.

By: Will Pfeifer

Will Pfeifer — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:03:24 +0000

Brian — Believe me, if I could review movies full time, I would do it in a heartbeat. I love movies, love writing about movies, and do my best to deal with them intelligently in the Register Star and here online. With the constraints of the situation, that usually means focusing on DVD reviews, which I sometimes can do in advance. If you’ve got a topic you’d like to see addressed here, or a movie you’d like to see discussed, let me know.

As for Mr. Stiller, I still think his best work was on his short-lived Fox show years and years ago. He’s done some good stuff since — REALITY BITES has its moments, and ZOOLANDER has lots of laughs — but I’m still waiting on something to follow up that early potential. Maybe this will be it, maybe not. We’ll find out this summer.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:45:25 +0000

screenings in Chicago all the time. Of course they don’t hold them in every city in the country.
But I will admit, I thought your main job was as the resident movie columnist/critic. As that is not the case, my comments may in fact have been a little harsh. Maybe that’s why the Star’s coverage always feels so lacking - they need to hire someone to do the job and not just ask a copy editor to do it in their spare time.

and in response to “cinesven” - Reality Bites is still Stiller’s best work - most of his stuff since then has been progressively worse. Zoolander is the worst of them all.

By: cinesven

cinesven — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:58:11 +0000

Good topic.

I actually feel this one may tank. What little I’ve seen is not all that funny and the jokes about Downey’s “color” wear thin before the trailer is even over.

I am a huge fan of Stiller’s directing of comedy (so basically everything except “Reality Bites”) and hopefully my reservations are unfounded. Zoolander was genius, original filmmaking near or in the realm of Mel Brooks early film work.

By the way, your reviewing and forum discussions are interesting and competent, although the first post in this comment thread is not.

How ironic.

By: Will Pfeifer

Will Pfeifer — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:33:27 +0000

Thanks, Brian.. I haven’t seen any press screenings in Rockford, but if there are any, please let me know where I can find ‘em! And cheapness really isn’t a factor — as far as I know, press credentials are free. You just have to ask for them. The reason I don’t is that, as much as I wish it were the case, writing about movies is not my job at the Register Star. I’m actually — and always have been — a copy editor/page designer who writes a column (and this blog) on the side.

These are tough times for movie reviewers at newspapers and magazines, which is a story that’s way more than three weeks behind the rest of the world, so you probably already knew that already. The Village Voice, Newsweek and several other major papers have either let go their critics or (in Newsweek’s case) offered buyout deals.

Thanks again for writing, and please, let me know when the next critics’ screening is in Rockford. I’m dying to attend.