Movies: 'Step Brothers' Is a Step Back | Newsweek Entertainment: Movies

MOVIES
The Laugh Factory
David Ansen 11/1/2008 12:00:00 AM
If a new American comedy starts out with curses that would have made your great-grandmother blush and an obsession with poop and penises just this side of X-rated, you can be sure that it will end as warm and fuzzy as an old Andy Hardy movie. Raunch, scatology and four-letter words are nothing new in Hollywood comedies. They may have begun as underground outrages ("Pink Flamingos"), but by the time of "Porky's," "American Pie" and the Farrelly brothers they were as mainstream as, well, apple pie. What is new is the shotgun wedding of obscenity and sentimentality. If the bad boy-man hero (it's always a guy) seems stuck in the eternal pigpen of adolescence, you can be sure that by the end he'll have learned his lessons, shouldered responsibility and earned the love of the gorgeous, competent woman he pines for.
TEEN HEARTTHROBS
‘Like, I Symbolize Sex?’
Sarah Ball 9/27/2008 12:00:00 AM
Twenty-year-old actor Michael Cera is not your textbook hunk. Shy of six feet and still carrying what seems like baby fat, the guy is not familiar with free weights. His beaky nose and oddly tufted haircut cancel out the cuteness of his wide, expressive mouth and teddy-bear eyes. If he picked you up for a Saturday night date, he'd arrive in something small. And his clothes—oh girl, the clothes. He reportedly dresses (in real life) like his characters, which is to say that primary colors go together, a retro-styled red backpack is an acceptable carryall and pilled polyester hoodies are a wardrobe staple.
TELEVISION
Why Men Love 'Gossip Girl'
Joshua Alston 9/5/2008 12:00:00 AM
My name is Joshua, and I love "Gossip Girl." My addiction to the CW's drama about social-climbing Manhattan teens began innocently enough, a mere flirtation that grew into a full-blown crisis. I reviewed the pilot last fall and was ambivalent about it. I thought it was enjoyable for what it was but hardly something for me to get excited about.
CULTURE
Why I Am Leaving Guyland
Tony Dokoupil 8/30/2008 12:00:00 AM
It's "booze o'clock" on a recent Thursday night on New York's Fire Island—a rolling, inexact hour when 10 vacationing guys decide to kick off their nightly binge. Between tequila shots and pulls of beer, the sun-baked twentysomethings roar on the deck of their rented beach house, sounding the depths of maledom: sexual conquests, mastery of fire ("I'll grill that potato salad") and escape from the monotony of girlfriends and work. "I like starting things," says one guy, as if to sum up his generation. "Then it gets boring."
THE ARTS
Days of 'Thunder'
David Ansen 8/2/2008 12:00:00 AM
"Tropic Thunder" is the funniest movie of the summer—so funny, in fact, that you start laughing before the film itself has begun. This needs explaining. Ben Stiller's movie is about a gaggle of pampered, self-important Hollywood folks who go into the jungle to shoot a big-budget Vietnam War movie (called "Tropic Thunder") and stumble into real danger when heavily armed drug smugglers take them for the real deal. But like any "real" movie, "Thunder" starts with a few trailers. The first is a frenetic ad for "Booty Sweat" energy drinks, which turns out to be the product of rapper turned actor Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), who we will soon discover is one of the stars of this Southeast Asian war epic. This is followed by more priceless fake trailers of upcoming movies from "Tropic Thunder" stars. Tug Speedman (Stiller) is a fading action star ("Scorcher VI") who's tried (and failed) to earn respectability by playing a retarded farm boy in "Simple Jack." The belligerent, drug-addled comedy star Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) is seen in "The Fatties 2," a fart-filled sendup of every lowbrow Hollywood comedy in the past flatulent decade. And the multiple-Oscar-winning Australian actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) is glimpsed in his upcoming forbidden-love epic as a medieval monk making eyes at Tobey Maguire. Can the movie itself live up to this inspired warm-up? No problem. This raucous, low-down commentary on Hollywood filmmaking, war movies, narcissistic actors and the thin line between makebelieve and reality is the most giddily entertaining, wickedly smart and cinematically satisfying comedy in a season overloaded with yuk-'em-ups. If there's any justice, "Thunder" (which opens Aug. 13) should be the breakthrough moment for Stiller as a director.
MOVIES
A ‘Pineapple’ Pot Plot Ploy
Sarah Ball 8/2/2008 12:00:00 AM
How do you hawk a film to a mainstream audience when even the meaning of the title is too illicit to explain? Simple—you make it look like something else. Ads for the new Judd Apatow-produced stoner comedy, the Aug. 6 release "Pineapple Express," shill the movie as an action flick about two dimwitted pals inadvertently swept into a crime thriller. The cleverly edited promos have all the retro stylings of a screwball "Dirty Harry"—Seth Rogen sports polyester lapels while James Franco thwarts grisly bad guys with a Glock and a ninja headband. Only the occasional background wisp of smoke suggests there might be reefer behind that madness.