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Ben Stiller: Movies
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Following the demise of the second Ben Stiller Show, Ben limited himself to TV guest appearances. The rest of the time he spent writing, recruiting and raising finance for his first major directorial project, Reality Bites, released in 1994. Produced by Danny DeVito and featuring all of Ben's trusty cohorts (bar his dad), this saw Winona Ryder as a wannabe film-maker, documenting her friends lives as they move from college into a harsh job market. Ethan Hawke would play her cynical, drop-out room-mate who's driven to express his love for her when she engages in an affair with Stiller's corporate MTV-style executive. It was a well-made movie but very odd in that the characters portrayed made Stiller's intentions unclear. Many saw it as a picture of idealistic Gen X kids struggling against society's demeaning but all-powerful corporate force.
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In the action-comedy 'Tropic Thunder,' Ben Stiller plays pampered action superstar Tugg Speedman, who is cast in the biggest, most expensive war movie ever produced. He sets out to Southeast Asia with a 'Who's Who' of celebrity co-stars. They include Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), an intense, three-time Oscar(R)-winning actor; Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), star of the popular gross-out comedy franchise 'The Fatties'; multi-platinum hip-hop-star-turned-entrepreneur-turned-actor Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson); and first-timer Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel). Soon after the production begins the actors are thrown into a real-life situation and are forced to become the fighting unit they're portraying, in order to find a way out of the jungle in one piece.
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Over the next several years Stiller proved that he could work equally well on independent or big-budget projects, although he received the most acclaim for his indie affiliations. For example, the studio-backed If Lucy Fell (1996), which he co-starred in with Sarah Jessica Parker (1965–), was considered to be forgettable, but critics felt that Stiller gave a shining performance in the much smaller Flirting with Disaster, ... from 1996. That same year, the actor returned to the director's chair and put a dark spin on a movie that what was supposed to be a goofy comedy, The Cable Guy. Originally written as another wacky vehicle for comic Jim Carrey (1962–), Stiller originally passed on the project. But, after Judd Apatow (c. 1968–), a former writer for The Ben Stiller Show, came on board, he and Stiller retooled the script and turned it into a darker, edgier film.
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Ben Stiller movies DVDs filmography available to buy at CDUniverse are listed below. Information on films includes: other actor and actress, star cast and crew information, reviews, director, photo of cover art, product pics and more.
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When he was very young it was obvious that Stiller would someday follow in his famous family's footsteps. He and his sister regularly wrote and performed their own skits. They ... put on plays based on scenes from Shakespeare, which meant that Ben had to wear his sister's tights. In addition, Stiller showed an early knack for directing. At age ten, he began shooting films using a Super-8 camera. The plots of his movies usually followed the same storyline: a bully would pick on young Stiller and he would seek a swift and awful means of revenge.
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"Todd was telling me that every time they show up in the movie, the audience applauds and is so happy to see them -- especially the people who know the show," Stiller said. "That's the interesting thing -- the dichotomy of the younger and older audience who knows the show and who don't. To please the audience that knows the show, there's an expectation to stay true to it at some level. As for the younger audience, they just seem to appreciate the movie for what it is."
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