Bottom Line: Predictable but usually entertaining Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist relies too much on regurgitated characters (that have seen their wittier, more endearing days) to be memorable.

Courtesy of Clevver.com

This romantic comedy, shamelessly aimed at Juno fans, is about indie music and people who like it. The names of bands like Bishop Allen (who also make a cameo), Vampire Weekend and Devendra Banhart appear in the opening credits, making sure it’s clear that the producers, directors and writers are really hip. And, really, it never rises above that.

The film is about a chase around the Big Apple for Norah’s (Kat Dennings) friend, Caroline (Ari Graynor), who wanders away drunk after a show. Along the way, they hit all the requisite hipster spots like Williamsburg, Brooklyn and The Bowery Ballroom. Naturally, zany adventures follow (including to a gay-oriented revue of The Christmas Story and being threatened by homeless people). While they search for Caroline, Norah and Nick (Michael Cera) pursue their favorite band. It all ends with Nick and Norah realizing they are perfect for each other… because they have the same taste in music.

The plot is contrived but more so are the characters. The actors fall into the same roles we’ve seen before. Cera, bass player in an alt-rock band, is a pretty oblivious guy who’s nursing a broken heart. In a post-screening interview, he said his acting and comedic styles have been the same since Arrested Development. Like her roles in The House Bunny and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Dennings has a tough exterior and snappy tongue; but, deep down, she is vulnerable and just wants to be loved. All the while, Nick’s bandmates bring us back to a time before Ellen DeGenerers by embodying every gay stereotype out there. The characters are summed up perfectly in the film when an angry Dennings says to Cera, “They make action figures out of you.”

Ari Graynor is the only standout of the film. She’s the driving force of the plot, keeping the film from lagging in pools of teen self-pity and self-doubt poured on heavy by the main characters. Whether she’s bumming a sandwich off a stranger, running around a parking lot thinking she’s been kidnapped or seeing the messiah, she brings surprising depth and believability to material that gives her little to work with. Unlike Dennings, Graynor’s vulnerability is shown rather than spoken.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist will have a following because its characters are a rehash of Juno — the house Nick lives in even looks like the one from Juno. Sadly, the less-interesting plot gives the actors nowhere to hide. Whereas Ellen Page’s performance in Juno gave the film heart, Kat Dennings’s performance fails to rise above disaffected, high-school youth.

It’s hard to carry off a character-driven romance with boring characters. The end product is fast-paced enough to be enjoyable but bland, with a hella awkward sex scene.

Grade: C-
Bottom Line: Preaching at the choir.

There’s a fine line between comedy and hate. A lot of comedians seeks to toe that line, to strike a balance between effective, compelling comedy (see: Richard Pryor) and jokes that insult more than illuminate (see: Carlos Mencia).

Bill Maher has been toeing this line his entire career, whether in his stand-up or on his celebrated talk shows (Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher and Real Time with Bill Maher). He has often succeeded at this balancing act, turning biting social satire into hilarity. Over the past several years, however, Maher has become increasingly cutting in his commentary, as the Bush administration has continually pushed him over the line.

And this is exactly the problem with Maher’s new movie Religulous. It was clear going into it that Religulous was going to be a movie from which church-going folk would shy away. What wasn’t clear is that it would be harsh enough to make even the converted non-believers feel uneasy.

The movie is framed as Maher’s personal quest to find answers about religion: How can billions of people believe in something with no proof? But there is no quest, because Maher already knows the answers and the outcome.

The movie starts out with Maher, his sister and his mother discussing religion in their family and why they believe what they believe. It seems, at this point, as if Maher is really looking for answers, both regarding religion in his own life and what it says about our society.

And then the interviews start. The bulk of the movie is composed of interviews Maher conducted around the world with people of different faiths. Except they are not there to talk about their faith. They are not even there to talk. They are there to be interrupted and mocked, serving as an irrational counterpoint to a rational Maher. This can be funny — like Maher’s interview of the actor who plays Jesus at the Holy Land Experience in Orlando — but mostly it is just uncomfortable. Some of the people he interviews do seem a bit ridiculous: an ex-Jew for Jesus, an Islamic rapper whose lyrics are about blowing people up, even a group of truckers who have church services out of a trailer at a truck stop. They lend themselves to sarcasm, but to see Maher ridicule people while they relate deeply-held personal beliefs and experiences causes more cringing than laughter. There are times when a movie should make you squirm in your seat. And there are times when people should shut up and listen to what someone else has to say. Religulous is the latter.

Not all religions are created equal in Religulous either. The movie focuses on Christians in America, a subgroup easy enough to ridicule. Mormonism and Scientology make some rather hilarious cameos, as Maher gets kicked off the property of a Mormon church and imitates a crazy person to rant the tenets of Scientology in a public square. Judaism, however, has little mention outside of Maher’s own life and an interview with an anti-Zionist Jew who bears the brunt of Maher’s ridicule. It is Islam, however, which is truly written off. Maher’s sole point of including Islam is to portray it as a crazy and violent religion. His interviews with Muslims are consumed with him attacking them for suicide bombings, murders and death threats. As if other religions somehow do not have a bloody past.

The movie ends with a throbbing apocalypse rendered in video clips with Maher’s condescending narration stating that it is religious fanatics — not God — that will bring about the end of days. And that is ultimately what Religulous is all about. It is not meant to explore or explain, its job is simply to state the facts as Maher sees them and to set up the conclusion that he sees as inevitable. It’s really no different from any other religion.

Michael Cera and Kat Dennings are two actors on the rise. They come together in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, opening today, a movie about one night in New York City filled with indie rock and haphazard adventure while the duo look for a band and a drunk friend. When interviewed, they show they’re more than just actors. They’re writers, wise guys — and possibly demonic too (just read on).

If you had to make playlists for each other, what would be the first song on them?
Cera: I would say “Get Out of My Life.”
Dennings: I’ll give you “Move Bitch” by Ludacris.

In the film you follow around the fictional band Where’s Fluffy. Who would you follow around in real life?
Dennings: David Bowie. I’d follow him around in the street.

Would you ever consider writing screenplays?
Dennings: Yeah, my brother and I wrote our first screenplay together. You know, we’re moving forward with it. It’s exciting.
Cera: I write for myself so I don’t think I’d ever want to make it into something. I like making it a personal thing. Once you give it to people they just judge it.

Any weird rituals you guys have or pet peeves?
Cera: I can’t really think of anything, you seem pretty normal.
Dennings: You mean when I was in the corner trying to be a tree that didn’t bother you? We were pretty lucky with our cast, nobody really had weird rituals. I’ve worked with this guy who’d say this mantra before every shot.
Cera: Maybe it’s to throw everybody off their game. I’ve heard that Donald Trump, if he’s going into a power meeting with some kind of enemy, he’ll tell them, “excuse me, you have very bad breath” just so he’ll have an advantage.

What are some similarities between you and your characters?
Cera: Nothing really. There are personality traits that anybody can identify with but nothing specifically, nothing everybody can’t relate to. I’m sure everybody has been broken up with.
Dennings: I guess I relate to Norah’s mothering aspect of her personality. I can get like that. The farther I get from the shoot, I realize how different we are which is good! I’m glad I’m not playing myself, I wouldn’t be a very good actress.

Do you ever feel type-cast?
Cera: If people write parts for you, I guess you can feel type-cast but this was a book so it had nothing to do with us before we were involved.
Dennings: I have a theory about this. Mike and I look the same in all our roles – our faces, our hair, our general being human – I think people think we play the same person because we always look the same.
Cera: I don’t really think about it much. I’m not trying to be Jeremy Irons or anything.
Dennings: And when you’re a certain age, there’s only so many things for 18-year-old girls and boys…
Cera: As long as it seems authentic. I just don’t want to play someone that would seem bogus.
Dennings: If I played an anorexic Ethiopian, it would seem like a stretch. It wouldn’t seem honest.
Cera: Are you saying Ethiopians are dishonest people?
Dennings: Don’t spin me!

What is the weirdest script you’ve ever gotten?
Cera: I’ve auditioned for a werewolf movie. I don’t even know if it ever got made but the audition was really painful. Your heart can’t be in it at all, so it was a really awful audition.
Dennings: I had to audition for the remake of The Exorcist when I was ten. I had to do the scene where she gets possessed and my mom was like “You can’t watch the Exorcist. You’re ten; you’ll ruin your life.” So I didn’t know what I was doing. So I did this voice that was kind of like a drag queen and was like “Oh, I love you! I’m possessing you!” I was horrified and they were all laughing. Just this little girl with frizzy hair and huge teeth trying to touch herself and all “Oh yeah! I’m getting possessed!”

Everybody loves Simon Pegg. He’s starred in and co-wrote smashing comedic successes Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, he’s British (the cool kind, not the snooty kind) and he’s damn funny. Try finding a self-professed Pegg hater– it’s bloody impossible.

Unless, that is, you go see Pegg’s latest film, How To Lose Friends and Alienate People, opening in theatres October 3, 2008. In it, he stars as Sidney Young, a snarky British celebrity journalist who’s hired by New York-based, Vanity Fair-esqe Sharps Magazine. Upon his arrival, he proceeds to pester, piss off and provoke everyone around him, including unlucky victims Kirsten Dunst, Jeff Bridges, Gillian Anderson and Megan Fox. Pegg recently participated in a roundtable with college journalists:

What was it like working with [Curb Your Enthusiasm director] Robert Weide?

Well, the problem was I personally don’t get along with Jewish people. (Laughter) Bob constantly went on about that. He’s brilliant. He’s really, really funny. I love Bob, he directs one of the best situation comedies (Curb) to come out of this country, and I’m a huge fan of that show, and the idea of actually working with him was enough for me to be interested.

He’s a first-time director when it comes to features, and it was funny because he would forget to say ‘Cut’ because he was so used to using video, which is cheap. Celluloid costs a fortune, and after we finished acting you just could hear it whirring through the camera. You could hear the dollar signs just chinking by. Everyone’s going ‘Bob. You should say cut now.’ And it was simply because he wasn’t used to working in that kind of (environment), but otherwise he was completely and utterly adept at what he did.

I re-watched all of Curb in my trailer and I would come back on set whistling the tune, I couldn’t get the tune out of my head. Whenever I had any downtime it was, ‘Dooo do-dooo do-do do-dooo,” which used to make Bob laugh.

Curb Your Enthusiasm revolves around improv. Was there any of that in this movie?

There’s one line that got in that’s improv, which is what I immediately say after touching the transsexual: ‘Penis!’ But otherwise it was pretty much a tight script and it didn’t really necessitate any improv. This is a slightly more conventional romantic comedy and it kind of needs that sort of snappy movie dialogue. I think it was a change of gear for Bob in many ways.

Do you find it harder to act in movies that you yourself didn’t co-write or have a hand in creating?

It’s a different dynamic because I don’t have any production responsibility. In Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, we were involved in every single element of the production, when it comes to, like, afterwards — in post-production you start wanting to hear what’s going on, see cuts of trailers and ideas for posters which you don’t always get any say in. But sometimes it’s nice just to let it go and just relax, just be an actor, and in that respect it’s actually a nice change of pace. But I’m happiest when I can control everything.

A big part of the movie is this idea of how our culture is so celebrity-obsessed. Can you talk about that?

It’s a timely film. The actual book, Toby [Young]’s experiences in New York that it’s based on, was in 1995, and I think the idea of doing it as a period piece came up, which would have been fun. But in terms of the film’s topicality, it’s a really timely movie in that right now our obsession with celebrities is at an all-time, ridiculous high. As an actor people ask you, ‘Is this the thing that’s gonna make you famous?’ That element of it is a consequence of what you do, it’s not why you do it or where you’re going. I see celebrity being to actors what radiation is to people that work in a nuclear power plant. You can’t help getting close to it and it’s not necessarily a good thing. The film is very much about how meaningless all that is. It might look great from the outside, but once you’re in it, it’s actually pretty disturbing and a bit pointless.

What was your level of interaction with Toby Young in preparing for the role?

I made sure I went out and had dinner a few times and got to know him. I didn’t do an impression of Toby in the movie. Have you ever seen Toby Young talk? He’s kind of — (imitating Young) ‘He talks like this. He’s got — he’s got British in him. He talks like moving his head.’ I think it would have been pointless to do that for two hours because you’ve gotta like this guy. However loathsome he is, at some point you have to think, ‘Ok, maybe I’m gonna root for him,’ and I don’t think that really helps talking like this.

And he’s not a horrible human being. I think he had an approach to journalism which got him a bit of a rep. He’s tenacious and doesn’t really care what people think of him. But you know, he did get thrown off set. He went up to Kirsten one of the first few days and ask if she was in love with him yet. Then he said to Bob that night, ‘I think it’s gonna be really hard for me to come on set and not have some kind of input.’ And Bob said, ‘Well, don’t come on set.’ And then he didn’t. That’s how we got rid of Toby.

The movie characterizes the British entertainment press as kind of a bunch of bumbling idiots with an ‘Everybody hates us, we don’t care’ mentality, and the American press as really pandering to celebrities and uptight. How true would you say those characterizations are?

The motto of the British press, that’s fairly true in some respects. Sydney goes to work for a man based on Graydon Carter, who started Spy magazine, a very irreverent, satirical publication, and who now is editing Vanity Fair, which is less a comment on that world than an accessory to it. Sydney thinks that’s the dark side, which it isn’t necessarily. I think there are types of journalists like that in America and England. Our journalists can be quite aggressive and rude and negative. Your paparazzi are worse than ours. Ours are invasive, but they don’t shout as loudly as yours do.

It’s weird now, because you have British magazines like OK! and Hello! really pandering to the notion of celebrity. They present people in their homes and it’s very much an aspirational magazine which presents fame almost like a condition of royalty. And then you have magazines like People and Us, and we have Heat, that are just about ‘Ha ha, look at her spots, doesn’t she have an ugly baby’ or whatever. So it’s everywhere. It’s an epidemic.

Why should people see this this movie?

It’s very entertaining. It’s a good night out. It’s full of amazing actors, for starters. I wouldn’t be so immodest just to include myself. The supporting cast is brilliant. There’s a real journey there, it’s uplifting and it’s the kind of movie which would leave you smiling, which I think is a good thing for (this) kind of film.

Photo courtesy of Paramount Vantage.

Hearing about another period piece starring Keira Knightley was like hearing Lindsay Lohan was back in rehab – boring and unappealing. Yet with The Duchess, Knightley accomplishes something not seen in her other pieces: her character actually evolves.

The Duchess is based on the story of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. The film opens with a young G, as she is called, playing around in her backyard as a teenager. Her parents have just decided to marry her off to the aloof Duke of Devonshire, played hilariously by Ralph Fiennes (of Voldemort fame, amongst other things). Her life will never be carefree again.

For the first half an hour, Duchess seems to be just another rehash of the many period pieces that Knightley has been in. Yet slowly, while putting on a brave face through her miserable marriage, G becomes a real person, someone to relate to. The story of her life seems almost too tragic to be true, and yet it is.

Knightley seamlessly transforms from the innocent and naïve girl in the opening credits of the film to a woman tormented by her husband’s infidelities and her unbearable circumstances. Upon meeting Bess, her future best friend, G discloses that she’s afraid she can’t have male children because of two miscarriages she suffered. The moment is brief but incredibly poignant. She cracks a half-smile and moves on. Yet just with that one instance, Knightley takes Georgiana to a tragic but unforgettable level that the teenager romping around in the backyard in the beginning of the film couldn’t even contemplate.

One of the highlights of the movie is the extreme chemistry between G and Charles Grey, played by a smokin’ Dominic Cooper. The sexual tension in the movie could be cut with a knife. Cooper somehow manages to nail down being sexy, sensitive, politically active and smart all at the same time. He also manages to maintain being a decent guy, which in this movie is no small feat.

In one desperate scene, Grey shows up at the Duchess’ house and begs her to marry him, have his children – whether boys or girls, an important point in Georgiana’s life – and leave her husband. He has a breakdown in front of her, wondering why she won’t commit to him. He lays his emotion on the table before her, and is devastated when she refuses him. This is not the same Dominic Cooper from The History Boys or Starter for Ten, that’s for sure.

Hayley Atwell, as Georgiana’s best friend Bess, is a definite standout in the film. Though she doesn’t have as much screen time as the other main characters, any scene she’s in benefits immensely from her presence. Even though Bess betrays G’s trust, in a later scene in a movie we see her stand up for Georgiana with such conviction and strength that it’s hard to imagine that Bess could be so cruel. Making an untrustworthy character seem heroic is a near-impossible feat, but Atwell seems to do it effortlessly.

Atwell also ends up living in the Duke’s house, which is an interesting ménage-a-trois, to say the least. Who knew a woman could so consistently make a household feel awkward? After all, Bess ends up becoming the mistress to the Duke, which Georgiana very well knows about.

Duchess has many weak points, but character development certainly isn’t one of them. The movie spans a period of some 10 years or so, and Georgiana, the Duke, and Charles Grey all manage to somehow mature. Especially pleasing was the fact that each time Georgiana got pregnant, she actually looked pregnant – she even gained some weight after each pregnancy. And with Keira Knightley, that’s pretty damn hard to achieve.

Like most movies in theaters these days, Duchess runs about half an hour too long – no one needs that much detail into how upsettingly awful this loveable woman’s life turned out. However, if you’re going to see a movie over the next couple of weeks, you could do much worse than this. After all, what’s better than watching a grown man like Fiennes make a fool out of himself while Knightley broods in a corner?

Grade: C
Bottom line: Dull as dishwater, but hairstylist Peter Tothpal nails Diane Lane’s dull Southern suburban ‘do.

I can’t say I’ve noticed a more appropriate haircut for any character or actress in a movie this year than the style Peter Tothpal crafted for Diane Lane in Nights in Rodanthe. It’s that short, shoulder-length cut with blonde highlights one finds on a lot of upper-middle-class Caucasian women in the suburban South, one that suggests yoga lessons after an anxious morning sending the kids to school.

Lane’s haircut is a sign that the actress is perfectly cast for the bland sentimentality of Nights in Rodanthe, based on a novel by The Notebook author Nicholas Sparks. Seeing her master a caricature that she’s played in other films might be the most entertaining aspect of the otherwise dull, perfunctory Rodanthe. In this film, like in Under the Tuscan Sun and Must Love Dogs, Lane is the kind of wronged, middle-aged woman whose constant revealing of self-history mixed with peppy humor and self-pity is squirm inducing.

Lane plays Adrienne Willis, a separated mother of two, whose husband (Christopher Meloni) announces that he wants to get back together. She takes the weekend to think it over, while she manages her best girrrrrrlfriend’s (Viola Davis, playing another variation on the stereotypical black best friend often used as a shortcut for “soul” in Hollywood romances) rarely-visited North Carolina beachside inn. Conveniently, the moody and attractive Paul Flannner (Richard Gere), a recently disgraced plastic surgeon, is the only guest, just as a huge hurricane hits the beach. The two find love, lessons are learned, and James Franco has some scenes as Gere’s surgeon son, but, as with any good romantic drama, the love affair can never truly last. To paraphrase Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, this is how these movies keep their own kind of authenticity: By having something prevent the characters from staying together, the movie both preserves the love affair as something pure (before the characters grow tired of one another), and at the same time, acknowledges that a movie romance can never last.

Rodanthe is the second feature-film from George C. Wolfe (his first, Lackawanna Blues, premiered on HBO), the acclaimed former director of the Public Theater in New York. Though the film doesn’t have much visual appeal, the actors bring occasional humanity and flare to an otherwise saccharine script.

After the hurricane hits the house, Lane, surveying the damage from the beach, picks up a skateboard on the ground and awkwardly twirls it as she talks about her kids; it’s pretty weird, yet the actress has conviction. And Gere amusingly drops character in one scene, or perhaps shows some genuine human reaction to Lane’s sentimental motor mouth, when, as she shows him a picture of her children, he gives a brusque, uninterested, “Yeah.” It’s something an average person might do when they’re bored - and it might be one of the more human moments in the movie.

In Rodanthe, like in some other romantic dramas, the film’s interest in the characters’ passion is matched by its interest in interior decorating. The interior of the beach inn has the look of a Southern Living spread: an aqua blue kitchen, strands of red peppers hanging from the walls and white French doors and windows. The interiors are pretty, but on the outside, the inn is creepy: Like the eponymous home in another slightly strange romantic drama, The Lake House, the house lacks a clean structure. The three ramshackle floors jut over each other, looking ready to fall at any moment. The movie doesn’t particularly use the location in an interesting way– in one wide shot before Lane and Gere realize they’re meant for each other, the two characters, who have rooms one floor apart, stand on their balconies, overlooking the ocean. Maybe that’s a metaphor. Maybe that’s shabby chic. Speaking of shabby chic, man, I really want a chipped, blue door as a coffee table. So maybe Nights in Rodanthe worked as wish fulfillment for me. While others may have admired Gere’s bland mug or Lane’s haircut, I wanted the furniture.

Correction, 11:46 a.m., Sept. 27: The original version of this article misstated what state the movie took place in.

The new Coen Brothers flick, Burn After Reading, is essentially a spy movie about a group of people who have seen way too many spy movies. The film marks a return to comedy, specifically of the screwball variety, for the Coen Brothers, fresh off their three Oscars for No Country for Old Men.

Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand star as Chad and Linda, two hapless DC-area gym employees who discover a disc containing the memoir of alcoholic former CIA analyst Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich). Linda sees the disc as an opportunity to elicit money from Cox to pay for cosmetic surgery. When Cox refuses to pay up, Chad and Linda offer the classified information to the most dangerous group of people in the eyes of anyone who has seen a spy movie in the past 50 years: the Russians.

What the Coens do best is take the clichés of the genre and turn them on their head. The outsiders to the world of intelligence, Chad and Linda, speak in cheesy spy talk like, “Is this a secure line?” and “The fish has bitten,” leaving those within the world of spies and information utterly confused.

The characters have their own real problems too, which make the characters much more than caricatures. Cox’s wife (Tilda Swinton), is having an affair with Swinton’s Michael Clayton co-star, George Clooney — er, Harry Pfarrer. This gap between perception of the intelligence community and the reality of it creates most of the humor in the film and most of the trouble for Chad and Linda.

The Coens slip very comfortably back into the comedy arena. The script is smart though some of the characters are the dumbest people on film from the past few years (a feat with flicks like Disaster Movie out there). McDormand and the underrated Pitt are the real winners in the film, though, as both paint portraits of lovable losers getting through their mess the best way they know how.

The film gets funnier as it goes on, and with a slim running time of 96 minutes, the first 10 minutes are too slow for viewers with shorter attention spans. However, it ends strong, culminating in a scene between J.K. Simmons (most recently of Juno) and David Rasche, as two CIA officers summarizing the chaotic and hilariously tragic climax.

Quick Dish: With all-around good performances and a smart script, Burn After Reading will satisfy fans of the Coen brothers who were craving their return to comedy.

Grade: B+

Actors, agents, directors, executives, rappers — none escape unscathed in Ben Stiller’s Hollywoodfarce Tropic Thunder. Controversies surrounding the film may account for its relatively unimpressive box office debut this past weekend, and reviews have been mixed. Regardless, the film did did topple The Dark Knight in its second weekend, so you have to give it some credit.

Now re-imagine Tropic Thunder for a moment, from a different perspective. You’re Brandon T. Jackson, and you’ve been cast to play rapper-turned-actor Alpa Chino. With relatively little experience (you played Junior in Roll Bounce), you now find yourself working with Ben Stiller, Robert Downey, Jr. and Jack Black. Now what’s your reaction? Give it some credit? More likeAwesome, man. Jackson, 24, participated in a round table with college journalists, and here’s what the newcomer had to say:

How did you get the role?

I auditioned, like, 15 times for Ben [Stiller] and it was crazy, because I didn’t get the role at first. Dreamworks was like, he’s just too young. They didn’t believe I could do it as far as, not my talent, but they didn’t think it would look right, a [then] 21-year-old next to all these 40-year-olds. So they hired the other actor and I guess it didn’t work right. I got a call from Ben like “Hey, uh, would you like to come do the movie?” They gave me the part, I flew to Hawaii and next thing I know I’m working with Robert Downey, Jr., Ben Stiller and Jack Black. It’s been crazy ever since.

What was it like being on set next to the guys like that?

The tough thing was being the odd man out, being the freshman, ’cause this was like my comedy grad school. I was the youngest and the blackest on the set — the real blackest — so it was different because I would talk about different things. I’m coming straight from the young hip-hop world, not even the older hip-hop world, to this, where I’m just like, “You guys see the new Lil’ Wayne video?” And everybody’s like… So it was weird, but when I got used to it and started getting around and seeing how everybody moved it became comfortable. I was hazed a little bit, but it wasn’t that bad.

Who was the primary hazer?

Ben and Robert. They would play games. It was things where they don’t believe you can do it, but you got to show them you can do it. Just little stuff. The weirdest thing is Robert would stay in character the whole time, even off camera. Ben would yell cut and he’ll still be going “Ima go to the trailer and get some chicken and barbecue sauce, wanna come with me brotha?” One time he showed up late and he was like, “You know how we always late.”

Since this is a movie about actors, how much do you think that you were playing yourself? Or did you feel you had similarities to your character at all?

My energy’s kind of the same, but at the same time it was different because I kind of became the voice of reason. Everybody was going crazy and I’m like, “We gotta stop.” It was kind of one of those things where I saw a different side of myself. It’s definitely different. I’m really used to kind of hitting the punchlines all the time, just punchline, punchline, but this was more developing character outside of just the fast-talking guy.

Did you like that?

It was uncomfortable at first, but I began to like it once I saw how it was being played out, and once I saw it in the screening.

What did you learn from working with such established comedians as Jack Black and Ben Stiller, being a comedian yourself?

I learned that… if you’re white you can do anything. (Laughter) I’m just playing. I learned that these guys are freakin’ geniuses and they work very hard and they stay working hard and they make it look easy. And it’s not. So I have to figure out how they have the time to do this, is my question.

How did you feel about Downey’s character? Did you see the satirical nature of the role?

I did feel like I was the one justifying the movie because without me, without my character, we would have been shut down. There was a scene where Robert was supposed to say the N-word, and I had to say, “No Ben, we gotta cut.” Remember the scene where Robert hugs me and does the whole, “It took a whole lot of trying to get up that hill?” It was written for him to be like, and I’ll say it, so you can hear how it sounds, “N—–s always gotta be n—–s.” It’s funny, but it would have got such a shock. Especially right now with what we’re going through with Barack and Jesse and all this other stuff. It would have been such a shock that they probably would have shut the movie down. Or they would have just cut the scene. I said “Ben, we can’t say this man. For real, it’s gonna get shut down.” So we kind of had a team huddle and I was like, “You know what’s funnier? What if I said it and he corrected me and went into some jargon, like the speech. You get the older black man speech. Let me be the young rapper and you be the Bill Cosby approach where you’re like “You all gotta stop being such and such.” So it actually worked out being one of the best scenes in the movie, I think, personally.

You played a rapper. Did you model your character off anyone in particular?

Ludacris, Lil’ Wayne and Nelly. And Diddy, especially Diddy.

Why should people see Tropic Thunder?

Shit is funny. Best two performances of this year: Robert Downey, Jr. and Heath Ledger. One’s in blackface, one’s in whiteface. Oscars, both of them.

If you could have any kind of role in 10 years, what kind of role would you want to have?

Ten years? In the next five I want my Money Talks, Chris Tucker-type, “Beverly Hills Cop” role. I want to be the “Beverly Hills Cop”-type dude for our generation. Nick Cannon done effed it up for all of us because he wasn’t funny in Underclassman. Sorry! I take comedy very seriously. When something’s funny it’s amazing, when it’s not it’s just sad. To watch my idol [Eddie Murphy] do Meet Dave, I just wanted to cry.

If you liked Zoolander, you’ll probably appreciate Tropic Thunder. Both were directed by and star Ben Stiller; both take advantage of pop culture stereotypes; and both do offer moments of brilliance.

But both are also comedy sketches stretched to movie length, and after an opening 20 minutes of genius, lampooning every Hollywood stereotype, Tropic Thunder can’t quite sustain the spectacular momentum it builds early on.

Ben Stiller directs his first movie since 2001’s Zoolander, centering on a group of egotistical, self-absorbed movie stars shooting a big-budget Vietnam War epic. Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, an action star whose quest to be taken seriously has led him to disastrous flops like Chitlin’ and the Dude and Simple Jack. Robert Downey Jr. is Australian character actor and five-time Oscar winner Kirk Lazarus, who surgically assumes blackface through a controversial “pigmentation augmentation procedure” to play a black dude. Jack Black is Jeff “Fats” Portnoy. He likes heroin.

Precluding the movie are fictional trailers, including a Brokeback Mountain-esque drama co-starring MTV Movie Awards’ “Best Kiss” winner Tobey McGuire. This follows rapper-turned-actor Alpa Chino’s (Brandon T. Jackson) ad for Booty Sweat, his patented energy drink. The standalone trailers are Tropic Thunder at its best: pure sketch perfection.

The following 15 minutes or so continue the ferocious torrent of laughter as the film moves down the line of stereotypical movie types: the pampered, difficult actor; the overly enthusiastic pyrotechnics guy; the British director; Matthew McConaughey as Speedman’s sweet-talking, Wii Sports-playing agent and best friend; the ornery billionaire financier, etc. In their universal incompetence, these characters manage to botch an expensive explosion they only had one shot at, putting the movie ever more behind schedule. Desperate, the director takes his actors to the middle of a dangerous jungle, hoping to elicit some real emotion. When the actors lose their way, they’re quickly left to fend for themselves in territory ruled by guerrilla soldiers called The Flaming Dragons.

Lazarus is so committed to his role that he never breaks character, to the annoyance of those around him and especially the actually-black Chino. Their relationship (“What happens when a white guy acts black around a black guy?”) as well as that of Speedman and Lazarus provides most of the laughs while Black is a major disappointment — mostly because his character didn’t have much potential to begin with. All he does is go through withdrawal from lack of “jellybeans” (heroin).

By the end of Tropic Thunder, the movie has moved from a hilarious, leave-no-one-unscathed film industry farce into a tired message about embracing who you really are (Downey covering up his skin is really him covering up what’s inside, yada yada), but the message is forced and out of place. And where Zoolander was a little more unpredictable, you pretty much know what’s going to happen in Tropic Thunder. Still, a trajectory from great to just decent isn’t the worst thing in the world.

A pair of jeans that fit four very different body types perfectly – it’s a pretty ridiculous concept that comes with an oftentimes clichéd script and predictable plot, but this sequel and book adaptation is sweet and appropriate for the young female audience it is likely to draw.

The four central characters — Carmen, Bridget, Lena and Tibby, played by America Ferrera, Blake Lively, Alexis Bledel and Amber Tamblyn respectively — although not incredibly deep, stand out as women portrayed authentically in comparison to stock female characters we’ve seen this summer in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight or Mary Steenburgen as the mother in Step Brothers.

All four actresses deliver mixed performances. Blake Lively’s attempt at angst in Sisterhood is reminiscent of her often-melodramatic portrayal of Serena on Gossip Girl. Her character may not be a designer-clothes-wearing Manhattan party queen, but Lively still isn’t convincing as the wholesome character she portrays. Similarly, Alexis Bledel (although she has the cutest story line and costumes) delivers pained, deer in the headlights looks as boy drama unfolds that brings back the days of Jess vs. Dean on Gilmore Girls.

The best performances occurred when the actresses broke away from the characters they’ve played on TV. America Ferrera’s Carmen, the perfect combination of confidence and self-depreciation, has no trace of Ugly Betty, while Amber Tamblyn gives Tibby sarcasm and spunk more reminiscent of Sex and the City’s Miranda than of Joan of Arcadia.

Like the first film, Sisterhood explores parental and romantic relationships between men and women but, in its core, it’s about the importance of friendship. Bridget tries to forgive her father after her mother’s suicide and Tibby attempts to overcome her emotional unavailability with her boyfriend. Lena and Carmen also have men in their lives, but these friends are committed to being there for each other first and foremost – even dropping everything and flying to Greece when necessary in a plot twist that’s fun, but a little far-fetched.

Sisterhood provides fans of Ann Brashares’s books a plot from the original books, but doesn’t leave those who haven’t read the series or seen the previous film feeling out of the loop. Combining the juicier story lines from Brashares’s second and third books, Sisterhood follows Lena at summer drawing classes, Tibby through a pregnancy scare, Bridget on an archeological dig in Turkey and search for family roots in Alabama, and Carmen at a theater program. The movie employs the book’s format of short chapters dividing the stories of the characters. While this can make the film choppy, it adds suspense and keeps those in the theater from getting bored.

The plot can be predictable, such as when Carmen trades backstage work for a role onstage. And the dialogue often falls flat on clichés – “Why can’t you stop thinking about it and follow your heart?” “Because he broke my heart!”

Despite its weaknesses, Sisterhood’s leading ladies keep the film together and remind audiences that female characters do not always have to be dimensionless chicks. The plot and writing aren’t Oscar-worthy, but these actresses deliver believable portrayals of women devoted to their friendship.