|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
| Some might say that writer/actor/director Ben Stiller's destiny was preordained: The son of comic actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, he almost literally has show business running through his veins. Born in New York City on November 30, 1965, Stiller was making films by the time he was ten, cathartic 8 mm epics in which he got even with the schoolyard bullies who tormented him. He went on to attend U.C.L.A. and began appearing in films, including Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun (1987). In addition to winning larger roles in such films as Fresh Horses (1988), Stiller continued to make comedy shorts, including the 1989 Elvis Stories, a spoof of obsessive Elvis fans featuring John Cusack. One of his shorts, a Tom Cruise parody called The Hustler of Money, won Stiller a spot as a writer and player on Saturday Night Live in 1989. His stint on the show was short-lived, but led to his own MTV vehicle, The Ben Stiller Show. Featuring the likes of Janeane Garofalo and Andy Dick, the show was eventually dropped, first by MTV and then by Fox, but Stiller did pick up an Emmy for comedy writing in 1993. The following year, he made his feature-film directorial debut with the twentysomething angst comedy Reality Bites, in which he also starred alongside Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke. The film was a relative critical and commercial success; unfortunately, Stiller's next directorial effort, 1996's The Cable Guy, was a flop. A black comedy that cast Jim Carrey as the psychotic title character, the film failed to register with critics and audiences, many of whom couldn't stomach the idea of Carrey playing such a dark character. After a part in the Adam Sandler comedy Happy Gilmore, Stiller bounced back with a starring role in David O. Russell's Flirting With Disaster (1996). The relatively positive reception afforded to that comedy helped to balance out the relative failure of Stiller's other film that year, If Lucy Fell. It was not until two years later, however, that Stiller truly stepped into the limelight. Thanks to starring roles in three very different films, he emerged as an actor of versatility, equally adept at playing sensitive nice guys and complete jerks. In the smash comedy There's Something About Mary, he could be seen as the former type of character, earning permanent notoriety for various scenes featuring misplaced bodily fluids and mangled genitalia. He then did time as a not-so-nice guy in Neil LaBute's Your Friends and Neighbors, playing a philandering theater instructor. Finally, he starred in Permanent Midnight, earning critical acclaim for his portrayal of a heroin addict. Now possessing solid footing in Hollywood, Stiller went on to star in Mystery Men (1999) as the leader of a group of unconventional superheroes. He also had a supporting role in The Suburbans, a comedy about the former members of a defunct new wave band and the following year starred as a rabbi who happens to be in love with the same woman as his best friend, a Catholic priest (Edward Norton), in the well-received romantic comedy Keeping the Faith. As busy as he was, Stiller's biggest hands-down success in 2000 was no doubt Meet the Parents. A disastrously humorous tale of Murphy's Law's interference with unfortunately named bad-luck magnet Greg Focker's (Stiller) initial meeting with his new fiancée's parents, Meet the Parents scored big at the box office and on home video, prompting many to eagerly anticipate a speculated sequel, Meet the Fockers. In 2001, Stiller brought one of his most popular MTV Music Awards Show incarnations to the big screen in the outrageously silly male model comedy Zoolander. Successfully teaming with Owen Wilson to take stupidity to new heights, Stiller's portrayal of a staggeringly dim but irresistibly handsome catwalk legend struck a chord with audiences looking for pure escapism, and a spin-off television series was soon rumored to be in development. In 2001 Stiller once again teamed with Wes Anderson alumni Wilson for the widely praised comedy drama The Royal Tenenbaums. Cast as the estranged son of eccentric parents who returns home after receiving news that his father is dying, Stiller infused his unmistakable comic touch with an affecting sense of drama that found him stading his ground opposite such dramatic heavies as Gene Hackman and Anjelica Huston. Though his work in 2002 offered little more than a few cameo performances and some vocal contributions to various animated children's shows, the busy comedic actor was back on the big screen for the 2003 comedy Duplex. Though the film pared Stiller with Hollywood heavyweight Drew Barrymore as a couple willing to go to horrific extremes to land the much-desired eponymous living space, reviews weren't kind and the comedy died a quick death at the box office. Stiller's next film - the romantic comedy Along Came Polly - suffered a similar fate at the multiplexes thanks to unfavorable comparisions to such obvious forerunners as There's Something About Mary. If collaborations with such capable female co-stars as Barrymore and Jennifer Aniston failed to ignite the screen and reap profits at the box-office, few would question the potent chemistry between Stiller and longtime friend/co-star Wislon - and in 2004 the dynamic comedy dou returned to the big screen with director Todd Phillips' celluliod recycling job Starsky & Hutch. Though Stiller and Wilson would seem the ideal pair for such a conceptually rich re-imiganing of 1970s television, reviews were once again lackluster and the moviegoing public could only wait and see if Stiller's performance opposite Jack Black in Envy would put an end to his recent cycle of mediocre box-office returns. ~ Rebecca Flint, All Movie Guide |
|
|