To coincide with our hosting of the shnit worldwide shortfilmfestival (Aug 22-27), for the next two weeks FOMO is celebrating filmmaking itself. We’re screening a special program for cinephiles built around movies about movies. We’ll look at filmmakers, actors, movie obsessives, collapsing productions, Hollywood mythology, French and Persian New Wave, and the strange process of turning an idea into something that ends up on a screen.
Some films are about making movies and the people who dedicate their lives to them. Others are about the places where we watch them and why cinema matters in the first place. It’s our own small celebration of the people, chaos and obsession behind the movies we love.
TROPIC THUNDER
Ben Stiller | 2008 | USA | 1h47m | Presented in the original English audio with English subtitles
TROPIC THUNDER is one of the funniest films ever made about actors taking themselves far too seriously.
Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. play three stars working on an enormous Vietnam War movie that has already gone badly off the rails. The production is over budget, the director has lost control, and the actors are more concerned with their own performances, reputations and career anxieties than with the film itself. In a desperate attempt to recover some authenticity, the cast is dropped into the jungle and told hidden cameras will capture everything that follows.
The problem is that the danger they encounter isn’t part of the movie.
From there, TROPIC THUNDER becomes a very elaborate satire of Hollywood ego. Method acting, awards campaigns, celebrity addiction, studio interference, prestige war films and the constant need for actors to prove how “serious” they are all get pulled apart. The film is broad, loud and deliberately excessive, but the jokes work because it understands exactly how ridiculous the machinery of filmmaking can become when everyone involved thinks the project is mainly about them.
Robert Downey Jr.’s Kirk Lazarus is the most obvious example, an Australian method actor who undergoes extreme physical transformation for his role and refuses to break character. Tom Cruise, meanwhile, appears as a grotesque studio executive who treats artistic crisis as a management problem. Both performances push the film’s satire into absurd territory while keeping its target firmly on the industry around them.
TROPIC THUNDER is also a companion piece to Altman's THE PLAYER which we opened Cinephile Week. Whereas Altman satirizes the cinematic process that takes place behind the camera, Stiller is very much more focused on satirizing the folks who perform in front of it.
We’re showing TROPIC THUNDER as part of our two-week celebration of filmmaking itself, running alongside FOMO’s hosting of the shnit Worldwide Shortfilmfestival this August 22-27.
FOOD AND DRINK POLICY: FOMO Cinema Lounge Bar opens 1 hour before the first screening of the day and closes at 02:00, serving a wide selection of beer, wine, cocktails, and non-alcoholic refreshments including coffee and tea, as well as fresh hot popcorn! Outside food is allowed in the bar but not in the cinema. No alcohol from outside allowed. All guests are invited to arrive early and stay late!
LOCATION: FOMO Secret Cinema, Bazari Orbeliani, Tbilisi. A five minute walk from Liberty Square metro.
HOW TO FIND FOMO: Enter Bazari Orbeliani via Atoneli St above Carrefour and take the stairs on your left to Level 1. Signage on the door. You can also check our Instagram story highlights for a video showing exactly how to find us: https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3OTMzMTA2Mjk0MDI5MjM1
FOMO Secret Cinema • Bazari Orbeliani, 0105 Tbilisi, Georgia
