Don't get me wrong - I like Ben Stiller. Still, hasn't it seemed as though he's been going downhill in recent years? It seems like he's playing the same character in The Heartbreak Kid, Along Came Polly, Night at the Museum, the Meet the... movies, even Madagascar. What happened to the Ben Stiller of The Ben Stiller Show?

Good grief, it's good to know he's still in there somewhere. Tropic Thunder, just released, has been getting fabulous reviews for its satirical take on Hollywood. I've been excited for it ever since Esquire Magazine's write-up on Robert Downey, Jr., whose performance seems to be Oscar-worthy, if the Oscar folks had a sense of humor.

Which is an interesting side point - if it's universally agreed-upon that comedy is much harder to pull off than non-comedy (read: drama), why is it that comedies aren't more widely represented at the Oscars? If the Oscars are supposed to celebrate the best of American filmmaking, then any successful comedy should be shortlisted for an award. Period, paragraph, end of story.

Instead, maybe one out of five of the Golden Globe nominees for Musical/Comedy get an Oscar nomination, while three or four GG Drama nominees get an Oscar nod - and when the Oscar people pull a random flyer out of their hats, it's also a drama. 'Sup wi'dat?


Okay, I digress. Go see Tropic Thunder. Show Hollywood what kind of movies it should be making by voting with your dollars.