Jonathan Crocker

As satire goes, Hollywood is a plump easy-target. Ben’s Stiller’s first film as director since Zoolander blasts at it with full firepower – but not too much accuracy. Then again, he really can’t miss. Not with Tropic Thunder, a megabucks war-movie spoof about a cast of narcissistic actors stuck in a real-life combat zone. Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Cruise sets out to kill Hitler and save himself in 2009’s most controversial movie…

You’re the biggest movie star in the world: Oscar-nommed, box-office gold, great smile. It’s been that way for decades. But for whatever reason (you’re shorter than Will Smith, they say you believe in aliens, yada yada), you need a popularity boost. What do you do? You play a Nazi. Obviously. Read the rest of this entry »

Discovering the punk heroine of cable-wakeboarding in deepest, darkest Russia…

The Black Sea stinks. That effluent-honk wafts out of the green algae that sludges the water like an oil spill, thick and gooey. Along the beachside stretch in the Russian town of Anapa, men shovel the stuff into sopping piles on the sand. It’s like a bad joke: the algae is endless. Then comes the good joke: elderly Russian women slapping handfuls onto their legs for its rumoured restorative qualities. Read the rest of this entry »