At The Movies
Everyday
Superheroes
The may be "Mystery Men," but Ben Stiller and
Paul Reubens have had to learn to deal with fame.
SERENA DONADONI
•
Special to the Jewish. News
liff
1.
ystery Men, Rated PG-
13 and opening today,
may be the latest in a
long line of movies
adapted from comics, but it has a
distinctive twist. This particular
crime-fighting posse is made up of
superhero wannabes, average folks
with a specific skill that ranges from
ordinary (fork throwing, bowling,
shoveling) to impressive (invisibility,
disarming telekinesis) to bizarre
(focused fury flatulence).
But any way you look at it, the
Nlyrtery Men are second rate, which
doesn't mean they're not determined.
In director Kinka Usher's broad
action/comedy, they bravely take on
Champion City's biggest villain, the
nefarious Casanova Frankenstein,
after Captain Amazing, defender of
their metropolis, - is incapacitated.
As a film, Mystery Men seeks ro be
nothing more than fun, summer
entertainment. But what makes it
more than disposable fluff is the stel-
lar cast, who mesh together amazing-
ly well despite coming from very dif-
ferent backgrounds:
dramatic stage
b
b
and Film actors (Geoffrey Rush,
William H. Macy, Lena Olin, Wes
Studi); stand-up comedians (Janeane
Garofalo, Eddie Izzard); television
performers (Greg Kinnear, Kel
Mitchell); and even musicians (Torn
Waits, Praz).
Their on-screen camaraderie is car-
ried over to interviews. Two of the
most outrageous Mystery Men, Ben
Stiller (Mr. Furious) and Paul
Reubens (The - Spleen), met the press
together in New York. Despite the
fact that they play loser characters
with questionable abilities, the con-
versation kept winding back to the
topic of success and its surreal
byproduct, fame.
The 33-year-old son of comedy
8/6
1999
104 Detroit Jewish News
Above: Aspiring superheroes The Blue Raja (Hank Azaria), The Shoveler
(William H. Macy) and Mr. Furious (Ben Stiller) try to stop evil villains
threatening Champion City. Says co-star Janeane Garofalo of Stiller: "I
think he a Jewish Tom Cruise."
Top: Paul Reubens as The Spleen: Back in the spotlight.
duo Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara,
Ben Stiller had already made a name
for himself as a writer/director/actor
on television (Saturday Night Live)
and in films (Reality Bites, Flirting
With Disaster) before 1998, when he
appeared in Zero Effect, Your Friends
and Neighbors and Permanent
Midnight. But little did he realize
that his fourth film that year, a mas-
sively successful comedy, would cata-
pult him into the unwelcome lime-
light.
"Ben is super-famous after There.s-
Something About Mary," says Stiller's
frequent collaborator, Janeane
Garofalo. "You can't walk down the
street.with that guy, people are in his
face 24-7-365. Of course, he hates it
because Ben's very shy. He's not a
people person ar all. He's very nice
and everything, but he's not a guy
who wants to go to a party or a bar.
That's just his personality."
"Fame's a weird thing, just a
strange way to live your life," says
Stiller, adopting a more weary atti-
tude toward the press than in the
days before Mary.
"There are different types of
fame," he coritinues,•"and its one
thing to be identifiable, but it's
another thing to be .known for your
work. I think they're very different.
To be yelled at on the street — 'Hey,
Ben! solely because they know who
you are, and to have [them] say, 'Hey,
I saw•the thing you did and it made
me laugh,' that you did something
that affected them, are totally differ-
ent experiences."
Stiller's career choices in the past
year have reflected his desire for vari-
ety,. He hasn't directed a movie since
The Cable Guy, focusing instead on
finding unusual film roles and com-
pleting the self-help parody Feel This
Book, which he co-authored with
Janeane Garofalo.
In addition to playing the leader
of the rag-tag Mystery Men (his •
tightly wound character is irrational