September 27–October 4, 2001

movie shorts

Zoolander

Ben Stiller debuted his Derek Zoolander character in a brief sketch at the VH1 Fashion Awards, which is about the only place a satire of vacuous male models has any teeth at all. Zoolander, the first movie Stiller’s directed since the loathed (but, of course, brilliant) The Cable Guy, wastes way too much time on zinging it to its mile-wide target before it gets to the meat (so to speak) of its story: a Illuminati-like conspiracy of fashion designers who’ve used male models to carry out every major political assassination in history. (VH1, incidentally, produced the movie as well, and reaps many mentions as a result.) The news is delivered by a bedraggled David Duchovny — having the X-Files star deliver the news is about the sharpest of celebrity in-jokes, which include Jon Voight, as Stiller’s coal-miner father, apologizing for his lack of emotion by saying, "I’m a miner, not a professional film and television actor." (Oh, someone sew my sides back together.) Pointless cameos and product placement abound — despite its anti-sweatshop message, Zoolander has about as much teeth as Josie and the Pussycats. Seriously, no more movies with Steve Kmetko, please.

—Sam Adams