Zoolander

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Movie
German title Zoolander
Original title Zoolander
Country of production United States , Germany , Australia
original language English
Publishing year 2001
length 89 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 10
Rod
Director Ben Stiller
script Drake Sather ,
Ben Stiller,
John Hamburg
production Stuart Cornfeld ,
Scott Rudin ,
Ben Stiller
music David Arnold
camera Barry Peterson
cut Greg Hayden
occupation
chronology

Successor  →
Zoolander 2

Zoolander is a comedy film from the year 2001 . Ben Stiller directed, wrote, co-produced and starred. In 2016, a sequel was released with Zoolander 2 .

action

Derek Zoolander is the most famous male model in the world. He has won the “Male Model of the Year” award three times in a row and is hoping for the title again this year, but has a big competitor: the newcomer Hansel (English and phonetically similar to the German fairy tale character, which is quite popular in the USA Remembering Hansel , pronounced like this). When Hansel is read out as the winner, Zoolander storms onto the stage, believing that he has won again, to accept the award. After this embarrassing incident, he left the event humiliated and full of self-doubt.

In the audience, the fashion czar Mugatu and Zoolander's agent Ballstein watched the events carefully. Mugatu had recently been hired by a circle of the most powerful fashion designers to choose an assassin to assassinate the Prime Minister of Malaysia . Malaysia is on the verge of enacting child labor laws, which would mean serious losses for the fashion industry. Convinced of Zoolander's simplicity, Mugatu believes he has found the right man.

The following day, Zoolander's roommates and colleagues are killed in a gas station explosion that they have caused themselves. For him, this is the last sign, and at the funeral he declares his departure from the fashion industry in front of the mourners and the press. Zoolander decides to find the meaning of life and travels to his homeland to try his hand at miners like his father and brothers. However, sobered by the hard work and open hostility of his family, he returns to the big city a little later.

Here the fashion designer Mugatu offers him a comeback. Zoolander is to present Mugatus latest collection “Derelicte” at a fashion show, at which the Prime Minister will also be present as a guest of honor. By means of brainwashing , Mugatu succeeds in programming Zoolander so that he will commit the murder during the title Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood .

Meanwhile, the Times journalist Matilda Jeffries uses an anonymous caller to track down Mugatus. Together with Zoolander, Matilda meets the informant J. P. Prewitt in a cemetery, who reveals himself to be a former hand model . As soon as he has cleared up both of the fashion designers 'murder conspiracy, Prewitt is shot by Mugatus' henchman who appears. Zoolander and Jeffries manage to escape.

In search of a safe hiding place, they both decide to seek out Hansel. The surprised Hansel agrees after a reconciliation with Zoolander and offers his help. The next day the three try to find clues to the trigger that is supposed to cause Zoolander to commit the murder in the remaining hours before the “Derelicte” presentation. The venture fails when Hansel and Zoolander fail to get the data on Ballstein's computer.

Unsuccessful, they both meet up with the journalist at the fashion show. When the DJ hangs up Relax during Zoolander's performance , Zoolander charges the Prime Minister. At the last second, Hansel succeeds in overpowering the DJ and unplugging the turntable.

Ballstein then confesses to the murder plot, whereupon Mugatu draws a throwing star and tries to kill the prime minister himself. Zoolander can stop the star with the help of his novel "Magnum" facial expression and at the same time convince the audience of his model qualities.

Plagiarism allegation

Glamorama , a 1998 satirical novel by Bret Easton Ellis , author of American Psycho, tells the story of a dull male model who becomes the tool of an international terrorist conspiracy that the international fashion industry uses as a cover. In 2005, Ellis noticed that he wasaware ofthe similarities between Zoolander and Glamorama and was considering legal action. Ellis was then approached in a BBC interview on the subject and only said that he was no longer allowed to comment on the matter because of the silence about an out-of-court settlement.

background

  • The character of the model Derek Zoolander was invented by Ben Stiller together with Drake Sather for a short film as part of the VH1 Fashion Awards in 1996 .
  • The scene in which an attempt is made to switch on the unusually designed computer (an Apple iMac ) is an allusion to the first act "The Morning of Mankind" due to the background music, the increasingly ape-like sequences of movements and sounds, and not least because of the large bone (Originally: "The Dawn of Man") from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey .

Reviews

“The shrill costume design with borrowings from the old clothes collection, parody of ' 2001 ' and ' Matrix ', on video and commercials and a really dramatic breakdance showdown bring the zeitgeist comedy into a fashionable form. In Zoolander's foundation initiative 'for children who can't read really well', even the social commitment of the jet set appears in a completely new light. Stiller oscillates between open slapstick and excellent satire, and promises the most brutal possible enlightenment in the all-moving question: 'Can you expect more from life than look really damn good?' "

- Manfred Müller, Spiegel Online

“The plot is thrown as a loose cloak around a Parzival figure, one failure chases the next, and at some point you stop wondering how so much nonsense can fit into a single person. Either you realize with secret pleasure that you are silly enough to laugh at 'Zoolander' or you just let it go. Five years after 'The Cable Guy', Ben Stiller has directed 'Zoolander' again and obviously feels comfortable in his dual role in front of and behind the camera. [...] The great comedy that Stiller could be expected to do was not made by 'Zoolander' - it was probably not even planned. The whole thing is unbridled slapstick and his director is satisfied with it this time. "

- Michael Köhler, Berliner Zeitung

“'Zoolander' is not a masterpiece. Even on a comedic level, you could have gotten more out of it, as you have to wait a few minutes for the next gag. Nevertheless, the film is very entertaining, provided you don't make any demands on the content. The guest appearances of the celebrities from music, fashion and film also seem more entertaining than annoying in the long run, even if they are basically absolutely superfluous. But if you take it seriously, that's the whole film, with which you should overlook the obvious flaws. 'Zoolander' entertains, and that is definitely the most important thing for a film like this. "

- David Hiltscher, filmspiegel.de

“Even though documentaries about the fashion business, such as catwalk or unzipped, came up with their own parodies, Stiller succeeds in elevating the wacky world of this egocentric microcosm even further and thus inevitably unmasking it. Light-footed and yet precise, Zoolander caricatures all the infamous excesses of the glittering world of illusion, places his gags with pinpoint accuracy and comes up with those wonderful scenes that are always so painfully missed at the MTV Movie Awards, for example. "

- Carsten Happe, schnitt.de

“An exaggerated parody of the complacent world of the beautiful, the rich and the important, which does not hurt anyone and whose silly humor is not enough for a full-length feature film. The film also shows glaring flaws in the way the actors are guided. "

- Lexicon of international film

Awards

  • At the presentation of the MTV Movie Awards 2002 , the film was nominated in five categories.
  • At the Satellite Awards 2002 , Ben Stiller was nominated for an award.
  • Ben Stiller won an award in the Film - Choice Hissy Fit category for his tantrum scene at the 2002 Teen Choice Awards , and Stiller was nominated in the Film - Choice Actor, Comedy category, and the film in the Film - Choice Movie category , Comedy .
  • The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating “particularly valuable”.

continuation

In January 2011, Ben Stiller confirmed that there would be a sequel. On March 10, 2015, when Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson appeared on a Valentino fashion show at Paris Fashion Week, it was announced that Zoolander 2 should begin filming in spring 2015 and that the film is expected to be released in 2016. Zoolander 2 finally opened in US cinemas on February 12, 2016 and in Germany on February 18, 2016.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Age rating for Zoolander . Youth Media Commission .
  2. ↑ Eric Hanson: Ellis dissects the glitterati in 'Glamorama' ( English ) In: Star Tribune . January 30, 1999. Retrieved December 22, 2011.
  3. ↑ Information Leafblower ( English ) Information Leafblower. Retrieved July 21, 2009.
  4. ↑ bret easton ellis interview on BBC ( memento of April 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) of October 13, 2005 (English)
  5. ↑ Nina Rehfeld: Interview with Ben Stiller. "Come on, be weird!" Spiegel Online . January 2, 2002, accessed October 12, 2016.
  6. ↑ Manfred Müller: "Zoolander". More body fat than brain activity. Interview with Ben Stiller on Spiegel Online. December 27, 2001, accessed October 12, 2016.
  7. ↑ Michael Köhler: Wash my brain . In: Berliner Zeitung , December 27, 2001
  8. ↑ David Hiltscher: “What is that? A center for ants? “ Filmspiegel.de. Retrieved October 12, 2016.
  9. ^ Carsten Happe: Fashion Parody. schnitt.de. Retrieved October 12, 2016.
  10. ^ Zoolander. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  11. ↑ Zoolander on fbw-filmbewertung.com, accessed on 12 October 2016th
  12. ↑ Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson at Paris Fashion Week: Too cool for this world. In: Spiegel Online . March 10, 2015, accessed March 13, 2015 .