Buddy Move
Ein Leserbrief an den New Yorker, abgedruckt im Jubiläumsheft zum 80. Jahrestag der Gründung des Magazins (Ausgabe February 14 + 21, 2005): „I read David Denby’s piece on Ben Stiller with great interest (The Current Cinema, January 24th + 31st). Not because it was good or fair toward my friend but exactly because it wasn’t. I’ve acted in two hundred and thirty-seven buddy movies and, with the experience, I’ve developed an almost preternatural feel for the beats that any good buddy must have. And maybe the most crucial audience-rewarding beat is where one buddy comes to the aid of the other guy to defeat a villain. Or bully. Or jerk. Someone the audience can really root against. And in Denby I realized excitedly that I had hit the trifecta. How could an audience not be dying for a real ,Billy Jack‘ moment of reckoning for Denby after he dismisses or diminishes or just plain insults practically everything Stiller has ever worked on? And not letting it rest there, in true bully fashion Denby moves on to take some shots at the way Ben looks and even his Jewishness, describing him as the ,latest, and crudest, of the urban Jewish male on the make‘. The audience is practically howling for blood! I really wish I could deliver for them – but that’s Jackie Chan’s role. Owen Wilson Dallas, Texas.“
Marxelinho