Michael Mann and horse racing. A pair not often uttered in the same breath.

However, HBO is hoping to change that with Mann’s upcoming TV series, Luck. Starring Nick Nolte and Dustin Hoffman, the new series is set to hit TV sets in 2012, and in light of its impending debut, the network has released a brief, but fantastic, teaser for the hotly anticipated series.

Tropic Thunder
Blu-ray
Directed by Ben Stiller
Starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release date: November 18, 2008

Have you ever watched a movie that your conscious mind continually told you that you shouldn’t be enjoying? That the premise was thin, the majority of the acting was way overblown, and that teetered it on the edge of “Scary Movie 15″ lameness, yet somehow you found yourself laughing and having a good time? That is exactly the movie that Tropic Thunder is to me.

In order to discuss my thoughts on this film, I’m going to have to delve into some character details that may be considered spoiler territory, so be warned.

Still with me? Cool. Here we go.

Tropic Thunder is one of those “high concept” films that tells the story of the making of a film within the film itself. The idea is nothing new, and neither is Ben Stiller‘s desire to skewer the profession he loves. It’s well worn territory. And while I’d love to say that Stiller, who wrote, directed, and stars in this film, walked this well worn territory in a fresh and interesting way — I can’t. The truth is, this film offers us very little that we haven’t seen before.

Tropic Thunder
Unrated Director’s Cut
Directed by Ben Stiller
Starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release date: November 18, 2008

Tropic Thunder, the first full-on comedy directed by Ben Stiller since his sublime tribute to airheaded male models Zoolander, is both a love letter and a poison pen middle finger to the increasingly overblown business of moviemaking. It’s a measure of the amount of serious guts and brains that it would take a major Hollywood studio (in this case Dreamworks) to green-light an expensive action-comedy that’s also a savage satire of the industry itself. But a movie like Tropic Thunder has been a long time coming. Having your cake and eating it too has rarely been this hilarious.

Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) is only a few days into the shooting of his directorial debut, the mega-budget Vietnam War epic Tropic Thunder based on an acclaimed memoir of the same name by veteran Sgt. John “Four Leaf” Tayback (Nick Nolte, giving great grizzle), and the production is in an unprecedented state of chaos.