It pains me to say this, but I have a hunch that, much like the no-opening-the-Magic-packs policy at my local game shop, this month's Zoolander sequel is going to displease me. The only thing that kept Ben Stiller's version of 2001 from becoming an Academy Awards juggernaut and Criterion Collection shoo-in was the endless parade of "as themselves" celeb appearances like Fred Durst and Posh Spice, who made the movie feel like a two-hour Hollywood Squares. Yet Zoolander 2 appears to down the ante by making the cameos even more central: It's the assassinations of national treasures like Justin Bieber that serve as the movie's plot-shaped sleeping pill. I'm tired of people writing celebs into their films as a daofus ex machina to goose the story with random absurdity. Sure, the celebs are hoping to look like they're in on the joke-but when they're already descending into self-parody on Facebook and Instagram, why would I go to the multiplex to get it? Thankfully, the show Colony inspires a fix: All we need to do is turn Malibu into a heavily fortified prison for desperate Z-listers, whom we'd lure with the promise of a self-deprecating walk-on role in a new Judd Apatow flick. But here's the catch: no media coverage whatsoever. After they turn feral (I give it 36 hours), it'll be time to turn the cameras back on-because then we'll have a real blockbuster on our hands!
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