There’s something so inoffensive and smiley about Ben Stiller that he can make phallus-in-the-zipper jokes (or write and direct a Hollywood blockbuster that heavily features blackface) but still come across as a really amiable fellow who likes to stay in close proximity to his aging parents.

So it makes sense that he just spent $10 million on a duplex in a prewar orange-brick co-op on Riverside Drive in the West 80s, the same building that his parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, have lived in for years. Mr. Stiller’s name isn’t on the deed, filed last week, though the duplex was bought through a trust that shares the actor’s billing address.  read more »

Tell us if this sounds familiar: You've awoken with a jerk at 2AM, alone in your fully-lit apartment and still on the couch. On TV, the credits of some random movie are scrolling by. It feels like rock bottom. But, we promise, it's not! And we know, because we're just like you: single.

We stay up way past our bedtime (especially on school nights), being kept company by movies we've seen a billion times.... until we literally can't keep our eyes open. We know we're not alone: maybe you need a movie to sleep to, too! So join us tonight when we pass out to Keeping the Faith (starting @ 11:35 on Starz! Kids & Family).

Why we'll try to stay up and watch it:  read more »

Oh we're sure the Museum of the Moving Image's board was just tickled about their choice for this year's honoree at their swanky 24th annual black-tie salute. Reuters says it's Ben Stiller, the guy who parodies last year's honoree, Tom Cruise, as TomCrooze, the actor's "stunt double."

So at Cipriani 42nd Street on Nov. 12, we expect to see one of these Tom Crooze clips in the tribute reel and maybe a few from his new movie with co-star Mr. Cruise, Topic Thunder.

Tropic Thunder, the latest from writer-director-actor Ben Stiller, doesn’t open till August 13, but the trailer has been playing in theaters (and on laptops everywhere) for seemingly forever. The very funny—and often razor-sharp—big-budget film about the ridiculousness of big-budget films lampoons just about everything under the Hollywood sun. Per the previews, you probably know that Ben Stiller plays a fading action star; Jack Black, a tubby Warhol-wigged comedian; and Robert Downey Jr., an Australian method actor who undergoes an experimental pigmentation procedure in order to play an African-American soldier. All three are thrown together on the set of yet another Vietnam War picture (cue CSNY and the majestic helicopters!), where Steve Coogan is their bedraggled director.  read more »

This month's award for Best Lede in a Celebrity Profile (Musical or Comedy) goes to Adam Green for "Fool's Gold," his lighthearted portrait of Ben Stiller, who overcame humble beginnings as the child of famous comedians to become a $20 million-a-project star (Men's Vogue, producer):

On a temperate, late spring afternoon, I am wandering through the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California, in search of Mixing Stage 3, where I have an appointment with Ben Stiller, who is putting the finishing touches on his new movie, Tropic Thunder, and I'm thinking, Man, I hope this guy doesn't turn out to be a ding-dong.

Spoiler Alert: Mr. Stiller is no ding-dong, but rather "amiable and unpretentious," with a "screen persona [that] has grown nearly as familiar, if not as iconic, as Chaplin's," for which "Stiller has no peer."

The Heartbreak Kid managed to grab the top spot here in Manhattan, despite being outgrossed nationally by the Rock’s The Game Plan in its second week.  read more »

The production company is contributing $3,000 to local schools and fixing up the office.

The film is about a bumbling security guard at the Museum of Natural History who finds that the taxidermized animals come to life each night. Kind of like certain members of the New York State Assembly, actually.