Tropic Thunder in stores now

What’s most endearing about one of last summer’s best-selling comedies is that it expertly satirizes Hollywood in the same way you and some friends would while watching A-listers congratulate themselves at the Academy Awards. No one does it as well as writer/director Ben Stiller, who grew up in a famous Hollywood family. Tropic Thunder stars Stiller as a pompous action star, Jack Black as a shock-jock comedian and Robert Downey, Jr. as a multi-Oscar-winning actor who goes to great lengths to morph into new characters. In this case he darkens his skin to portray an African American soldier still living circa 1971. For their new film together, a Vietnam War adventure, the trio is thrust into a jungle and left to their own rather limited devices. No one plays the empty-headed jerk like Stiller, Downey’s performance is on-the-edge funny and Black electrifies with his usual live wire act. Rated R.