Reeling Backward: "The Truman Show"

There are literally college courses taught about "The Truman Show," which is not something most pop-culture movies can say. People have made allusions to its alleged deeper meanings via Christian, urban planning, political and psychological interpretations. I generally find that sort of analysis a waste of time, though the film's insights on the insidious power of media are hard to deny.

Consider that, coming out in 1998, "The Truman Show" predated most of the reality TV crazy, with the exception of MTV's "Real World" and a few other shows. Ron Howard would, a year later, try a similar theme with "Edtv" starring Matthew McConaughey. I don't think it's an insult to note that movie is barely remembered at all.

Though it's important to emphasize that while "Edtv" and all reality shows are about people who proactively decide to have their activities taped -- an arrangement that attracts a certain type of personality -- "Truman" is the only creative production I can think of in which the main character -- and only he -- is unaware of the fact that his doings are being viewed.

In addition, Truman Burbank also believes that his tiny hometown island of Seahaven is real, when in fact it is all an elaborate facsimile -- a TV set the same size and economic impact of a small nation. This basic premise, of our hero living in a constructed world inside of the real one, in which he becomes the main focus of audiences both helpful and antagonistic, would be repeated in a science fiction version in the following year's "The Matrix."

"Truman" even presages the only recently realized phenomenon of the "reality talk show," in which programmers create an additional (and revenue-generating) venue for people to chat about the main show. The movie's "TruTalk," hosted by Harry Shearer, is the forbear to today's "The Talking Dead."

"Truman" also marked the delineation of Jim Carrey's career shift from straight-out funnyman to more dour, ambitious projects, especially "Man on the Moon" a year later. His career has bobbled and wobbled since then, though the recent "Dumb and Dumber To" announced his full retreat back into the comedy safe zone.

Though I usually have difficult naming my all-time favorite films, I have no such reservation about citing directors I most admire. And Peter Weir would certainly be on that list (plus the likes of Ridley Scott, John Boorman, George Miller and David Lean ... apparently I only go for Brits and Aussies.)

Along with "The Truman Show," Weir has "Gallipoli," "Witness," "Green Card," "Picnic at Hanging Rock," "The Year of Living Dangerously," "Fearless," "Dead Poets Society" and "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" to his name.

Not a bad cinematic epitaph, that.

(Though personally I hope Weir, who recently turned 70, stays with us a very long time and, Sidney Lumet-like, continues cranking out amazing films right up until the grave beckons.)

Of course, the premise of "The Truman Show" is absurd. It's preposterous to think that you could raise a man to the age of 30 without him ever realizing that everyone around him is actors pretending to be his neighbors, friends -- even his mother and father. And that the perfectly tidy town, with its cotton candy coloring and eternal sunshine (actually Seaside, Fla.), is not real. Plus the treacherous legal and moral implications -- Truman is essentially an imprisoned slave, owned by a corporation.

But Weir and screenwriter Andrew Niccol (an accomplished director himself of films like "Gattaca") cleverly delay the big reveal of what's really going on until about one-third of the way into the movie, so the audience never really questions the conceit. By then Truman has become so known and endearing to them, they don't even have to suspend their disbelief.

As the tale opens Truman is starting to grow antsy, shucking off the "script" of a perfect life that producer/eye in the sky Christof (Ed Harris) has constructed for him. Though married to incessantly upbeat Meryl (Laura Linney), he still pines for Sylvia (Natascha McElhone), a background character who caught his eye and found herself ditching the rules to be with him.

Of course, whenever something happens to break through this "fourth wall," the show has a small army of burly men to rush in to block Truman's view and clean things up. Over the years various saboteurs have attempted to breach the show's sanctum by parachuting into Main Street or holding up signs saying "It's a show!" But Truman has remained blessedly indifferent.

(Though, now that I think about it, I'm not sure if this really constitutes breaking the fourth wall, which is supposed to exist between an ongoing work of art and its audience. In this case, it is not the creative act that is disrupted by acknowledging itself, but internal sabotage by unwilling participants. Someone needs to come up with a name for that.)

I was surprised watching the movie again (for I think the first time in 16 years) how weak Truman's relationships are with the actors playing his mother and father. They only really get one substantial scene apiece, and dad's is when he is reintegrated into the show after his supposed death when Truman was a boy. (This was a calculated psychological manipulation by Christof to render him afraid of water and thus unlikely to want to leave his water-bound hometown.)

Even his relationship with Meryl goes relatively unexplored, or the morality of how the actors who have spent their life participating in the charade feel about it. Only Marlon (Noah Emmerich), who plays his best friend, appears to hold any genuine affection for Truman. Though he carries out Christof's orders, he often seems on the verge of blurting out the truth.

The character of Truman remains something of a goofy cypher, a mix of Carrey's manic early stand-up comic persona and the script's plot demands. In "Ace Ventura" and a lot of Carrey's other early movies, there was an overt aspect of "performance" to the characters, of them playing a part in order to carry out the intended comedic effect, and I think we see a lot of that in Truman. Even he thinks he's putting on a front.

His interactions with other Seahaven residents, often repetitive from day to day, are boring even to Truman. So he's more apt to notice little screw-ups like accidentally receiving the radio signals of the crew tracking his movements via his car radio, or a set light falling from the sky. Indeed, one of the subtlest of subsidiary themes is the notion that, after three decades on the air, the puppeteers pulling the strings have gotten distracted and careless.

Thought-provoking and eerily prescient, "The Truman Show" will likely be one of those films that withstands the tests of the ages -- at least, until we've all got cameras sewn into our bodies, and everything everyone does is recorded and transmitted, everywhere. Say, 2030?

Review: "Kick-Ass 2"

"This isn't a comic book! If you die, there is no do-over! There are no sequels!"
--Dave Lizewski, aka Kick-Ass

I lost track of how many times the characters in "Kick-Ass 2" reminded me that what I was watching was real, not just pretend -- as if to give weight to the proceedings that did not otherwise exist. The joke, of course, is this is very much a comic book movie, super-heroes get do-overs all the flipping time, and it's a sequel that is trying so hard to convince us that sequels and reboots are soulless affairs with little point for existing.

I'm not sorry they made a sequel to "Kick-Ass," or that I watched it. But it feels like the original's vital juices all got sucked out of it.

The 2010 film, directed and co-written by Matthew Vaughn based on the comic books by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., was shocking, hard-edged, hyper-violent and whip-smart. The sequel is jokey, surprisingly soft around the edges, sorta-violent and not half as clever as it thinks it is.

Writer/director Jeff Wadlow takes over the reins, and to his credit the characters haven't just been frozen in time since last we saw them. Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), the rail-thin high school dweeb who first started the masked vigilante craze, is now a burned-out senior who looks like he's been living at the gym. Seeing so many would-be superheroes copycatting his style finally convinces him to get back in the game.

More problematic is Hit-Girl, the pint-sized terror who spewed vile curses while literally chopping up bad guys with her arsenal of blades and guns. Now she's a trembly 15-year-old freshman, uncertain of her place in the world and feeling ostracized by the mean girls at school.

Chloë Grace Moretz is one of the brightest lights of her generation, but her character's back-and-forth dithering gets really old, really fast. We know she's eventually going to put the purple wig back on again, so everything until then feels like marking time.

There's a long sequence where Hit-Girl gets sucked into the bitchy schemes of the ruling clique, led by Brooke, deliciously played by Claudia Lee. It's like the movie goes all "Heathers" for a time, and while it's engaging enough in its right, this section belongs in another movie.

Rejected by Hit-Girl in his quest for a partner, Kick-Ass hooks up with a bunch of other supers, who dub themselves Justice 4 Ever. These include Battle Guy (revealed to be Dave's oldest friend), Dr. Gravity, Night Bitch and Insect Man. For wannabes, they sure come up with lackluster names for themselves.

They're led by Colonel Stars and Stripes, a deranged fascist played by Jim Carrey, nearly unrecognizable under a mountain of prosthetics. The Colonel teaches his disciples not to use foul language, but sees nothing wrong with siccing his attack dog (also masked) on the nether regions of his foes.

Of course, you couldn't have a super-hero story without a villain, and it's Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Chris D'Amico, former Kick-Ass friend-turned-foe after the latter killed his mob boss father.

Recognizing that his super-power is that he has gobs of money, he gives himself a new (unprintable) moniker and sets about recruiting an evil army. His own costume is salvaged from his mother's S&M outfits, which aren't improved by his wearing them.

This leads to the inevitable showdown between the two teams, which carries a certain amount of thrills -- especially Hit-Girl's faceoff with Mother Russia, a former KGB enforcer vividly portrayed by bodybuilder Olga Kurkulina.

I didn't hate "Kick-Ass 2," but I didn't particularly like it, either. The movie just sat there for me, going through the motions of the original but with the violence and swearing toned down about 40 percent. What's most clear is that very little ass is actually kicked.

Review: "I Love You Phillip Morris"

"I Love You Phillip Morris" is Jim Carrey's Big Gay Comedy.

Or maybe it's a drama; sometimes it's hard to tell. The studio is pushing it hard for Oscar nominations, so somebody wants it to be taken seriously. But the most important thing you need to know about this movie is that it's gay -- really, really gay!

Carrey, as serial con man Steven Russell, tells us so in his honey-dipped narration, flashing that big Cheshire grin: "Did I forget to mention that I'm gay? Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay!"

The story of Steven Russell, a real guy who repeatedly broke out of prison under the most audacious circumstances, would have made a compelling movie -- especially since, according to the book by Steven McVicker, he did it all out of love for Phillip Morris, another inmate played by Ewan McGregor.

But Carrey and McGregor don't play their romance straight (pun intended.) It's a jokey, flirty pile of wink-wink to let the audience know these two heterosexual actors are pretending to be in love just to get a laugh. Other than a few smooches, even their sex is shunted off-screen or just out of frame.

Co-writers/directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra treat the material as absurdist comedy. Steven is a former police officer with a Bible-thumping wife (Leslie Mann) who secretly sports around with other men. After a near-fatal car accident, he resolves to stop telling lies and live as his true self.

After moving to Miami and picking up some boy-toy arm candy (Rodrigo Santoro), Steven has an epiphany: Being gay is really, really expensive! To keep his boyfriend decked out in finery and fun times, he turns to insurance fraud and winds up in prison.

There he meets Phillip, a timid twink (Google it) who needs protection. Convincing him that they're soul mates, Steven arranges for them to share the same cell, and later even poses as Phillip's attorney to get him sprung early.

Steven's biggest con is getting hired as the CFO of a large company, where he proceeds to embezzle money to keep himself and Phillip in luxurious style. Curiously, Steven does not actually steal from the company's coffers, but discovers an ingenious way to earn interest on their holdings, adding to their bottom line -- and keeping half for himself.

The film's main entertainment value is in watching all the crazy schemes Steven comes up with to get out of jail. He impersonates a judge phoning the court clerk to get his bail lowered, and even uses felt markers to dye his prison uniform green so he resembles a doctor, and simply walks past the guards.

Steven's M.O. is to be openly contemptuous of those he's fooling -- and it's also the same for the filmmakers. To them, it's the corporate honchos and church-going wives and gullible corrections employees who are the suckers deserving of mockery, not the criminal who outwits them.

The exception, of course, being Phillip, who is Steven's one true love -- until, that is, a sudden flashback near the end that casts his affection for Phillip into doubt.

The moral is supposed to be that Steven Russell tells so many lies, he loses sight of the person inside. But really, the people "I Love You Phillip Morris" is most putting one over on is the audience.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "A Christmas Carol"

"A Christmas Carol" is a technological marvel, an animated film that is absolutely breathtaking in its attention to detail, and in the depth and beauty of its images. Unfortunately, it also has little reason for existing beyond these technical aspects.

Do audiences really need an umpteenth cinematic version of Charles Dickens' classic story? This is, after all, a franchise that has been translated dozens of times on film and television, including multiple animated editions.

Heck, the Muppets, Mickey Mouse, Sesame Street, Flintstones, Mr. Magoo and even Barbie have tackled Dickens' novella.

Robert Zemeckis, the master filmmaker behind "Forrest Gump" and "Back to the Future," adds nothing beyond fancy flourishes to the morality tale about a miser who learns the value of life, and thereby the true meaning of Christmas.

A few years ago, Zemeckis famously swore off live-action films to concentrate on photo-realistic computer-generated animation. His first two efforts, "The Polar Express" and "Beowulf," were well-intentioned and often mesmerizing, but also contained bouts of silliness (think Angelina Jolie with a tail).

"Christmas Carol" doubles down on the silly, with the hyper Jim Carrey providing the voices (and motions) of Ebenezer Scrooge and all the ghosts.

And Zemeckis adds a heavy dollop of action sequences designed to make the movie more commercially viable to audiences with children.

It's very easy to say Charles Dickens might have dreamed up scenes where Ebenezer Scrooge is shot halfway to the moon on a rocket, or shrunk down to the size of a mouse and chased by a team of hellfire steeds, if only he had been alive during a time when such depictions were possible. It's also a cop-out.

"Scrooged" from 1988 already ably translated "Carol" to a modern setting, and used special effects to liven up the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Zemeckis retains the grubby antique 19th-century setting but uses cutting-edge animation and 3-D technology to achieve it.

The result is stale but annoyingly flashy, like musty architecture with ill-placed modern gilding.

It's also odd that Zemeckis retained a lot of the 1843-era stilted English, such as Scrooge's pronouncement upon seeing his childhood home, "I was bred here."

Now, to the ghosts. Conceptually, they're 1-for-3.

The Ghost of Christmas Present is depicted as a giant, bearded, laughing man, a Dionysian figure (who closely resembles the book's original drawing). The scene where the ghost ages and meets his demise -- since he lives in the present, his lifespan lasts only a day -- is both thrilling and creepy. (Although his strange pronouncement about men of the cloth left the audience scratching its collective head.)

The Ghost of Christmas Past, though, is a chirpy-voiced floating ball of flame. In my mind, I instantly dubbed, and dismissed, him as "Match-head." Ghost of Christmas Future is merely an inky wraith seen only in the shadows.

The supporting performances are a nice mix -- I particularly liked Gary Oldman as Scrooge's long-suffering clerk Bob Cratchit, whom he gives a shy sort of grace. (Oldman also plays Jacob Marley and Tiny Tim.)

In the end, I'm not really sure who this new version of "A Christmas Carol" is for. Great-looking but uninspired, it's a shiny new toy that can only do old tricks.

2.5 stars