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EDtv
In "Edtv," the much hyped film about media hype, Director Ron Howard chickens out, ducking the chance to say something powerful and biting about the horrific convergence of media, technology, voyeurism and privacy to make a fluffy comedy instead.
As much braver movies like "the Truman Show" suggest, technology and media increasingly are fusing to create a nightmare tabloid and journalistic culture - Princess Di, Monica and Bill, OJ, the Boston Nanny case -- that obliterates the privacy and dignity of the hapless people unlucky enough to get swept up, even when they're innocent by-standers.
Glued to their screens, the world watches in fascination, seeing the train-wrecks of other people's lives as just another TV show. There's no detail of anybody's life off limits when the cameras converge. Even as it gives us the creeps, we participate.
So here we have Monica Lewinsky. She spills the most intimate details of her and other people's lives to Barbara Walters, apologizes to Chelsea and Hilary for helping to shatter their lives even as she proceeds to make them even more miserable for two more hours in exchange for the cash from foreign TV rights. And tens of millions of Americans send ratings through the roof to watch it.
Techno-driven media like TV is truly becoming a shameless culture. >Anything goes that works, and anybody's life goes right into the maw if enough people want to watch it. That was the point of "The Truman Show," and was the theme of "Edtv."
The ED of "Edtv" (Matthew McConaughey) is a beer-swigging, pool-playing, 31-year-old video store clerk in San Francisco. He agrees to have his entire life broadcast 24/7 on a struggling TV show. The show becomes a smash, of course, especially as Ed slips into crisis, and as Elizabeth Hurley tries to seduce him live on TV. The greedy network moguls rush in to squeeze every last Nielsen rating out of Ed and his problems. In the process, the oblivious Ed very nearly ruins his own life and the lives of the people closest to him, including his brother, mother and stepfather.
There's a lot of potential in this idea, and you get the sense that Howard considered whether or not to go for a real movie about the subject, perhaps one in which there are real and painful consequences. But he blinked, going for a few laughs, a warm fuzzy feeling and a cheesy ending. The movie sets up a fascinating and disturbing premise, then peters out as it fails to deal with it. "The Truman Show" looks brave and powerful in comparison.
Unlike Truman, the affable Ed knows exactly what's happening to him, and agrees to put his live before the rest of the world. Despite all of the trouble this causes, and damage this does to the people around him, he>never shows much remorse or comprehension. When push comes to shove, he and the forces exploiting him slide cheaply off the hook.
"Edtv" is disturbing almost in spite of itself. It makes the point that the very idea of privacy is vanishing in the tabloid, techno-driven world - satellites, talk shows, breathless interviews, book and movie rights. It shows Americans as an increasingly voyeuristic, morally vapid people who will happily watch the disintegration of anybody's lives if it happens on TV live and is produced skillfully enough.
"Edtv" is at its best showing how the country gets increasingly obsessed with the details of Ed's >disintegrating life, and spoofing the TV and talk show culture so quick to >debate and analyze anybody's misery, usually under one hypocritical >pretense >( it isn't about sex but perjury) or another. >
Even though the phenomenon is horrifying, "Edtv" goes for the witty >dialogue over the powerful statement. Ellen DeGeneres, Woody Harrelson, >Jenna Elfman and Rob Reiner all provide strong and funny support for >McConaughey, who seems to be getting his footing back after disasters like >"Amistad" and "Contact." >
The problem is that the issue it takes on is anything but laughable, especially these days. This movie is really too timely, relevant -- and creepy -- to be funny.
You can e-mail me at jonkatz@Slashdot.org
Among those enlightened people (aka, those who go to college or who could if they wanted to) I've talked to about the film, all seemed pretty unanimous in their support for the idea that Contact has to be one of the best movies we've ever seen. In an age where movies insist on dumbing down the plots to the point where any AOL user can understand them, I can't say enough how much I loved a film that had the gonads to be a bit confusing in order to be really, really cool.
Jon, if you mean that Contact was a flop at the box office, I might buy it (I don't have any idea what the numbers were -- I saw it about 5 times, but I could be the only one). I doubt it did very well; the average stupid person in the audience probably didn't get it; I was in a theatre opening night where a guy yelled "WEAK!" at the end, then asked his date "Carl who?".
If you meant that it was a bad film, I think it's time for you to write another "I am a geek! Really!" article. Most of the folks here on /. are bright enough that they got the significance of that really keen opening shot (the "universal pullback" with the radio sliding back in time). I imagine that a majority of geeks liked Contact.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
That opening shot was pretty awesome, with the perspective pulling back through Earth's RF bubble until it reached the edge, and total silence... then they did the cliched "oh, it's all in the pupil of her eye" bit and ruined it. The movie went pretty quickly downhill after that. The people I was watching it with and I were calling out next lines and next scenes before they happened because it was all so predictable. I always thought the ending of the book was a bit weak, and the movie gutted the book and only put up the shell.
And they left out my favorite scene, where Arroway and the priest are in the museum, and she pulls the Focault pendulum up to her face, lets it go, and lets it swing back, trusting in physics to stop it before it hits her, then challenges him to do the same, trusting in his god to stop it. That would've been too controversial for mainstream America, I suppose...
Contact was a beautiful, thoughtful film, well-acted and risky. I didn't need the Hollywood love story running through it, but I didn't much mind it either. Everything else was wonderful.
It helps if you have some kind of understanding of just how damn good an actress Jodie Foster is. The role was difficult but she made it look effortless and totally believable. I don't think anyone else could have filled her shoes.
Like I say, it's a thoughtful movie, and it's for thoughtful people. If the subject interests you, if you find the question of humanity's place in the universe to be interesting, then rent it. Watch it on a big-screen TV with the sound up loud, the phone unplugged and with people who won't talk through all the best scenes. A friend of mine called it "the 2001 for our generation," the highest compliment I can imagine for a film.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
If there exists a film that can make that hackneyed, phony, predictable, uninspiring, scripted star vehicle look "brave," then Jon has made his point and I will stay as far away as possible.
But then, if there exists a reviewer that can call Truman Show "brave" in a serious comparison, I don't think that reviewer and I are likely to agree on anything so I should feel free to ignore whatever he says.
Sort of a Liar's Paradox...
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
She then decides to take her experience on faith, never thinking that maybe the 16 or how ever many hours of recorded static could mean something or that maybe, as a scientist, she could push for a repeat of the experiment with another person?
Maybe they could have produced a movie without falling back into the "you've got to have faith" mentality, but they sure didn't. Contact had so much promise, but finally undermined Carl's strong belief in rationalism and the betterment of humanity with a stupid religious message about faith.
Contact was crap. It makes me sick when I see "For Carl" on the screen of the moview.
. Penguins Surely Ca
I was honestly expecting EDtv to suck when I attended a sneak preview here in Ann Arbor, Michigan with my girlfriend. Having seen "The Truman Show," with which EDtv shares a great deal of basic plot ideas, I worried that the comedic nature might trivialize the ideas.
However, after leaving EDtv, I was disturbed by just how much more tragic the whole thing was than "The Truman Show." In Truman, the movie ended in a more or less happy manner when Truman discovered the world beyond his dome. Instead, in EDtv, it pointed out that people will naturally attempt to utilize the fortune and misfortune of others as personal gain (epitomized by Ed's brother).
Also, even more tragic was the fact that Ed got caught between all of the problems in his life and the threat of being financially destroyed for the rest of his natural life because of a heinous contract.
Basically, "The Truman Show" took place in a sterile world, where the audience was merely a reflection of Truman and had virtually no role in the show, and it had the whole ship-in-a-bottle feel to it. "This could never happen." EDtv, on the other hand, left the impression that this *could* easily happen in today's media-driven entertainment industry.
I think that's the scariest lesson of all, and EDtv did a good job of conveying it, regardless of its few shortcomings.
Contact is about as subtle as a sledgehammer and too interested in sending a "message" to the viewer instead of telling an interesting story.
How could you not wince when Foster's character left the inquiry at the end of the movie to find a new group of zealots screaming at her? Wow, that's like, really deep, dude. Like, she was with that priest dude? And like she didn't believe in God and stuff? And now nobody belives in her alien story. Like wow, man... that's like sooooo ironic, dude.
This movie had potential but it was FAR too heavyhanded. Too long, too self-indulgent... as an example, it included Zemeckis using a speech of Clinton's because he could, not because it served the movie. Zemeckis must have been so happy when Clinton gave his "life on Mars" speech. "Wow! I can use this!"
It was also funny how they got a Tyrell (from Blade Runner) lookalike to play the multi-billionaire with access to Mir. The only original character in this movie was Foster's and she wasn't very interesting.
Okay, time to end the disjointed rant. I hated Contact. Sure, the opening shot was great. But if the other 150 minutes of the movie suck, I think the movie as a whole sucks. Call me crazy.
In "EDtv",the much-hyped movie about media hype, Director Ron Howard blinks. He gives us a mellow sit-com instead of a biting film about the dread and eerily relevant convergency of media, technology and voyeurism. "The Truman Show" never looked braver or better. "EDtv" is too creepy to be funny.
Just a metacomment here, because I haven't been to see EDtv and doubt I will.
I don't think there's much "brave" to be found in even The Truman Show. At first blush, entertainment of this sort might satisfy the person who wants to feel good about their entertainment choice for the evening, but there's something cynical to be read into productions that aim to "sock it to the entertainment industry" while playing at the local googleplex.
There is no risk being taken in making productions like this, or any production that takes advantage of our culture's ever-growing commodification of dissent, (to steal a phrase from A HREF="http://www.physics.wisc.edu/~shalizi/reviews /commodify -your-dissent/"> The Baffler .
"Dissent" sells. Hell. How many of us have complained about all the idiots who walk around striking poses with their Linux books at the local Barnes & Noble because, as Boot magazine put it a couple of years back, when they included Debian on a CD, Linux was "a rebel OS" that would "impress your friends."
"Dissent" is marketable. "Dissent" makes about as much of a splash in the collective conscience as a minivan commercial. "Dissent" is used to market contra minivans, to convince you to pony up for an SUV so you can show you're not a "minivan driver," for whatever the problem with that is.
I don't think movies of this sort are anymore subversive than a Rambo flick, because in the end, no matter how subtle/strident, vitriolic/sweet the subversion, we're all still sitting in the same corporate-owned theater, with the same Twizzlers hanging from our slack jaws, and we'll be back at the same time next week for another installment. And we're the ones who pride ourselves on "getting it."
If you can show me that films like The Truman Show made people walk out and say "damn, we do live in an over-mediated world of objects and passive consumption, I'll happily shut up. I don't think you can though, because at least one poster on this topic to this point has identified how derivative of The Truman Show this movie seems to be. Someone in charge of making decisions decided more entertainment about how bad the entertainment industry is would make the entertainment industry some more money. Hmm.
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mphall@cstone.nospam.net
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mphall@cstone.nospam.net
"A horse laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms"
Katz didn't mention what I found the most disturbing aspect of EDtv -- the blinding barrage of product placements and advertising.
Most of it is supposed to be diegetic to the film. EDtv is ostensibly supported by a bar of advertising that takes up the bottom fifth of the screen. A gimmick is that, as his show becomes more popular, the advertisers increase in stature from local pizza parlors and the like, to multinational corporations like Pepsi, Maytag, and Nokia.
But here's the thing: These are all real advertisements. (Duh.) There is more advertising in this 2 hour film than in, jesus, perhaps 48 hours of regular TV! Every time they cut to EDtv, there is another advertiser, and they cut to it long and often. I can't determine what the director expects me to feel when he does this -- am I supposed to not notice that I'm being advertised to? Supposed to enjoy it as part of the story? I think it all comes down to the fact that he knows he's got a captive audience, and doesn't give a shit what I think.
Ron Howard has also taken product placement to new heights. In one particularly loathsome and egregious sequence, the ED family is shown eating dinner. In one shot we see the proudly displayed logos of at least half a dozen buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken (hungry rascals), several liters of Mountain Dew, a box of Ritz crackers, a cannister of Easy Cheese, and beyond that I simply lost count as the items proceeded straight past my mental defenses into my subconscious.
It's a strange, sad thing to realize that I'm part of the last generation who grew up with the movie theater as an advertising-free zone.
It ain't getting any better. It's fine if directors want to use products and diegetic advertising in films to increase their budgets . . . but I shouldn't have to pay the same amount to see a film loaded with ads as I would to see one without. Hell, they should have paid me, and the rest of the audience, for the privilege of advertising to us.
So here's your warning: EDtv is bland and weak. It does make the Truman Show seem bold and brave, and if you've seen the Truman Show, that's saying a lot. Let Opie rot in hell.
Read a book, instead.
It's probably your last chance to do so before they have advertisements.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.