EDtv.

Review #1848: EDtv.

Cast: 

Matthew McConaughey (Edward "Ed" Pekurny), Jenna Elfman (Shari), Woody Harrelson (Raymond "Ray" Pekurny), Ellen DeGeneres (Cynthia Reed), Martin Landau (Al), Sally Kirkland (Jeanette Pekurny), Elizabeth Hurley (Jill), Rob Reiner (Mr. Whitaker), Dennis Hopper (Henry 'Hank' Pekurny), Viveka Davis (Marcia Pekurny), Christian Kane (P.A.), Adam Goldberg (John), Wendle Josepher (Rita), Merrin Dungey (Ms. Seaver), Ian Gomez (McIlvaine), and Clint Howard (Ken) Directed by Ron Howard (#301 - How the Grinch Stole Christmas, #546 - Cinderella Man, #1085 - Willow, #1095 - Solo: A Star Wars Story, #1509 - Apollo 13)

Review: 

If you remember, The Truman Show (1998) was a movie that happened to feature a man with his life unknowingly being displayed on television to a captivated audience of the world. EDtv, released on year later, is a movie that happens to feature a man with his life knowingly being displayed on television to a captivated audience of the world. One can be called a "satirical comedy" and the other can fall into the "psychological comedy-drama satire". Well, that isn't particularly fair to this feature, which is actually a remake of the 1994 Quebecois film Louis 19, King of the Airwaves [Louis 19, le roi des ondes]. Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (who had written the scripts for a handful of Ron Howard movies likes Splash (1984)) wrote the screenplay for this film. Of course, one really shouldn't reference better material in its own film, with this film referencing An American Family (the hit reality TV show of 1973) in its early minutes when talking about its "innovations"...that show happened to inspire its own spoof with Real Life (1979), a comedy movie involving a documentary filmmaker trying to live with an American family for a year. The funny thing is that EDtv came out nine months after The Truman Show as a big-budget production that runs at 123 minutes (longer than you-know-who), and yet it was a considerable failure with audiences at the time. Maybe it was just more interesting to see Jim Carrey try to tap into comedy-drama rather than Matthew McConaughey (fresh from overrated material like Dazed and Confused (1993) to A Time to Kill (1996)), or maybe it was something else. But I think you know the answer isn't just that EDtv is inferior to The Truman Show, because dueling movies with similar concepts can work out for both sides. Besides, this was made in the era of shows like The Real World, what could possibly go wrong? 

Unfortunately, the movie only barely scratches the surface when it comes to any sort of "bite", because it point-blank does not know what the hell it wants to be, fledging between romcom and satire in ways that only an indecisive polar bear could love. I'm not saying that the movie needed to have the bite of Network (1976) when it comes to human nature, but one is basically watching a slightly amped version of The Jerry Springer Show. Of course, even Springer got to "take advantage" with his own movie that happened to have been released around that time with Ringmaster (1998), so perhaps calling EDtv the sitcom-infused love child of Springer and other offshoots is a bit on the mark. Maybe it isn't as much of a fantasy as the earlier 1998 movie, but it sure isn't any more in touch with reality, because its main motivation is never entirely convincing: if you were asked to be on television and have your life broadcast 24/7, you probably would have to be a crazy person to really go with this, and the movie just doesn't hold its own in terms of believability beyond what you would see in a paper-thin sitcom, which seems catered to being a movie made by committee of producers rather than a movie made from any semblance of believability. In other words: when you become a person on camera, you will lose far more of yourself than you prove to gain, and only the best translates well to television (best of course is subjective, since there are countless examples of people being famous on television for the sake of famous). 

The cast is here and there, which is not something you really want to say about a movie that likely has its myriad of cameo appearances happen because of some sort of insecurity (most apparent with its moments with Jay Leno, a presence odious enough to insult rather than allow him to make jokes for you). It especially doesn't help when the movie likes to show brief moments with "the average American viewer" from time to time, since it only adds on to the dry factor in all of its unnecessary nature (while homing in on the made-by-committee point). My real problem is that there are just too many characters present here, spiraling out of control for two hours when one could trim a few minutes and lose nothing. McConaughey is technically decent in the film in that he never borders on insufferable when it comes to being "man on television 24/7", because the script does want a presence of warmth within the initial spark of naivety that overrides any sense of wanting a looser script (i.e. either a performance of a loser or someone less likable). In short: he is fine despite the limitations presented. Elfman is wrapped in the least funny part of the film: the rom-com parts, which doesn't help matters when one is trapped like a fishbowl in ways that probably make Dharma & Greg seem completely tolerable, since the chemistry with McConaughey is marginal at best. Hell, even Hurley and her "hired gun" performance is slightly more interesting, even if it ends abruptly. Harrelson is slightly entertaining, but again, the movie needs desperation from its people rather than goofy middlemen (Landau and Kirkland play to form handily, but that isn't saying much). DeGeneres spends half of her time watching the screen of the lead character and the other half coming up with "zingers" that make for a forgettable performance, as if being the originator of 24/7 reality TV isn't exciting enough to make into biting humor besides the use of Reiner, which is as predictable as a meathead insult. Perhaps it is amusing fate that Hopper is in this movie, as he was actually originally cast in The Truman Show before being replaced by the filmmakers for Ed Harris. He just doesn't get much to do for his two scenes, which is surely disappointing for an actor of his stature - granted, the scene where he tries to reminisce about an old memory with his son only to misremember it on live TV.

There is potential for a movie worth watching in the desperation of someone who thinks that the best hustle in life is to go out on television and show their whole lives to the world, but the movie only thinks of it in the most basic of ways that has the effect of a whimper. It might be a cheap thing to say that the movie was steamrolled by a movie with a better director, writer and overall cast, but nobody, and I repeat, nobody, will ever find reason to give abject praise to EDtv, a mediocre movie in every sense of the word, without having to strain hard to not compare it to The Truman Show. 

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

A Star is Born (1976).

Review #1454: A Star is Born.

Cast: 
Barbra Streisand (Esther Hoffman Howard), Kris Kristofferson (John Norman Howard), Gary Busey (Bobbie Ritchie), Paul Mazursky (Brian Wexler), Joanne Linville (Freddie Lowenstein), Oliver Clark (Gary Danziger), Venetta Fields (One), Clydie King (Two), Sally Kirkland (Photographer), and Marta Heflin (Quentin) Directed by Frank Pierson.

Review: 
"Filming with Barbra Streisand is an experience which may have cured me of the movies."

"For us, the picture cost $6 million and a year of our lives. For the audience it's $3.50 and an evening out. If it's a bum evening, it doesn't make me any better or worse as a person. But if you think the film is you, if it is your effort to transform your lover into a producer worthy of a superstar, if you think it is a home movie about your love and your hope and your deepest feelings, if it's your life that you laid out for the folks and they don't smile back, that's death."
I think I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into when it came time to do this film. It isn't exactly the first time I've seen this kind of story done of a film before. We've moved from romantic drama to musical to musical romantic drama when it comes to A Star is Born, and the easiest thing that can be said is that it certainly is the worst of the bunch in making a consistent romance and tragedy. It seems completely perplexed at times what to do when the camera isn't incessantly focusing on Streisand (who also served as executive producer for the film) as the whole thing threatens to collapse as an ego experience. It is only the curiosity of seeing the limits of where Streisand can go in this "pop and roll" style combined with the enjoyment of seeing Kristofferson stagger with charisma and self-destruction that make things not self-destruct into oblivion for a baffling 142 minutes. This is ridiculous junk, but I'll be darned if I didn't get some sort of cackling enjoyment from seeing how far one can really go in making such a murky 70s film that seems like the ideal sellout and embarrassment for all involved. My particularly favorite memory with the film is not so much a particular scene but actually an article that director Pierson wrote for New West magazine a month before the film's release with "My Battles With Barbra and Jon", which detailed some of the conflicts that Pierson had with producer (and star) Streisand and producer Jon Peters (a hairdresser-turned-producer and Streisand's boyfriend at the tine). There are some interesting little moments involving clashes of ego, but one of my favorite baffling moments is Pierson's meeting with the two in which at one point Peters actually asked if the lead male star had to commit suicide at the end as opposed to having it be an accident instead, since it sounded like such a turnoff. By the time Pierson was approached by Warner Brothers to do the film, numerous writer and directors had been brought in and brought out of doing the film, which had originally been written by Joan Didion and John Dunne as a rock musical with a couple like James Taylor and Carly Simon in parallel careers. Oh but the troubles did not stop with just Streisand (as amusing as it might seem to lay all of the squabbles and jokes on one star/producer). Kristofferson chafed when it came to filming, since he felt that they were making a "Barbra Streisand lollipop extravaganza" rather than some sort of statement about rock music (at least he has the excuse of drinking to act for a drunk lead). Sure, one could debate the ethics of doing an article so close to a film's release, but I heartily enjoy details like this, and even without the article the film is amusing to pick and poke at for its ambitions that crash like a motorcycle on stage.

It is entirely possible that there is a movie here worth really looking into the jagged turns that fame can do to a rock star that the other two films had done for actors. Of course the main problem with that theory is that perhaps Streisand just can't entirely pull off a nervous unknown given a push into stardom. It all seems too manufactured to really stick, too absorbed in showing off without letting you really breathe an actual romance, since the two leads seem entirely focused on literally anything but the other person in front of them. To say the film is all sizzle and no steak is an understatement: the steak got so caught up in re-writes that it turned into a small nut to disintegrate on the grill. On the other hand, I did rather enjoy Kristofferson (a native of Brownsville, Texas that took upon acting to go with his singing-songwriting) and his distant demeanor in his weary entertaining performance. He may be playing a jerk, but man does it invite more conviction and more of a look than what comes out on screen. Busey, an eccentric playing an eccentric peddler of producer (and other certain things) is amusing to see in the few scenes that he is in. Mazursky, who started work as an actor (debuting in Fear and Desire in 1953) before taking on writing and eventually directing (with films such as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice in 1969), does a careful job here in balancing out the line between producer and man trying to keep someone off the deepest end. The others are here and there, just people to fill in the background before yet another wild or silly antic between our strange stars. To put it mildly, this film stinks, but it sure is a funny one to think about. It is a testament to how overproduced and micromanaged a film can be in hands that believe they are truly making something that can match up to what was old (and classic) while serving the masses with no problem then and now, a hubris unmatched in mediocrity. I know one can see better films with Streisand or Kristofferson, but none could probably be as ridiculous to view play out like this one.


Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.