rating: *
the story: A corrupt preacher in New Mexico territory faces judgment day at the hands of a widow and the new lawman.
what it's all about: Lest you think I generally only write about (or watch) movies I like or at least like things about, or have something interesting (in a positive way) about them...I give you Sweetwater. I thought there would be things to like about it. I like Ed Harris and Jason Isaacs a great deal. Until Sweetwater I'd never seen either in something I didn't like. Well, can't really say that anymore. This movie is terrible.
These days we tend to talk about "terrible" movies in terms of creative decisions we don't agree with or in questioning their CGI. But truly bad movies do exist, and I don't mean horribly, horribly incompetent filmmaking that shows up in Mystery Science Theater 3000, but stuff like, well, Sweetwater. Stuff that's entirely convinced it's just a step or two away from, say, Tarantino or the Coen brothers, as the DVD packaging of Sweetwater suggests. More like a few steps away from 3000, DVD packaging. Said packaging also says this was a Sundance film festival selection. I have no idea how that's even possible. Maybe I don't know Sundance near well enough. Maybe it has crap all the time?
But here's the thing. Here's Sweetwater's Rotten Tomatoes page. And technically, it features a pretty dismal rating, both from critics and audiences. But...Take even a brief look at those critics and fans are saying, and I say, they don't seem to understand at all the scope of how terrible Sweetwater is. They think it's somehow redeemable. It really, really isn't.
Let's start with Isaacs' preacher. The idea is itself cartoonish, more a cult figure from some modern innercity than someone who should be the focus of a movie that's supposed to be taken seriously, some fever dream vision of Christians as they're viewed now than what their role was in the late 1800s, the actual setting of this movie. And because this is a cartoon Christian, this preacher looks pretty much exactly like Jesus. It's not that Jason Isaacs gives a bad performance. He does what he can with the material. I remember people saying his character in The Patriot was a parody; his Harry Potter work was admittedly designed to leave no doubt about Lucius Malfoy's status. But they were both still excellent performances, as is his work in Sweetwater. If there's truly a glimmer of a redemptive possibility, it's Isaacs.
Ed Harris fares worse. He's the lawman who comes to town. But he's asked to do bizarre things like dance weirdly for no discernable reason other than the movie thinks it's quirky enough to characterize itself. But it's as stupid and prurient as the shopkeeper we see spying on women with his pants down. Otherwise Harris is typically Harris, but I have no idea what possessed him to go along with the idiotic dancing.
The nominal lead is January Jones, best known for Mad Men and X-Men: First Class. I've been of the suspicious that a lot of what's passed as popular TV entertainment in the past twenty years is actually of the same general quality as Sweetwater, and it's actors like Jones who keep suffering for it. In Mad Men she was cast as one of the "ironic" babes the guys salivate over "in the era where this was acceptable," "because the show is teaching us a lesson." But as with X-Men: First Class, as with Sweetwater, she's no doubt there merely to be a pretty face, not because anyone thought for a second whether or not the role suited her talents. Because Sweetwater has no idea what her talents are, except to eventually have a nude scene for the sake of having a nude scene, and to be silent during her violent revenge. When critics complain about silent heroines, they're really complaining about stuff like this. If they complain when the actor fits the rest of the role, they're merely being misogynists, because male actors are silent in actions roles all the time and those same critics don't complain then...
And that about sums up what's wrong with Sweetwater...And what's wrong with people even sort of liking stuff like this? It's clear admittance that they have no discernable critical ability. And this is reflected in the popular culture far more often than anyone is prepared to admit. In sum, this is the sort of thing to be embarrassed about.
Showing posts with label Ed Harris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ed Harris. Show all posts
Monday, April 30, 2018
Monday, February 11, 2013
The Truman Show
*****
directed by: Peter Weir
starring: Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Ed Harris, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor, Paul Giamatti, Peter Krause, Harry Shearer
Released in 1998.
This was for a while my favorite film, and it easily earned that distinction, and forever set the standard by which my favorite films would be defined. It stars my favorite actor at the time (who remains a favorite), Jim Carrey, who like everyone else first wowed me as a comedic presence, and yet proved instantly compelling in a dramatic performance, because he is the rare comedian who embodies both sides of that coin, including the tragedy cleverly hidden beneath it.
The Truman Show, in fact, is a tragedy, and maybe that's not such a hard thing to discover. It's about a man who is living a reality show, and he's the only one who doesn't know it. He's been its star his whole life, and everything around him, including everyone he knows, has been manufactured in order to keep him happy enough to stay.
Except one day something goes off-script. At college he meets someone who was only supposed to be a background player. She instantly fascinates him, and although quickly booted from the production site Truman never forgets her. He settles into a picture perfect life, but yearns for something more, to explore beyond the scope of his world even though he keeps getting told that everything has already been discovered. Yet the crucial mistake made against him is that Truman wants to experience the world, not simply inhabit it. And eventually he finds the courage to do exactly that.
Now, obviously some of this is tailor-made for Carrey's comedic sensibilities. To a certain extent Truman must be entertaining enough for people to watch him so religiously. Yet the more his world crumbles around him, the more Truman must be something more, and Carrey is more than up to the task. He's a revelation in the film, not just in his own career but for any actor's. That's what set Carrey apart in the first place, that he was capable of inhabiting characters more thoroughly than his peers. At first it seemed that he was only being shameless, that he was only mugging, and at times in his career that has certainly been the case. The Truman Show is the mark of distinction. It's the high-water mark by which all his other performances must be compared (nicely mirroring its effect on my cinematic experiences).
There's more than Truman to The Truman Show, however. There's a rich cast around him, starting with Laura Linney and Ed Harris. This was Linney's first big role, and she instantly became a critical darling, someone you'd never really think of as a standout until she stands out, and she holds her own against Carrey (for some reason he tends to attract strong performances from his female co-stars). Likewise with Harris. Always one of the most dignified actors in Hollywood, his career reached new heights of respect after his appearance as the director of Truman's life.
One more performance worth singling out is Paul Giamatti's. It's a minor one, but it's also the one that started getting him noticed, until he finally became a leading man in American Splendor. Giamatti would reteam with Carrey for Man on the Moon, another highlight for both, in a far bigger role.
The psychology of The Truman Show is tremendous. It's not just a movie that predicted the reality show craze and its hollowness, but about the strength of the human mind. Truman seemingly has every reason to be happy, and yet he isn't, and the more those around him try to pacify Truman, the less happy he becomes. No one understands or cares about his needs. They're just there to maintain the status quo, and that means keeping Truman safely on the set of his show, a small island enclosed in a massive dome. Perhaps you think you'd be flattered to have such a life, but you'd probably wish that you were at least in control of it, and it's not even that Truman doesn't have that, but that you're as much aware that he's constantly being manipulated and doesn't even know it that draws you into the movie as that he rebels without even thinking, without even being outraged about this, that all he wants is to break free of what he's just become aware of, and reclaim something that's been stolen, namely the girl (played by Natascha McElhone, whose defining feature is her eyes, fittingly haunting) he was denied.
It's a movie that makes you think, and richly entertains you, and leaves you with a cathartic ending, and yet you keep thinking about The Truman Show well after it's over. Now, of course, you will probably think that Truman could never have truly escaped his curious hell. Princess Diana had just been killed in a car accident thanks to hounding paparazzi, and that was only the tip of the continuing media frenzy. Truman might escape the set, but he could never evade the press. He wouldn't have the first way of coping with them, especially after his dramatic exit from the show the whole world had watched. If he sued, the trial too would evoke massive coverage, as the OJ Simpson case proved a few years earlier still.
A massively memorable movie on all accounts.
directed by: Peter Weir
starring: Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Ed Harris, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor, Paul Giamatti, Peter Krause, Harry Shearer
Released in 1998.
This was for a while my favorite film, and it easily earned that distinction, and forever set the standard by which my favorite films would be defined. It stars my favorite actor at the time (who remains a favorite), Jim Carrey, who like everyone else first wowed me as a comedic presence, and yet proved instantly compelling in a dramatic performance, because he is the rare comedian who embodies both sides of that coin, including the tragedy cleverly hidden beneath it.
The Truman Show, in fact, is a tragedy, and maybe that's not such a hard thing to discover. It's about a man who is living a reality show, and he's the only one who doesn't know it. He's been its star his whole life, and everything around him, including everyone he knows, has been manufactured in order to keep him happy enough to stay.
Except one day something goes off-script. At college he meets someone who was only supposed to be a background player. She instantly fascinates him, and although quickly booted from the production site Truman never forgets her. He settles into a picture perfect life, but yearns for something more, to explore beyond the scope of his world even though he keeps getting told that everything has already been discovered. Yet the crucial mistake made against him is that Truman wants to experience the world, not simply inhabit it. And eventually he finds the courage to do exactly that.
Now, obviously some of this is tailor-made for Carrey's comedic sensibilities. To a certain extent Truman must be entertaining enough for people to watch him so religiously. Yet the more his world crumbles around him, the more Truman must be something more, and Carrey is more than up to the task. He's a revelation in the film, not just in his own career but for any actor's. That's what set Carrey apart in the first place, that he was capable of inhabiting characters more thoroughly than his peers. At first it seemed that he was only being shameless, that he was only mugging, and at times in his career that has certainly been the case. The Truman Show is the mark of distinction. It's the high-water mark by which all his other performances must be compared (nicely mirroring its effect on my cinematic experiences).
There's more than Truman to The Truman Show, however. There's a rich cast around him, starting with Laura Linney and Ed Harris. This was Linney's first big role, and she instantly became a critical darling, someone you'd never really think of as a standout until she stands out, and she holds her own against Carrey (for some reason he tends to attract strong performances from his female co-stars). Likewise with Harris. Always one of the most dignified actors in Hollywood, his career reached new heights of respect after his appearance as the director of Truman's life.
One more performance worth singling out is Paul Giamatti's. It's a minor one, but it's also the one that started getting him noticed, until he finally became a leading man in American Splendor. Giamatti would reteam with Carrey for Man on the Moon, another highlight for both, in a far bigger role.
The psychology of The Truman Show is tremendous. It's not just a movie that predicted the reality show craze and its hollowness, but about the strength of the human mind. Truman seemingly has every reason to be happy, and yet he isn't, and the more those around him try to pacify Truman, the less happy he becomes. No one understands or cares about his needs. They're just there to maintain the status quo, and that means keeping Truman safely on the set of his show, a small island enclosed in a massive dome. Perhaps you think you'd be flattered to have such a life, but you'd probably wish that you were at least in control of it, and it's not even that Truman doesn't have that, but that you're as much aware that he's constantly being manipulated and doesn't even know it that draws you into the movie as that he rebels without even thinking, without even being outraged about this, that all he wants is to break free of what he's just become aware of, and reclaim something that's been stolen, namely the girl (played by Natascha McElhone, whose defining feature is her eyes, fittingly haunting) he was denied.
It's a movie that makes you think, and richly entertains you, and leaves you with a cathartic ending, and yet you keep thinking about The Truman Show well after it's over. Now, of course, you will probably think that Truman could never have truly escaped his curious hell. Princess Diana had just been killed in a car accident thanks to hounding paparazzi, and that was only the tip of the continuing media frenzy. Truman might escape the set, but he could never evade the press. He wouldn't have the first way of coping with them, especially after his dramatic exit from the show the whole world had watched. If he sued, the trial too would evoke massive coverage, as the OJ Simpson case proved a few years earlier still.
A massively memorable movie on all accounts.
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