Why I liked The Cable Guy (1996)

In 1994, Jim Carrey became a box office sensation with smash hits as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber. Two years later, audience expectations were high when The Cable Guy was released and the film was advertised as another light slapstick romp from Carrey. What they got was a black comedy about a seriously disturbed cable TV installer who just won't leave his new friend (Matthew Broderick) alone. Jim Carrey fans were left cold with the dark tone and most critics blasted it (Roger Ebert was especially brutal towards the film while his television partner, Gene Siskel, gave it a positive review). I was watching it lately on cable and on VHS... and I don't think the movie is as bad as many people say it is.

Before I get started with my analysis, I'm not saying it's a great film, I'm saying that I think it's a decent film on it's own right. If you don't like the film, it's fine, it's your own opinion. This article is not going to be a preachy review on how I'm right and you're wrong, it's simply an article about my own, honest thoughts about the film and how I think it needs to be seen in the right mindset.

The film starts off like a light comedy. An architect named Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick) has moved to a new apartment after his girlfriend (Leslie Mann) has just dumped him. After he hires cable installer Chip Douglas (Jim Carrey), they becomes friends and that's when the film takes a dark turn. He keeps leaving messages on Steven answering machine, shuts off the cable to get attention while Steven and his ex-girlfriend were about to watch Sleepless in Seattle, steals and hooks up a home theater environment while Steven was at work, and even has Steven arrested for accepting the stolen home theater equipment, even though he didn't want it in the first place.

This is obviously not the film fans expected back in 1996. It was dark, twisted, upsetting, and different than the typical lighthearted fare Carrey was known for at the time yet somehow, there's something about the film that just clicks to me. As I was watching the film recently, I began to realize that the film is actually a brutal take down on how the media can affect people, celebrity worship, and even irresponsible parenting.

I think it's true with Carrey's character because he's been raised with television all his life and we get a flashback on how his mother always lets him watch TV while she goes to work at night instead of hiring a babysitter. This affected his life in a blatantly wrong way and as a result, he's been using false aliases named after television characters, often quoting and spewing out pop culture references, and even stalking customers. It's really makes sense that people like The Cable Guy can actually exist because of lazy parenting. It's really sad that some parents think that television and computers are the sole babysitters for their children when really they need to realize that they should also be reading books, going to school, and make new friends and develop social skills.

There's a running sub plot involving television coverage of a former child star (Ben Stiller, the film's director) who murdered his identical twin brother, who is also a former child star. This causes media attention, tabloids, gossip, and sensation as the case is spreading on nationwide television news and viewers are getting obsessed with the case. We even get to see scenes with Steven watching the news coverage and even a commercial for a made for TV movie starring Eric Roberts based on the actual murder case. It really fits with the obsessions we have on actual murder cases in real life, such as the O. J. Simpson trail, and how excited we are about what the verdict is going to be.

The film ends with a climax set at a huge satellite dish that carries information from all the television units and home theater systems nationwide. The Cable Guy has kidnapped Steven's girlfriend to get his attention. As he climbs up to the satellite tower with her as a hostage, he's finally running out of ideas. He begins to break down and admit to Steven that he was a bad friend and how he was influenced by television thanks to his lazy mother. So he nearly sacrifices himself by jumping off the tower and landing on the dish to save television viewers from their obsessions. I believe that's what the movie is saying. The more we watch too much TV, the more we become brainwashed and ignorant from reality.

The Cable Guy is not a great film. The comedy can be hit and miss and not all of Carrey's physical humor work, but as a brutal take down on how pop culture brainwashes people, it's fairly honest. It may not be the film Jim Carrey fans expected back in 1996, but it's still an honest film on how the media affects us and our lives. If there's a rating I could give to the film, it's a 3 out of 4.

Memento (2000)

We're used to movies that follow a simple and linear plot structure because they are easier for the casual moviegoer to follow along. But there are movies that are so complex in their non-linear narrative structure that it's up to us to interpret the events of the movie and how we put the pieces together for ourselves. Christopher Nolan's Memento is a great example of a non-linear film.

The movie follows the adventures of Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), an insurance investigator whose wife has been murdered and develops a serious case of short-term memory loss after the attack. After the police refused to help him, it's now up to Leonard to find the man who is responsible for his wife's death and he meets strange and interesting characters along the way.

To keep in line with Leonard's condition, Christopher Nolan writes his screenplay out of order and mixes up the chronology so the audience can pay attention to important plot details, get invested in the mystery, and mix the pieces of the puzzle on their own. If the movie were written in a linear fashion it would get monotonous and there would be no suspense.

In contrast to the non-linear narrative, Nolan also shot the film in color with black and white segments. The color sequences are told in reverse order of the plot while the black and white sequences are in chronological order. The black and white sequences are important to the story because we were given important plot details indicated on the Polariod photographs and the tattoos and Leonard's body before the film goes back into color.

What also distinguishes Memento from the other linear stories is the level of character depth. Most movies tend to have flawed people learning to redeem themselves and change the course of their own lives. With the case of Memento, it's grounded in reality and the characters are manipulative towards each other. They always lie, cheat, abuse, and murder. It goes to show the audience that people like these characters do exist and there's very little they can do to redeem themselves and develop as people.

This adherence to a more realistic depiction leaves us a little unsure of our typical good and evil archetypes. While Leonard is certainly the protagonist of the film, it's ambiguous as to whether or not we should consider him a hero or a villain. Just as in real life, where heroes and villains are defined by perspective than anything tangible, we're left unsure as to whether or not Leonard is truly justified.

Although the main essential elements are present in both the film and short story, the short story is radically different than the film. In the short story, the main character's name is Earl, not Leonard. In the short story, Earl is convinced by his own notes, escapes from the mental institution, and finds his wife's murderer. The film's ambiguous approach to storytelling is much better than the short story.

All the performances are first rate. Guy Pearce is perfectly suited for the role of Leonard. Joe Pantoliano is terrifying as the scheming undercover cop who helps Leonard into solving the murder. And Carrie-Anne Moss is electrifying as the woman Leonard is seeing during the course of the mystery.

Memento might be difficult film to follow and understand but it gets more interesting as the plot goes along and the more we see the film often, the more we can be able to understand it after repeated viewing.

RATING 4/4

Rover Dangerfield (1991)

Rodney Dangerfield was one of most popular comedians of the 70's and 80's. His stand up act, including his "No Respect" routines, made millions of people laugh and has given good performances in movies like Caddyshack (1980) and Back to School (1986). As the 90's come around however, he began appearing in watered down family films and that's the case with the animated feature, Rover Dangerfield.

Dangerfield came up with the idea with the intention of making a hard R rated animated comedy that's more in line with his stand up act. But Warner Bros reportedly watered the film down into a G rated animated musical for a broader family audience. Probably after animation was completed, the studio was beginning to lack confidence in the film and decided to give the film a very small theatrical release in the August dumping ground of 1991. The box office results were unknown but the film seemed to disappoint critics, Rodney Dangerfield fans, and animation fans alike, though it seems to have an audience after home video and television broadcasts. Is the film underrated, or should it get no respect?  Let's find out!

The film centers on Rover Dangerfield, a carefree, wisecracking dog who belong to a friendly Las Vegas showgirl named Connie (Shawn Southwick). After he discovers that Connie's boyfriend is a crook, he gets thrown into the Hoover Dam, but he survives, takes shelter on a farm, makes new friends, and wisecracks throughout the entire movie.

Right there we have a problem with the character of Rover. He's a one-dimensional, unfunny, and obnoxious bore. He constantly wisecracks, speaks up lame one-liners, and tells a lot of jokes that would work on stand up comedy, but they just don't work on a movie like this. Consider this scene for example, a group of wolves attacks a turkey while Rover comes to the rescue. He scares the wolves away but the turkey is dead. Rather than feeling sorry, he performs a puppet show with the dead turkey while the man who owns the farm believes Rover killed the turkey and points a shot gun at him. This scene is not funny. It's stupid, unnecessary, and disturbing if they're gonna make a family film.

Speaking of tonal inconsistency, for a movie that Warner Bros watered down a potentially adult animated film for a family audience, they surprisingly failed to do so. Granted there's no swearing and blood but we have the aforementioned dead turkey joke and scantily clad Las Vegas showgirls at the beginning of the film and it's slapped with a G rating instead of a PG somehow. Now, I don't have a problem with family movies with adult content, but if the film's tone and mood is confused, I really have a short fuse.

The musical numbers are really weak. They range from stupid, annoying, and forgettable. Rodney Dangerfield can be a talented singer. He made his own cover on "Twist and Shout" for Back to School. But the songs really just don't work. The worst song in the film is "I'll Never Do It On A Christmas Tree" (obvious sexual innuendo in the song title is obvious). It's annoying, lame, and Rodney's singing talent just really doesn't through.

The only positive thing I can say about the film is the decent animation. I like the colorful Las Vegas setting and the warm landscape when Rover gets to the farm for shelter. There's even some good use of CGI in the film, especially in the opening shot of the film as the "camera" follows the starry Nevada landscape to Las Vegas. But that's all I can say positive about.

Overall, Rover Dangerfield is a one-joke, unfunny, and annoying animated film that would probably turn of Rodney Dangerfield fans as much as casual movie goers and animation fans. This film deserves no respect, and deserves to be forgotten.

RATING 1.5/4

Birdman (2014)

In the mainstream population film can be often looked at as entertainment and not much more. We see movie theaters packed on opening weekends for tent-pole productions of the next big franchise or continuation of one. Whether it's Star Wars, Justice League, or Thor: Ragnarok, there's a catharsis that comes with the popcorn blockbuster. It may be the cinematic equivalent of scrolling down through your Facebook newsfeed, but it's bright and flashy and fun and doesn't require a lot of effort to interact with. Rather than being a reflection of the truth of our own lives, we're given large set pieces, neon color palettes, and quirky, yet unrealistic dialogue. We're not given reality, we're purposely removed from it.

Conversely, in Birdman, we're given a film that works to portray it's story in a realistic way. One way it attempts to do this is the use of tracking shots. Tracking shots are shots when the camera focuses on the characters while the camera is moving. The camera either moves backwards, forwards, or sideways while the characters are walking or running. Director Alejandro G. Inarritu mostly films Birdman in one long continuous shot to realistaically show the audience the pains and pleasures of creating a stage adaptation of Raymond Carvers' short story, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love".

The camera follows the characters as if the audience is following them and their lives. As a result, we become fascinated with what the characters are doing and it adds a voyeuristic feel to the story. As opposed to the gimmick like approach of found footage films, Inarritu is able to use techniques to evoke these feelings. There's also something to be said for the meta-commentary of using Michael Keaton in the role of the protagonist. Keaton's (who played Batman in the late 80's and early 90's) mere presence reminds us of the parallels of this character and the real world person playing him. The soundtrack and use of jazz music also increases the emotional and creative impulses that the characters are going through and makes the audience tense.

The movie focuses on the troubled production of the stage adaptation of one of Raymond Carver's short stories because they're not suited well to film. They focus on the characters talking to each other from one location to another, which would work well on stage but will bore audiences when put on film. Dialogue is something we do over a dinner table, it's not always viewed as something we need tons of in film, let along being a major part of the content. We believe the main character, Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton), has a connection to Raymond Carver because he admires them and wanted to take a break from making superhero movies. With his career becoming stagnant, Riggan wants to prove himself to be a true artist, and distance himself from the pigeon-hole he's been put in. But considering how Riggan was a big Hollywood star in his early career, he might have a difficult time convincing the audience that he can make art while battling his own ego.

The film's subtitle "The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance" represents the ignorance of what other people want in their lives and how self-important certain people in the art business have become.

Pulling these elements together we get a clear picture of what the film is trying to accomplish. By giving a sense of grounding and paralleling with a protagonist who has spent most of their artistic career creating work so far from the condition of our day-to-day lives, the film is able to evoke a felling of duality. We are able to see both sides - the big, bombastic production of the superhero genre - and the lack of trust in the very building blocks of our own reality to be interesting. We are left wondering where the line between the two truly lies and which people would rather spend their time in.

RATING 4/4

Coming Soon: The Summer Movies of the 1980s

Inspired by a RetroJunk article series about The Summer Movies of the 1990's, I'd figure I should do a similar series, this time focusing on The Summer Movies of the 1980's. I choose the 1980's because after seeing so many 80's summer blockbusters, I began to believe that the 80's is the golden age for summer blockbusters.

Now keep in mind, this series might be hard for me to do as I have to see a lot of movies, do research on the movie's history and subject matter, and come up with my own opinions on them. Plus, real life often gets in the way, so it might take a long time to finish every entry in the series. And last but not least, I'm gonna be focusing on the movies I saw. If there are movies you are expecting to be in this series and is not there, it will indicate that I never saw them but I will review them on it's own and there will be no updates on the series. Re reviews on some of the movies might be necessary if I feel like reviewing them in depth.

Probably starting on either Christmas break or early 2018, I'm going to start the series with The Summer Movies of 1980. That summer had Luke Skywalker learning that Darth Vader is his father, The Blue Brothers making their first movie, and Bill Murray chasing a gopher in a golf course. The Summer of 1980 had it all.

No Country for Old Men (2007) (Spoiler Warning)

Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel No Country for Old Men deals with themes involving fate, doing what you feel is right, greed, and violent consequences by showing them to us rather then telling us how to feel about them. The novel shows parallels between man and nature, often foreshadowing the natural course of things without needless exposition as to what that truly means. We, as a reader, are left to describe that ourselves.

The Coen Brothers captured these themes with the same kind of ambiguity while also staying true to the source material. The opening landscape shot shows us desolation while Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) questions himself through narration on whether or not he did the right thing. The lack of music adds realism and adds to the theme of desolation very well. The ice cold lighting at some of the night time scenes fit Anton Chigurh's (Javier Bardem) personality perfectly and the light blue lighting at the motel shows us the deep trouble Llwellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is about to get from Chigurh. And the sunny Texas landscape and the harsh yellow lighting at night remind us of hellfire.

Both the book and the movie left important questions we're asking open for interpretation so we can figure it out ourselves. For example, why did Llwellyn take the drug money? In both the book and the movie Llwellyn is shown to have slight reservations about taking the money, hinting at the fact that he knows the stakes of the game he's about to be playing. He does it anyway. We can venture to guess why without being told. His current conditions, living in a trailer park, not seeing much of a future for himself, providing for his young wife. All of these are obvious factors in his decision making, while simultaneously crafting a real, breathing character.

The Coen Brothers also used a lot of symbolism in this film, such as silhouetted reflections on an old TV set. The first reflection shows us Anton Chigurh, which gives us the impression that he's more than a murderous psychopath. The second reflection shows us Sheriff Bell, who later questions whether he did the right thing or not. Both reflections show us different characters in both men. Chigurh wears his normal clothes while Sheriff Bell is in uniform, showing us that Bell goes by the law and Chigurh makes his own rules yet both characters are doing what they think is right. There is also something to seeing both of these characters in the same setting at slightly different times. Nothing is different except the man sitting there. It allows the audience to focus on the extreme differences in the characters themselves. 

Chigurh is an interesting character both in the movie and the book. He's very creative, he makes his own rules, and he views his victims like cattle. This gives us the impression that he might be The Grim Reaper, more a specter than a man. Take a look at his famous coin toss for example. If the victim guesses heads or tails correctly, his or her life would be spared. If he or she loses the toss, the victim would parish. To Chigurh, this dichotomy is fate. He is not one choosing what happens, he is merely enacting what he views as destiny. This very tense scene is unsettling and allows us a clear view into the way Chigurh's mind works.

Through The Coen Brothers' commitment to ambiguity and faithfulness to the original text, we are given a movie that is able to translate deep themes from a book to the silver screen. It is not often that we, as an audience, are given films that are as rich, or as textured as the work they were able to put together.

RATING: 4/4

Fight Club (1999) (Spoiler Warning)

Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club and it's film adaptation from David Fincher shows us the horrors of masculinity and how it can lead to violent activities. We, as a society, have been raised in a stereotypical masculine culture, the reflection of which can be seen in action movie stars, athletes, or superheros. But the characters Fight Club takes masculinity to the extreme with their foul language, their massive and brutal battles with each other, and their war against a capitalistic American society.

Common masculine stereotypes can be attributed to a short temper, the use of violence to solve disputes, fights in public places such as bars, and rough language. But Fight Club doesn't glorify and romanticize masculinity.

The Narrator (Edward Norton) expresses complete cowardice earlier in the story. He works at a boring job, which often affects his insomnia very badly, and he doesn't stand up to his boss (Zach Grenier). He doesn't really become a stereotype of masculinity until Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) enters his life and they decide to run a business in which oppressed men learn how to be a man by fighting each other. David Fincher shoots the fight sequences in dark areas with bright yellow lights to give the audience the feeling that the characters are like savages from hell, so while the movie does embrace violence, it does show the negativity that can come from it.

Fight Club also focuses heavily on the idea of extremism. Nietzsche once stated that the more civilized our society becomes, the weaker each individual becomes in terms of their willingness to endure physical consequences. The formation of the Fight Club was originally cathartic, intended to open the participants to a truer connection to reality. This opening, however, allowed for the extreme ideals of its creator to easily be adopted by those following him. Just as in a terrorist organization, where extreme rhetoric is used to conform the followers, Tyler Durden uses the rhetoric of Fight Club to align his followers with his end goal.

In the context of the story, terrorism is being used against our capitalist society. As the Fight Club progresses, Tyler Durden begins to form a group called Project Mayhem, which declares war on capitalism. They overfeed doves so they can defecate on brand new cars, they cause property damage such as wrecking cars, and blowing up electronic stores, and they beat up complete strangers while they are at work. But the terrorism isn't glamorized. Fincher still uses unsavory color palettes for sequences of Project Mayhem at work.

The true conclusion of both the book and film should be clear. Our Narrator eventually realizes that he himself is Tyler Durden. The parts of him that had felt quelled by the advancement of civilization in the worst possible ways. These manifestations led him down a dark path believing that your ability to damage and destroy defined your true effect on the world. This parallels with our contemporary traits of masculinity, that our ability to effect charge and have a true position is proportionate to our strength. It also parallels with groups in the real world who, when feeling oppressed, resort to violence (or terrorism) to achieve their goals. There's something intrinsically ironic, however, that in Fincher's film the majority of people in Project Mayhem are white American males, a group who in no way experiences actual oppression. It's as if it was purposely to show purposelessness of their actions.

Once our Narrator realizes the consequences of the actions in the book and film, he sets out to stop them. We, as an audience, are supposed to take the position of the Narrator. We are shown the lure of violence, of resorting to our basest instinct when we begin to feel lost in the world. But we are brought to the conclusion that these actions are not the best course to take, they merely result in more pain and destruction. Fight Club holds a mirror up to our faces and asks if what we actually like to see.

RATING: 4/4