Amazing 70s Rock Opera

When I say amazing 70s rock opera musical, the first thing that comes to mind is probably this:

You might even conjure up ideas of this if you happen to be an aficionado of 70s rock opera musicals:

Oh you poor, poor person. When I said amazing 70s rock opera, what I really meant was amazingly weird 70s rock opera. Sorry about the bait and switch, but bear with me, this should be… interesting….

Back in the 50s and into the early 60s, musical movies were all the rage. Huge names like Elvis, James Dean, and even the Beatles were participating in cranking out fun, but campy musical experiences for audiences to enjoy.Interestingly, the timeline of musical movies parallels somewhat the existential timeline of disaster films. I guess we were just really into spectacle way back in the day no matter what form it took.

Much like disaster films, musicals started to see a decline in popularity as the decades wore on. Even potential heavy hitters like Hello Dolly!, based on the hit stage play, and Star!, featuring Julie Andrews, failed to generate profit by the end of the 60s, and so by the 70s, the trend was winding down. That’s not to say that the genre didn’t have a few more tricks up its sleeve, but the wave had crested and was definitely dying.

The 70s represented a time when our sensibilities in film were undergoing a major change. Gone were the days of camp and glitz. In the 70s, people started seeing films that were more real, had deep rooted themes, and that forewent the lighthearted romp for the often dark psychological exploration of the human condition. What I’m trying to say is that the 70s were a weird time for film. Movies were at a point where they needed reinvention in order to thrive, and that definitely showed. Instead of spaghetti westerns starring chiseled-jawed heartthrobs fighting a definite evil, you now got grizzled anti-heroes who worked mostly outside the law, and sometimes you couldn’t really decide who was the bad guy.

Now that we’ve taken a look at the landscape, let’s get back to it. In case you hadn’t surmised by yet, we’re not looking at Rocky Horror Picture Show. We’re not even looking at Hai. No, today we’re looking at the half baked cousin of these and other 70s movie musicals, The Phantom of the Paradise. I promise, I’m not trying to torture you here. But having just watched it, I have to ask myself, “What did I just watch?”

Aren’t we off to a good start? So as the title might vaguely suggest, Paradise is loosely based on the novel Le Fantome de l’Opera. I point that out because this movie came out in 1974, which is a number of years before the the musical stage play debuted. That said, the story centers on Winslow Leechy, who becomes the titular phantom. Winslow writes a cantata and about a man named Faust who sells his soul to the devil to be the best magician in the world. Let me stop here. This is the plot of the film, sort of, so this aspect of foreshadowing is so blatant that it’s just silly. Okay, let’s continue. There’s a megastar music producer who calls himself Swan who steals Winslow’s music and decides to use it to open his club, the Paradise, hence the title.

Still with me? Good. So Winslow meets a young woman named Phoenix who is auditioning to be in his cantata and he’s trying to meet with Swan. This meeting sparks romantic feelings on Winslow’s behalf towards Phoenix. Since I’m doing the summary, we’ll montage a little. Swan gets Winslow put in jail, Sing Sing of all places because this movie has no shame, and Winslow’s teeth are pulled out in some sort of experiment, which answers the question of where Jared Leto go the idea:

Winslow hears that Swan is producing his cantata using a blatant Beatles knock off and breaks out of *Sigh…* Sing Sing. He breaks into Swan’s record pressing factory and destroys a bunch of stuff. In the process, he gets caught in the record press and half of his face gets severely burned because this is a reimagining of the other story, after all. Then after being presumed dead, Winslow sneaks into the titular Paradise, dons a weird costume and proceeds to blow up the Beatles rip off band. They do somehow survive though. Fast forwarding a little, Swan talks Winslow into rewriting the cantata for Phoenix, and Winslow agrees. He’s locked in a room with a super sweet, probably, Moog modular synthesizer, where he rewrites everything. Surprise, surprise Swan had no intention of letting Phoenix star in the show and instead contracts Beef, a blatant Meatloaf rip off to do it instead.

Once Winslow finishes the music, Swan steals the final bits from him while Winslow is sleeping. Swan has a brick wall built over the door to Winslow’s Moog dungeon, and everything appears to be going to Swan’s plan. Ugh. Winslow breaks out, eventually kills *not* Meatloaf, and Phoenix finishes performing the show opening night. Swan signs a contract with Phoenix and she’s promised that she’ll perform the show for the rest of her life. Anyway, Swan wants more freedom so he plots to have Phoenix assassinated during some sort of to do. Winslow, in the meantime, finds out that Swan sold his soul to the devil in order to be young forever because why not? Winslow burns the contract, releasing Swan from it and taking away his immortality. Winslow then thwarts the assassination attempt, and Swan is killed in the process. Due to a suicide attempt earlier, Winslow also dies, and that’s more or less the end of it.

Okay, that was a little painful. However, it’s not all bad. This movie made zero sense a lot of the time. It was really weird. There were some odd uses of split screen, some disorienting set design choices, and some unfortunate use of audio phaser technology. There were also some really interesting set design choices though. Despite a lot of failings, I still managed to enjoy a number of aspects of this movie, especially working in the music business. There great allegory going on with the Phoenix character, who allows herself to be seduced by the attention and the promises of fame that she receives. Swan is an excellent representation of big business music as he wants everything you are without owing any compensation. The entire movie in itself could even be seen as a metaphor for how disco tried to wreck music. Sorry, but it kind of did. This is substantiated by a surprisingly good score, written by Paul Williams, who is pretty prolific. Look him up.

Along the positive side of things, there is a decent variety of musical styles represented in the movie, and the movie does have some fun poking these various genres in a time when Led Zeppelin, Ozzy Osbourne, and the like were changing the face of music. There are also good, somewhat honest portrayals of the music industry at the time, and types of hazards that came with working in that industry. It all makes for a mostly enjoyable watch that often leaves you scratching your head. It’s worth noting that this movie was directed by Brian de Palma. If you don’t recognize the name off the bat, you will recognize some his work, which includes: Carrie,Scarface, The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible, and The Black Dahlia. He’s got a great track record, and that may have saved the initial ideas behind this movie, but sadly, there are definite issues, like as were mentioned before, but also, the acting can be flat at times, and the spectacle can be a little too over the top. I’m not going to recommend you see this one unless you’re already a fan of the genre, and I am sorry about the bait and switch earlier. Perhaps I’ll actually review Rocky Horror Picture Show some time in the future to make it up to you. In the meantime, we’re a mere two weeks away from the official 50th anniversary of the release of the first episode of Star Trek, and I’ve got a month long event planned that should be a treat so stay tuned!

Go Back to School with Billy Madison

It’s the end-ish of August and all around the USA, people are going back to school. For some that means going back the daily grind of compulsory school. Others might be entering the exciting and soul crushing world of higher academia, college. And for others, that might simply mean that you get to unload your kids on the state and take your first breath in nearly four months. No matter what your position, back to school season is a pretty exciting time, I guess. It’s the time of year that heralds in the end of the year, when we get to celebrate some pretty awesome holidays, like Kwanzaa, or Sun Yat-Sen’s Birthday. No matter what you choose to celebrate, back to school season gets things rolling in style.

I figured to celebrate this time of year, and to get us all in that back to school spirit, we’d look at an old classic about school and the important lessons that we can learn while we’re there. Billy Madison wasn’t Adam Sandler’s first movie. It wasn’t even the first movie where he got top billing, but ti was the first movie that I’m aware of that implemented his plucky underdog wins the day formula. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

The year was 1993. Many of the alumnists from Saturday Night Live were graduating out of that show and striking out to do their own projects. It was a really great time to see a comedy because you had names like Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, David Spade, Chris Farley, and Adam Sandler entering the theatrical arena in force. They were kicking comedy butt and taking names as they went. Sandler had done a handful of films previous to Madison, most of which are not memorable at all, with the exception of Mallrats. Madison was really his second really big film, and as I said earlier, he created what would become a really successful formula for himself.

The basic premise of the film is that Billy Madison, played by Sandler, is a 27 year old man child who lives with his dad in their mansion, and wastes his days on sunbathing, drinking, and looking at porn magazines. His dad owns a large chain of hotels and the family is quite wealthy. Billy’s dad decides that he wants to retire and Billy is unprepared to take over the company so dad decides to pass it on to another more conniving person instead. Unhappy with this decision, Billy makes a deal that if he can finish grades one through twelve in six months, he can inherit the company.

It’s a pretty straightforward premise, and it’s your standard hero’s journey structure. Of course, it’s got the Sandler twist to it from when he was making ‘good’ movies’. Let me just say that if you don’t like bottom of the barrel humor, this movie is definitely not for you. In fact, I had a really hard time sticking with it for this review. It definitely has its moments, but you’ll mostly be getting gutter humor and cheap laughs along the way. There are a few surprises here and there so let’s take a look.

First, the score is surprisingly fitting for the movie. There’s a feel of academic mockery underneath it that works really well. Sandler does a pretty good job acting in this film. He starts out a totally self-centered man child with no positive traits to speak of, and he plays it to the hilt. You just want to strangle him throughout most of the first act because he’s absolutely reprehensible. He does do a great job portraying the transformation into a more intelligent, selfless, and mature person as the movie goes along.

There are some great characters sprinkled in the movie. Miss Lippy, played by Dina Platias, is subtlety hysterical! She plays Billy’s first grade teacher and her sunshine and rainbows approach to passive aggressiveness is classic. The main villain, Eric Gordon, played by Bradley Whitford, isn’t a classic villain by any stretch, but he pulls off over the top annoying really effectively. He’s another character that you find yourself wanting to strangle as you watch, and you’re rooting against him the entire time. There’s a surprise appearance from an actress with an impressive pedigree, Theresa Merritt. If you’re not familiar, she’s probably best known for her portrayal of Aunt Em in The Wiz, and she played the titular ‘Mama’ in the 70s sitcom, That’s My Mama. She plays Billy’s maid in this film and it’s funny to see her trying to get Sandler to break character during their scenes together.

There are some good lessons to be learned about being a decent human being, and especially about treating others with kindness and respect. Although I’d say that the movie in and of itself is not quite intelligent enough to possess much of an overall theme, the lessons about kindness to one another are nice. There’s also some fairly inspirational stuff about working hard, and applying yourself to accomplish your goals peppered in there.

We could spend a ton of time on some of the bad aspects of this movie. Sandler had a ‘signature style’ back in these days that I’m still trying to wrap my head around. There were a lot of pointless detours from the main plot that just make no sense. There are unnecessary moments of creepiness that result in an array of WTF moments. There are characters that are so over the top that they effectively remove you from the movie as you’re trying to watch. None of it really makes sense, and all of it can be pretty annoying. The humor is crass, the jokes are often low hanging, and the acting can be hit or miss. So why is this even a remotely enjoyable movie to watch?

I think the reason that at least I come back to this film is that it taps into a longing that I have as an adult to return to the simpler times of childhood. How many of us look back fondly to those days when all we had to worry about was having fun, and being innocent to the ways of the world. For me, it takes me back to the excitement of making new friends, learning new things, and approaching those holidays that we discussed. I’m not much of an autumn/winter guy now, but when I was a kid, I lived for it. My favorite TV shows would start airing new episodes, I lived for Halloween, and I actually enjoyed the crispness of autumn back when my mind and body were more adaptable. There was a magic about being young during back to school season and in a miniscule way, Billy Madison captures that.

If Madison fails on every other level, it does succeed in helping me to get back in touch with my inner child, and that’s a pretty sweet victory. It does manage to keep a semi-coherent plot going, and the laughs are decent. It’s aged relatively well because that desire to just be a kid again is in all of us. We often long for it until it consumes us, but this movie lends a harmless outlet for a short time that we can revisit over and over to our heart’s content. Give it a watch for fun, and reconnect with the childhood that you left behind.

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: A Nifty Theory, I Think?

This meme more or less describes my relationship with Star Trek. I’ve soldiered through every episode of every series at least once, and when I finish, I just start all over again. I’m not terribly discriminating when it comes to the episodes that I’ll watch either. If they’re next in line, they’re getting watched. What I like about the experience, from a philosophical standpoint, is that as I gain more wisdom and insight, I start to see new things about these shows. That’s one hallmark of great science fiction. If you can go back and discover new things that you never caught before, then it’s great because it generates a relationship with the subject matter.

That said, I did an article not too long ago about Babylon 5, and all its various appendages. It was a really fascinating experience watching B5 from the perspective of a Star Trek fan. One of the primary reasons, as I explained, was the controversy surrounding the timing of the release of Deep Space Nine, and the general belief that the concept was stolen from that of Babylon 5. I’m not going to rehash that here, but what I would like to point out about B5 is that if you watch the main show and it’s movies, you’ll start to get the impression that the entire story was actually about Londo Mollari. It’s an interesting take on the storytelling process, using the one character to channel the ‘bad guys’, and making that character the real focal point of the show.

Now why do I bring this up? There are a couple of reasons. First, it’s been recently announced that the new Star Trek show, Discovery, is going to star a female lead character who is not going to be the captain of the ship. This has elicited grumblings from some people with very little imagination, and even less flexibility. That’s an important point because my second reason for revisiting Babylon 5 is to demonstrate that Star Trek has already used the formula before to great success. We all may not have realized it, but hopefully once you get done with this, you’ll start to see how things repeat in the meridian of time.

DS9 has been my Trek du jour for the last few months, and as I’ve slowly worked through other shows, I’ve also been working through this one in tandem because no matter how great a show is, sometimes you need a short break. Life got interesting as I was watching both Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine concurrently because I started to draw a lot of parallels between the two shows. Now, I’m sorry if you’re quicker on the uptake than I. If you’ve already made these realizations, feel free to take a week off. If not, get ready for some fun!

As previously stated, in B5, Mollari is the focal character of the show overall. It’s important to note that that does not necessarily mean that he was the focal point of each episode, just that in the grand scheme of things, he was the most pivotal character in the cast. All of the bad things that take place in that show are as a result of choices made by Mollari. In much the same fashion, the focal character of DS9 was not Sisko, but Dukat. If you look at the series on the whole, it really makes a lot of sense. Let’s do that. Let’s start at the beginning and look at the show on the whole.

At the beginning of the very first episode, The Emissary, Sisko is given command of space station Deep Space Nine to run in concert with the Bajoran provisional government, which was established following a decades long occupation of the planet Bajor at the hands of the Cardassian military. Guess who was the primary leader of Bajor at the time that the occupation ended? That’s right, it was Dukat. In the season four episode Indiscretion, we learn that Dukat has an illegitimate half Bajoran daughter. That’s not a detail that nails our point to the wall, but it does start to show a trend. As a protagonist, we’re given an awful lot of information about Dukat. Certainly, we’re given more that would be spent on just a minor character, but maybe we’re not given as much as would be given for our focal character yet. Still, it’s a start.

Next, in the episode Return to Grace, we find Dukat captaining a military transport. We learn that when news broke about his daughter, Dukat lost everything, again. He lost a lot of his credibility following the breakdown of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, but he lost everything following the revelation that he has a half Bajoran daughter. We find out that another officer has stolen his wife from him, he’s lost his children, and he’s been stripped of his social standing. By the end of the episode, he’s taken out a few ships that have encroached on Cardassian space, but this is all for not as far as his standing in society is concerned. He does, however, wind up with a sweet, sweet Bird of Prey so that’s something.

There are a few articles lurking around the web that talk about why Dukat is such a great villain and I’d like to echo some of their sentiment here. Dukat was only featured in 35 out of 176 episodes of DS9. That’s just shy of 20% of the total episodes, and yet, his influence can be felt at every major turning point of the series. He really is a great villain in that he wholeheartedly believes that the things he does are for a greater and better cause. His motivations are made pretty clear from the start as well. He simply wants to regain his former glory both within the Cardassian Union and the galaxy at large. He’s a man who’s absolutely driven by his ego in every imaginable way. What makes him really interesting is his willingness to work with his presumed enemies whenever he sees potential gain on his behalf. All of this behavior reeks of a megalomania that’s practically unrivaled in television history.

These points become important when we look at the grand scale of DS9 and the major events that happen during the series. Early in the show, around the third season, there’s a war between the Klingons and the Cardassians. Dukat puts himself at the forefront of this conflict politically in order to garner favor from his peers. When the Dominion first crop up in the Alpha Quadrant, the Cardassians are leery of supporting them. It’s only after Dukat does some political maneuvering and installs himself as a leader in the Cardassian government that Cardassia sides with the Dominion. When that ploy leads to the absolute subjugation of the Cardassian people and the installation of a Dominion controlled military government, Dukat flees to Bajor and attempts a union with the Pah Wraiths in order to turn the tide of war in his favor. It’s this last act that really pushes home my point home.

In one of the best finale moments of all time, Deep Space Nine does a touching walk down memory lane montage where they show some highlights from seven years of the show, and then we’re treated to the entire cast together one last time as they’re given their sendoff into the unknown future. It’s a scene that makes me misty eyed every time I watch it. However, that’s not where the show actually ends. Instead, Sisko has to go to Bajor, to the fire caves to finally put an end to all of the scheming that Dukat has done in the last couple of seasons. At first, I found myself wishing that the show had ended right after the montage, but I realized over time that the show hinges on Dukat and his struggle against Sisko. This really reinforces the idea that although we experience the show through many different eyes during its run, Dukat remains the key thread that holds the tapestry of DS9 together. Sure, he’s not featured in much of the show, but the effects of his actions drive the plot continually.

Perhaps I’m on to something, or perhaps I’m just nuts. But the theory certainly lends food for thought when coupled with the theory that DS9 borrowed heavily from the concepts behind Babylon 5. What do you think? Feel free to weigh in with your own theories!

The Truman Show... What a Movie!

I’m not sure where I developed my affinity for existential films that beg me to question my reality, but I see that’s been a theme lately, and if it’s getting kind of old, sorry, not sorry. I love movies that lead me to question what I think I know, movies that challenge how I perceive the world around me, and movies that cause me to dig a little deeper into my understanding of myself. Movies that can do that well force us to look inside and take stock, they help us learn, and most importantly, they can help us grow. What I’m saying is, those types of films are great. Movies like Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Groundhog Day really get me excited. But it’s really hard to do existential movies well, and I think that’s why I enjoy them so much. Go to subtle, and the messages are lost, which makes the film feel directionless. Go to heavy handed and the film feels to preachy and self-aware. There’s a fine line that must be walked in order to present a truly good existential film, and because of the rarity with which one sees them, I just enjoy them that much more.

I got to thinking about The Truman Show after watching an editorial by one of my favorite online reviewers, the Nostalgia Critic. He did a wonderful piece about whether a movie could be so good that it’s bad, and Truman Show just happened to show up in a brief list he flashed on screen. I saw this movie when it first came out and I remembered liking it, generally speaking, but it had been quite a while so I gave it another watch through, and holy crap is it awesome! At this juncture, I’ll point out that when it was released, Paramount was sued by a playwright who claimed that the idea was lifted directly from one of his stage plays, Frank’s Life. I’m not going to delve into the validity of that claim, nor could I find how the whole thing worked out. I only mention it because to me, it adds to some of the mystique of the film. That aside, let’s take a look at ourselves as we take a look at The Truman Show.

The film starts off with a pretty pretentious monologue by a character named Christof, played by Ed Harris. I won’t lie, at that moment when the film starts, I really felt like I might be in for a terrible experience. However, the pretentious, but brief setup puts us right into the life of Truman Burbank, our titular character whose entire life since before he was born has been recorded and broadcast 24/7/365. Brief, but painstaking efforts are made to give us the impression that Truman has a very mundane, and boring life; that each day plays out almost exactly like the last. This is important as it feeds into one of the major themes of the movie, which we’ll discuss soon. The day seems to be starting just like any other, when suddenly, an object falls from the sky. As the audience, we know it to be a stage light. Truman really has no idea what to make of it. During his commute to work, during which the radio DJ is literally having a conversation with him, the entire incident is blamed on an airplane. The movie wastes absolutely no time presenting us with plot and theme. It’s tasteful in how it does this. Nothing is said so long as it can reasonably be shown, and I really like that.

From that moment on, Truman starts to question his very existence and the life that he lives. His suspicions are further fueled by a chance run in with his ‘dead’ father, who died in a boating accident when Truman was a young boy. These types of fourth wall breaking events start happening more and more often as Truman’s behavior starts getting more and more erratic. Those around him start to believe that he’s having some sort of breakdown, and after a life threatening altercation, Truman’s ‘wife’ leaves him. After deciding that he’s had enough of whatever is going on in his life, and facing his deepest fears, Truman leaves the show that’s been created around him at the end of the film. I want to keep the synopsis brief for those of you who may not have seen this film, but at the same time, it’s going to be difficult to discuss certain things without delving into specific points of the plot. If you don’t want the film spoiled, perhaps stream this fine movie on Netflix and then come back to my review.

Obviously, every aspect of Truman’s life has been painstakingly engineered to serve just one purpose, to get ratings. There’s a fascinating aspect of this movie where we get to see the story from the point of view of Truman’s audience from time to time, and there’s a bar that shows the show constantly. In the bar there’s a sign that declares that The Truman Show has been on the air for 10,910 days. I did the math for you. That’s over twenty-nine years. That’s a lot of air time. But this is really where the concept gets interesting. It’s obvious that if the show was constantly the same thing day in and day out, that it would get cancelled pretty fast. As a result, the production team has to interject story arcs into the action,but out of necessity, they have to make it feel organic to Truman. That brings us to our first set of themes that I want to discuss. There’s an idea presented that the reality that we perceive to exist may not exist in the way that we perceive it at all. That’s the broad stroke of it. Just like Inception we’re challenged with the notion that perhaps life really is a dream after all. But like any great film, there are way more layers to the concept than just what’s on the surface. Through the premise, there’s commentary on just how much the media is able to influence what and how we think. There’s a question of just how much of our privacy, and indeed our very livelihood we’re willing to forfeit in order to maintain our lifestyle. These are thought provoking and poignant themes that perhaps we don’t think about often, but that we should revisit from time to time.

There are a couple of key scenes in the film where it’s revealed that Truman’s father died in a boating accident, the result of Truman himself steering them into a storm. Truman holds himself responsible and as a result is afraid to be over water in any way. He doesn’t even drive over bridges. On the other side of that manipulation is a chance encounter with a beautiful young woman named Sylvia whose real intention is to alert Truman to the fact that his entire existence is a lie. They share a brief moment and a kiss, and then he’s told that she’s moving to Fiji. Truman spends the rest of his TV days obsessing over Sylvia and Fiji. I bring this up because these two key scenes tie into another major concept of the movie. Truman goes through a process during the film where he evolves from simply accepting his life as it appears to be to really seeking the truth behind his existence. I find this most interesting because it’s a process that I think all of us need to undergo at some point in our lives. Truman makes a journey wherein he has to confront his demons, namely the death of his father and the responsibility that he feels over that event. Fortunately, he’s actually reunited with his father so that situation sort of resolves itself, but then he also has to face his deepest fear, the water that surrounds him. This process of facing our demons and our fears is crucial to the larger process of self actualization. As we continually confront who we are currently and try to reconcile that person with the person we wish to be, we evolve and we grow as an individual, and it’s through that evolution that we’re ultimately made free from our self-imposed bonds. It’s a fascinating psychological model. And it’s interesting that Truman is not able to start moving forward until the moment that he’s finally willing to face his real self and his reality as it actually exists. Once he takes his blinders off, then he can make progress. It’s all laid out very well, and it’s a very good lesson to learn. As a side note to that, one of the key points made toward the end of the film is that facing failure without giving up is one of the life lessons that we need to learn in order to be successful.

The other big theme of the movie comes as a result of the conversation being had between Truman and his audience. There are a handful of people that we’re told represent the audience watching the show and their reactions as the story unfolds really say a lot. This aspect of the film comments very well on our media obsessed culture, and I think that’s really interesting. You have to bear in mind that this movie was released in 1998. Reality TV was on the rise, but we didn’t yet live in the social media world that we live in now. The idea that we could literally keep track of our favorite stars 24/7 was a totally foreign concept, and yet here’s this film exploring what it means to be addicted to Hollywood and the media. I find the dichotomy of obsessed fans obsessing over a show in a movie that ultimately tries to suggest that we think for ourselves very compelling as well. The entire setup adds so much depth to the story, and it lends some great moments as well. When everyone is rooting for Truman to finally leave his show, it helps you to get invested in the action that’s going on. It also might leave you a little puzzled as you wonder why these fans who have invested years their lives to this show would suddenly want to see it end. It serves the plot well, and it does it in a compelling and even a fun way.

This is a film where one could go on and on about the themes. I did a little cursory research and I found page after page on the Internet where someone was analyzing the themes behind this movie. That says a lot about the cultural impact that it’s had’ Moreover, there’s now a subset diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder that is called The Truman Effect, whereby people suffering from the disorder believe that their lives are being filmed for TV and broadcast to an audience. Which brings me to the last interesting observation that I made while watching this movie. There is a little observation made about our tendency to be very self-centric in life. We often like to believe that we’re the hero in our own tale, and the movie asks just how healthy a belief that really is.

As I said, there are pages and pages of sites analyzing the themes of the film. I’d like to conclude by examining some of the technical aspects of the film. I have to say, I’m really impressed. The story and the plot are well crafted, and the overall execution of the film serves both extremely well. There are a lot of accomplished actors involved in the movie and each one gives a superb performance. The score is amazing. The shot composition is spot on. I’m not going to go so far as to say that it’s a technically perfect movie because I really can’t say that such a thing exists, but it is extremely well crafted. The film is nearly 20 years old and it took a Google search just a few days ago for me to realize that the movie is categorized as a science fiction movie. To me, it’s always just been a really great drama, but upon looking at it more closely, I can see how it might fit into the sci-fi genre as well. It’s very rare that a movie is one thing, but that it doesn’t feel like that thing. Normally, I might mark points against a movie for missing it’s identity so blatantly, but in this case, that actually works. By not feeling like sci-fi, a much broader audience got exposure to the thought provoking concepts that the movie covers.

As a parting thought, absolutely give this movie a watch. It’s smart, it’s deep, it asks some interesting questions, but most of all, it’s inspiring. It’s definitely worth the watch. I promise that you won’t be disappointed!