12 Films of Christmas (Final Part)

We’re finally here, guys. The final part of this silly series of mine. We’ve talked about all kinds of christmas cheer. From the obnoxiously sweet “Elf”, to the not very cheerful “Bad Santa”, to the commercialism-critiquing “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, to the explosive and and violent “Die Hard”. It’s really been fun doing this.

This whole thing started with “The Grinch”, so it will end with “The Grinch”. It’s christmastime in Whoville, and everyone in town is overly excited for the holiday. Except for little Cindy Lou Who (Taylor Momsen) who just doesn’t get what the point of it all is. Oh, and the Grinch (Jim Carrey) hates it too. So he cooks up a vile plan to steal christmas from the people of Whoville. And is this any good? It’s… okay. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend like it’s one of the greatest christmas movies of all time, but I don’t think it’s one of the worst either. The biggest problem is that it takes a classic 25-minute long story and extend the runtime while also “modernizing” it. From 25, to 140. From simple humor about stealing christmas, to weird, early 2000s humor. Ron Howard directed this, but that’s quite difficult to tell. You could’ve told me that this was directed by Jerry Generic, and I would’ve believed you. It’s more concerned with weird late 90s/early 2000s filmmaking tricks rather than being interesting or making sense. Anyway, is there anything I like about this. Jim Carrey as the Grinch. Not only is the makeup/costume amazing, but his shtick works surprisingly well… even though it’s just Jim Carrey being Jim Carrey while wearing a Grinch costume. But he’s still enjoyable in the role. Taylor Momsen as Cindy Lou Who is adorable, and her performance is good… so that’s a plus. And there are some jokes here that land. Also, I like Anthony Hopkins’ narration. Not because it’s “inspiring” or “entertaining”, but more because I imagine it being Hannibal Lecter reading the story to one of his victims, and that makes this entire ordeal a bit more fun. So yeah, “The Grinch”… it’s average.

What are your thoughts on “The Grinch”? And what’s your favorite Jim Carrey movie? Leave any and all thoughts in the comments.
Merry christmas, happy holidays, and have a good one.

Movie Review: The Truman Show (1998)

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality. Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see…

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s… “The Truman Show”!

Insurance salesman Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) lives a pretty normal life with his wife Meryl (Laura Linney). But he soon discovers something very odd about himself and the world around him. And that odd thing is that his entire life is one big television show, running 24/7, thanks to the mysterious Christof (Ed Harris). And from that we get one of the most original plots every put to film. Sure, these days we have seen several different versions of the very same plot. Hell, even “Codename: Kids Next Door” did a parody of it. But back in 1998, this was some pretty revolutionary shit. But the twists and turns throughout are clever, and the ways that Truman puzzles all of this together is really engaging and interesting. It’s a pretty philosophical story too if you think about it, which makes it so much more interesting and great.

The characters in the movie are all very interesting and have a whole bunch of layers to them. Jim Carrey is honestly fantastic as the character of Truman. This is probably the best performance I have ever seen from him (Sidenote: As of the writing of this review, I have not yet seen “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, which people tend to call Carrey’s best movie). I honestly think he was the perfect pick for this movie, since he’s such a likable actor, playing someone who never chose to be the subject of this show. Laura Linney as his “wife” is great in her role. Noah Emmerich plays Truman’s best friend, Marlon, and he’s really good in the movie. And then we have Ed Harris as the ever watching Christof… and he’s great. Nothing else to say really, he’s Ed fucking Harris, he’s always great. Everybody’s great!

The score for “The Truman Show” was composed by Burkhard Dallwitz, with some help from Philip Glass. And let me tell ya… it’s some good stuff. It’s a mix of dramatic, whimsical, and surprisingly tense tracks. All of them perfectly fitting the scenes they were meant for. Often the tracks elevated the scenes they were used in to perfection.

This movie was directed by Peter Weir, a director who I haven’t really seen much from. The one movie of his I had seen prior to this was “Fearless”, and I loved that one a lot. But I gotta say that “Truman Show” is a very well directed movie. And the writing by Andrew Niccol was really good too. This movie isn’t a straight-up comedy, there’s a lot of dramatic stuff in it. But it is also a movie with plenty of funny moments, and a lot of feelgood stuff too, with a pinch of sad moments thrown in there. What I’m trying to say is that the writing gives us a bit of everything in regards to emotion.

This movie has been very well received. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a score of 94% positive rating and a “Fresh” certification. On Metacritic it has a score of 90/100. Roger Ebert gave the movie 4/4 stars. And on imdb.com it has a score of 8,1/10 and is ranked #209 on the “Top 250” list. The movie was also nominated for 3 Oscars in the categories of Best Supporting actor (Harris), Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.

“The Truman Show” was quite the awesome movie. It has an original and awesome story, really good characters, great acting, great music, great directing, and great writing. Time for my final score. AAAAAHHHHH! My final score for “The Truman Show” is a 9,90/10. So of course it gets the “SEAL OF APPROVAL!”.

My review of “The Truman Show” is now completed.

Good morning, and in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!