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I've always known that something was missing in my world I just wasn't sure what it was. Now I know. Control. My world is too chaotic, too random. Anything can happen, everything is a possibility. Nobody is in control. Finally, someone has given me a glimpse into my utopia. The glimpse is the new Jim Carrey film, The Truman Show. A tragic tale of a man who has everything laid out for him and he has to go and muck it up. Jim plays Truman Burbank, a man who has spent his entire life, from birth, as the unknowing star of his own television show. He has been raised in the world's largest sound stage and every moment of his life has been choreographed and filmed. Everyone he knows, from his friends to his mother and father, are actors, every situation in his life has been scripted, without his knowledge, and every major decision, from where to live to whom to marry, has been made for him. Lucky guy. Yet, as all tragic heroes, he stumbles across an idea of the truth and spends the entire movie fighting to uncover this incredible plot. Idiot, we shout! Leave well enough alone! Your world is perfect, why try to leave? Why indeed? His world has no crime, no poverty, no war. He is married to Laura Linney, a total hottie, and has wonderful friends (or at least one) surrounding him. His is a life of pastoral bliss. Why screw it up? Such is his tragic tale. Were it me, even if I figured out that my life had no meaning, I'd recognize my lot and be thankful. I'm married to a Babe! I live a worry-free life in a great little seaside town! And if I ever needed to feed my ego, I could just remember that everything in the world revolves around me! How cool is that? Alas, for Truman, it is not cool enough, and we are left to wonder if it is, in fact, mankind's lot to strive for perfection, even if perfection is under his or her nose. What is bliss? I like to think that bliss is lying on a beach with three or four half-naked Victoria Secret Models at my side. And this is perfectly possible in Truman's world, not that he cares. Others may think that true bliss lies in a baby's sweet smile. Well heck, the show's creator is rooting for the world's first on-camera conception. How cool is that? Ah well, it is fatal character flaws like these which drive us to the cinema. And as a work of cinema, The Truman Show ranks way the heck up there at the top of my, or anyone else's list. It is a magical movie. Magical in the tragedy that it shows, in the pathos of it's pivotal and central character. And magical in the fact that Jim Carrey spends the entire movie without speaking through his butt. 4 1/3 Babylons. Still, I want to assure any possible innovative TV execs out there that this premise is a viable one. And I offer my services as a test subject. Lock me up, turn on the lights, and cast me a Hollywood Babe to have as my very own. I'll be amusing, I promise! I'll be awaiting your call. Editor's Note: How ever long I work for The Critic, I never understand how he sees the world. I mean I just don't think he "got" this movie. But then he never really understood Gandhi either. He kept wondering why "That little Indian Guy didn't just grab a gun and start poppin' the Brits!" Heathen. The Truman Show |
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