The Truman Show

Year of Release:  1998
Director:  Peter Weir
Screenplay:  Andrew Niccol
Starring:  Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor, Ed Harris
Running Time:  103 minutes
Genre:  Science-fiction, comedy, drama

Truman Burbank (Carrey) lives a contended life with his wife Meryl (Linney), in a seemingly idyllic coastal town of Seahaven Island.  However Truman begins to suspect that something is very strange.  A spotlight falls from the sky, almost hitting him.  A homeless man bears a striking resemblance to his father who died 22 years earlier, and is quickly hustled away by seemingly random passers-by.  His car radio picks up a strange transmission that seems to describe his exact movements, and rain falls only on him.  Added to that the odd behaviour of his family, friends and neighbours.  In reality, Truman Burbank is the unwitting star of the world's top-rated television show.  Since birth he has lived his life in a vast set, and everyone he encounters is an actor playing a role.  Every minute of Truman's life is orchestrated by the show's creator and executive producer Christof (Harris) and broadcast live around the world twenty-four hours a day.

This is an enjoyable and intriguing film, which is surprisingly prophetic, foreseeing the explosion in so-called "reality" television.  While the film isn't very funny, it is enjoyable and very clever, managing to marry entertainment and big ideas.  The film is very stylish, imagining the look of Truman's world as a bright, all-American "white picket fence" small town, with Christof's control room hidden in the Moon.  Jim Carrey gives a charismatic performance in what was really his first major dramatic role, Laura Linney plays the actor playing the part of Meryl, hiding her true feelings behind a huge fake smile, and cheery demeanor which occasionally slips, also of note is Ed Harris who seems to be channeling Steve Jobs as the sinister Christof.  While the story mostly takes place in Truman's world, as he slowly begins to understand the nature of his reality, it is interspersed with sequences in the show's control room, and the reactions of the viewing public.  The film tackles some big themes such as the nature of reality, identity and media manipulation.

Jim Carrey in The Truman Show 
 

It Chapter Two

Year of Release:  2019
Director:  Andy Muschietti
Screenplay:  Gary Dauberman, based on the novel It by Stephen King
Starring:  Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean, Bill Skarsgard
Running Time:  169 minutes
Genre:  Horror

Twenty seven years after the Loser's Club confronted the evil shapeshifting "It", the killings and disappearances start again in the small town of Derry, Maine.  The town's librarian, Mike Hanlon (Mustafa), believes that It has once again resurfaced, and contacts the rest of the Loser's Club: Horror writer Bill Denbrough (McAvoy), fashion designer Beverley Marsh (Chastain), architect Ben Hanscom (Ryan), stand-up comedian Richie Tozier (Hader), businessman Stanley Uris (Bean) and risk assessor Eddie Kaspbrack (Ransone).  All of them vowed to return if It appeared again, but now they have forgotten that long-ago summer, and as adults may not be able to recapture the power that kept them alive as children.

The 2017 film It went on to become the highest grossing horror film of all time, and so a sequel was inevitable, although this isn't really a sequel, because the first film only adapted the first part of Stephen King's mammoth bestseller, and this film adapts the conclusion.  This is long, unwieldy and has some great moments but, when it's bad, it is really really bad.  One of the main problems is that it is never particularly scary.  Bill Skarsgard does well for the most part as Pennywise the Dancing Clown (It's favourite form) and his scene with a girl at a baseball field is genuinely chilling, but he sometimes verges on just being goofy.  It has numerous opportunities to kill the Loser's Club which It doesn't take.  Also it is full of surprisingly bad CGI, which looks more like something from a video game.  Also it is full of misplaced, clunky humour, which evaporates any tension or suspense.  There is a running joke throughout the film where Bill's novels are criticised for their weak endings, another gag involves a reference to The Thing (1982).  The cast are mostly okay, with Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy being the standouts, although Bill Hader has some powerful moments.  The thing is that the characters are affecting as children in the first film, but are much less so here where they are adults in their forties.  Also they come across as pretty obnoxious at times.  The child actors from the first film (Chosen Jacobs as Mike, Jaeden Lieberher as Bill, Sophia Lillis as Beverley, Jeremy Ray Taylor as Ben, Finn Wolfhard as  Richie, Wyatt Olef as Stan and Jack Dylan Grazer as Eddie) reprise their roles in the many flashback scenes.  Stephen King has a small role as the proprietor of a secondhand shop and acclaimed director Peter Bogdanovich has a cameo as a director, working on an adaptation of one of Bill's books.
The film opens very strongly and the ending has real emotional weight, and there are some good moments sprinkled throughout.  Mostly however it is pretty disappointing.

Bill Skarsgard in It Chapter Two

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Year of Release:  1975
Directors:  Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones
Screenplay:  Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin
Starring:  Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin
Running Time:  92 minutes
Genre:  Comedy

England, 963 AD:  King Arthur (Chapman) searches for the bravest and most noble knights to join him at his court at Camelot.  After eventually deciding not to go to Camelot after all because "it is a silly place", Arthur and his knights are visited by God who gives them the quest to find the Holy Grail.  On their way they will face rude French soldiers, the Knights who say "Ni", the almost certain temptations of Castle Anthrax and the world's most lethal fluffy bunny rabbit, to say nothing of the deadly Beast of Aaaargh!

This was the second film from British comedy troupe Monty Python, who rose to fame with the television series Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-1974).  Their first film, And Now for Something Completely Different (1971), was really a compendium of sketches from the TV series that were reshot on a slightly higher budget.  Holy Grail departs form the sketch format of the TV series by having an actual plot, albeit a very loose one.  The episodic nature of a quest narrative makes it perfect for a string of loosely connected sketches, it gives the Python team an opportunity to riff on and play around with anything they like as long as it is vaguely connected to the Middle-Ages.  This is a film where the gags start right at the opening credits, and keep coming thick and fast throughout.  Full of endlessly quotable lines that have kept schoolkids and office bores going for over forty years, this is one of the best comedies ever made.  It does have slow patches, and some jokes work better than others, but mostly it's an absolute treat.  The film is also visually strong, despite a minuscule budget, with an appropriately filthy Medieval look, and some impressive fight scenes, as well as terry Gilliam's distinctive surreal animations.

Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Michael Palin in Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Year of Release:  1962
Director:  John Ford
Screenplay:  James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck, from a short story by Dorothy M. Johnson
Starring:  James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O'Brien
Running Time:  123 minutes
Genre:  Western

In the Old West, idealistic lawyer Ransom Stoddart (Stewart) arrives in the remote frontier town of Shinbone.  On the way his stagecoach is held up and Stoddart is brutally beaten by vicious local bandit Liberty Valance (Marvin).  Ransom is determined to bring Valance to justice.  However, the local marshal (Andy Devine) lacks the courage and the skill to tackle Valance and his gang.  The only one willing to stand up to the bandit is tough local cowboy Tom Doniphon (Wayne).  In Doniphon's view, the only way to stop Valance is with a bullet, but Stoddart, who doesn't even carry a gun, is determined to bring Valance in alive and by the book. 

Filmed in crisp black-and-white, this late John Ford directed Western is one of his best, and a classic of the genre.  James Stewart is in good form as the idealistic lawyer who tries to civilise the tough frontier town by opening a school, and trying to teach the townspeople about politics and Government.  John Wayne is well used as the gruff cowboy.  Wayne was not a particularly good actor, but he had a lot of presence, and Ford always managed to get the best out of him.  Vera Miles is very good as Hallie, the cook and waitress who attracts the attention of both Stoddart and Donophin.  She gives the role some real depth and emotion.  Also worthy of note is Lee Marvin as the snarling, savage Liberty Valance.  The film is bookended by sequences set twenty five years later which are effective but unnecessary.  This is a surprisingly dark film, and quite ambiguous towards the end.  It does have slow patches, but it has some real tension, and a lot of humour.  Considering it is a John Wayne Western it is surprisingly progressive, and has a real elegiac feel about the beginning of the end of an era and the beginnings of the modern United States.

Lee Marvin, James Stewart and John Wayne in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance