EdTV
This trip, "EdTV" with Matthew McConaughey, Jenna Elfman, Ellen Degeneres, Woody Harrelson and Rob Reiner. Written by Emile Gaudreault and Sylvie Bouchard, directed by Ron Howard. MPAA Rating R for sexually suggestive scenes, partial nudity and coarse language. Run time 122 minutes.
The premise for EdTV is simple enough: A cable network with drooping ratings decides to take on ultimate reality programming - they want to find someone who'll allow them to follow them around sixteen hours a day with television cameras - a sort of outed Truman Show. The show's producer, Cynthia Topping (Ellen Degeneres) and the station's top dog, Whitaker, (Rob Reiner) circle and strut until the decision is finally made to move on Cynthia's idea.
After auditioning all sorts of unlikely types, the poor schmuck they harpoon for the job is Ed Pekurny (Matthew McConaughey), an underachieving, unassuming San Francisco, All-American Male video-store clerk with a West Texas accent. He signs the papers, the cameras start to roll, and Ed drawls his way down the path to fame and fortune. On the way, though, he proves how unassuming he can be by trying to adjust to the constant eye of the camera in every facet of his life. For instance, it dawns on Ed that he's never before seen his butt on television. Well, we have now. Fortunately, the rube on the tube act doesn't last very long.
Ed's family is also tethered to whatever happens to Ed, and brother Ray, (Woody Harrelson) sees the sudden turn in fortunes as one big merchandising opportunity. Ed's family's dirty laundry is completely aired out live and in color. Ed steals Ray's girlfriend Shari (Jenna Elfman) on national television. Ed starts to get a following, then a rabid audience, then a cult of Ed. It's a lot of fun to watch the TV screens as Ed's show goes from a local program sponsored by a dry cleaners, to a nationally syndicated American media obsession sponsored by Fortune 500 companies.
In fact, EdTV is a lot of fun to watch anyway. It becomes obvious after a while that Ed has made himself a Faustian bargain that may well cost him his soul and then some. More importantly, the moovie asks some pretty valuable questions: What price fame? What do we value more - celebrity or heart? Ed has to learn to deal with fanatic followers, his inability to go anywhere unnoticed, and the tendency of the public media to slot everything it can into neat pollster-driven packages. Unlike The Truman Show, where a man in an ant farm discovers the plastic farmhouse, EdTV's subjects are victims of their own egos. They smile for the cameras, they mug for the cameras, they sell their lives to the cameras. Ed's fifteen minutes of fame becomes several months, and everyone gets caught up in the drenching tsunami of fame. The story explores the themes of lust and greed in a media-driven society, and usually without preaching.
McConaughey is totally believable, and Jenna Elfman sheds the dizzy image that she earned for herself with TV's "Dharma and Greg", and becomes a real person with character and depth of her own. There a few scenes in EdTV where Ed and Shari seem to lose themselves in each other, totally forgetting about the cameras - their chemistry works, and Elfman is excellent. Alas, Woody Harrelson gets plugged into yet another not-too-bright trailer-park hick character role, but he does it so well, and in a couple of places the entire moovie pivots on his self-centered, totally clueless machismo. Speaking of self-centered and totally clueless - no, I'm not going to kneecap Adam Sandler this time, the previews at the theater indicate Sandler's going to do it to himself - again. I'll get him next time.
Of course, since this a Ron Howard film, brother Clint Howard shows up yet again in a peripheral role, this time as "Ken" the "guy in the truck", the director that keeps all the cameras buzzing around Ed. Clint, a well-known and respected bald guy, has fully redeemed himself in my book, by an occasional running gag and a few tight shots about his bargain hair plugs made from dog hair. One of the last scenes of the moovie is a pull-back crane shot that shows the top of Ken's head. Funny.
The other Ron Howard trademark is a polished, tight ship. Everything in EdTV works to help tell the story - extraneous details need not apply. This is not say that it's a spare moovie - quite the contrary - Howard always builds his characters and their roles from scratch, and EdTV has a believable quality about it, except for the scenes in the headquarters of the EdTV Network, where Howard lets the comic sensibilities of phony American pop culture on a stick - where everything's for sale - shine through for what it is.
Outside some of the formulaic plot, this is a fun moovie to sit through. You won't worry about anyone giving away the ending, and there are few surprises , but there are a few nice twists and a fair number of good laughs sprinkled in. Goes well with a big ol' popcorn and a vat of Coke.
I gave EdTV two and a half cows.
The premise for EdTV is simple enough: A cable network with drooping ratings decides to take on ultimate reality programming - they want to find someone who'll allow them to follow them around sixteen hours a day with television cameras - a sort of outed Truman Show. The show's producer, Cynthia Topping (Ellen Degeneres) and the station's top dog, Whitaker, (Rob Reiner) circle and strut until the decision is finally made to move on Cynthia's idea.
After auditioning all sorts of unlikely types, the poor schmuck they harpoon for the job is Ed Pekurny (Matthew McConaughey), an underachieving, unassuming San Francisco, All-American Male video-store clerk with a West Texas accent. He signs the papers, the cameras start to roll, and Ed drawls his way down the path to fame and fortune. On the way, though, he proves how unassuming he can be by trying to adjust to the constant eye of the camera in every facet of his life. For instance, it dawns on Ed that he's never before seen his butt on television. Well, we have now. Fortunately, the rube on the tube act doesn't last very long.
Ed's family is also tethered to whatever happens to Ed, and brother Ray, (Woody Harrelson) sees the sudden turn in fortunes as one big merchandising opportunity. Ed's family's dirty laundry is completely aired out live and in color. Ed steals Ray's girlfriend Shari (Jenna Elfman) on national television. Ed starts to get a following, then a rabid audience, then a cult of Ed. It's a lot of fun to watch the TV screens as Ed's show goes from a local program sponsored by a dry cleaners, to a nationally syndicated American media obsession sponsored by Fortune 500 companies.
In fact, EdTV is a lot of fun to watch anyway. It becomes obvious after a while that Ed has made himself a Faustian bargain that may well cost him his soul and then some. More importantly, the moovie asks some pretty valuable questions: What price fame? What do we value more - celebrity or heart? Ed has to learn to deal with fanatic followers, his inability to go anywhere unnoticed, and the tendency of the public media to slot everything it can into neat pollster-driven packages. Unlike The Truman Show, where a man in an ant farm discovers the plastic farmhouse, EdTV's subjects are victims of their own egos. They smile for the cameras, they mug for the cameras, they sell their lives to the cameras. Ed's fifteen minutes of fame becomes several months, and everyone gets caught up in the drenching tsunami of fame. The story explores the themes of lust and greed in a media-driven society, and usually without preaching.
McConaughey is totally believable, and Jenna Elfman sheds the dizzy image that she earned for herself with TV's "Dharma and Greg", and becomes a real person with character and depth of her own. There a few scenes in EdTV where Ed and Shari seem to lose themselves in each other, totally forgetting about the cameras - their chemistry works, and Elfman is excellent. Alas, Woody Harrelson gets plugged into yet another not-too-bright trailer-park hick character role, but he does it so well, and in a couple of places the entire moovie pivots on his self-centered, totally clueless machismo. Speaking of self-centered and totally clueless - no, I'm not going to kneecap Adam Sandler this time, the previews at the theater indicate Sandler's going to do it to himself - again. I'll get him next time.
Of course, since this a Ron Howard film, brother Clint Howard shows up yet again in a peripheral role, this time as "Ken" the "guy in the truck", the director that keeps all the cameras buzzing around Ed. Clint, a well-known and respected bald guy, has fully redeemed himself in my book, by an occasional running gag and a few tight shots about his bargain hair plugs made from dog hair. One of the last scenes of the moovie is a pull-back crane shot that shows the top of Ken's head. Funny.
The other Ron Howard trademark is a polished, tight ship. Everything in EdTV works to help tell the story - extraneous details need not apply. This is not say that it's a spare moovie - quite the contrary - Howard always builds his characters and their roles from scratch, and EdTV has a believable quality about it, except for the scenes in the headquarters of the EdTV Network, where Howard lets the comic sensibilities of phony American pop culture on a stick - where everything's for sale - shine through for what it is.
Outside some of the formulaic plot, this is a fun moovie to sit through. You won't worry about anyone giving away the ending, and there are few surprises , but there are a few nice twists and a fair number of good laughs sprinkled in. Goes well with a big ol' popcorn and a vat of Coke.
I gave EdTV two and a half cows.
