Topic: The Truman Show

From the makers of The Truman Show.

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One of my favorite films... this should be interesting.

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Ya know, I've never seen this all the way through. Maybe I should give it a whack

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Watching this with commentary when I get home. smile

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Enjoying the commentary so far guys but one quick distinction.

In the idea that this predated Reality TV as a phenomena, that's really only partially true.  MTV's The Real World had been on the air for 6 years by the time this movie came out, and PBS "An American Family," predates this by about 25 years. 

And while a large portion of Reality TV is quite sensationalistic and trashy, at its best reality tv has some merit.  Keep in mind, An American Family was the the first time an openly gay character was on television, which is even crazier considering it wasn't a "character," at all but a real person.

Also, while this was Jim Carrey's first real dramatic role, 1996's "The Cable Guy," was a fairly dark comedy, and stretched his talents a bit.  Also per Steven's comment that Jim might have had a fucked up childhood...not really.  While his family struggled a bit financially, he was very close with his whole family, especially his father.  Instead of watching a lot of TV, the family put on little shows in the living room.  That's where a lot of his performance instincts come from.

Eddie Doty

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Also...and I say this as someone who has worked on The Real World, the Real World house is NOT permanently on set.  The Los Angeles season of the real world was on a hollywood lot, and that was part of the show, they always acknowledged that it would be there.  Every other season has been in a real house in whatever city they are in.  In the Hawaii season, I lived about 15 minutes from where they taught, and worked down the street from where they worked.

Eddie Doty

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And again... most documentaries are made in much the same way as reality shows. 

As for how real reality shows are...it really depends on the show.  Ask me about Franken-bites sometime.

Eddie Doty

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8 (edited by Hansen 2010-08-16 20:44:06)

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Love the movie and mostly enjoyed the commentary.

So when the commentary started and Teague said he remembered liking the movie, but hadn't seen it in a few years, I predicted to myself that he'd end up talking himself into being dissapointed with it. Imagine how thrilled I was when I ended up being (sorta) right.

I didn't care for the ten minutes where you went on and on about how fake reality TV is though, because that's really a discussion that got old ten years ago.

Now I hope Trey shows up and expounds on his comments from the Dark City commentary where I believe he alluded to some problems he had with this one.


Oh, and people have not been saying 'fuck' for a thousand years.

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Three things.

1) Have you guys ever heard of that show "The Joe Shmo Show" where it's a reality TV show where everybody but Joe Schmo is an actor? Very much a comedy show but very much, like Truman, into how and who shapes what reality TV is.

2) For some reason, whenever I hear about "Idiocracy", I always hear someone mention Truman Show. I've never actually seen Idiocracy so is there a connection or reality TV there or are my sources just plain wrong?

3) Ed Harris is the fuckin' man. As far as him thinking this role out 2 years beforehand... he didn't. In fact, Ed Harris was a late addition to the cast because someone else dropped out. (Revealed in the special features) And with the short time he had beforehand, Ed Harris freakin' nailed it. For that alone, I will never lose respect for him (at least in that context).

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Jackal: As far as I can remember, "Iciocracy" has nothing to do with reality TV. It's about how the human civilization is currently at its peak, and how we are degraded, mind-wise in the future. It's not worth a look, it's utter crap.

Loved the commentary. The parts where you try to go on about 'if he grew up like this, he'd be used to it, and wouldn't question it' riddles me.

I mean, if I grew up in there, on an island, I probably wouldn't question anything. However, the fact that it seems to have connections to other places, albeit impossible to cross, is a tad annoying. If it was just an island, I don't think Truman would even question if there's anything beyond the horizon. He might've, once, but after that, I think he'd settle with the fact that this island is all there is. (If you've seen LOST season 6, you'll get what I mean) The problem is, however, that seeing as there were roads and whatnots to seemingly other places is what would trigger his curiosity. Every single time he tries to drive somewhere new, there's traffic coming out of nowhere, and whatnot.

The 'big brother' in me would very much like to see an experiment like this in the real world, but as a realist, It'd be cruel, terrible and downright torture for the poor individual.

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To hell with the island. Let's just raise a kid in a box.

Paging Dr. Skinner…

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Glad i listened to this if only for the Press Your Luck reference. I used to watch that show high. If anyone needs me, i'll be watching YouTube clips for the next 6hrs.

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Good track DIF-ers. On further review, 'Truman Show' was not as introspective as I remembered. Still, for 1998, it was pretty unique. Thanks to this commentary track, I immediately checked out "We Live In Public." I was disappointed that the 'Quiet' project was prematurely ended a month in by the authorities. It appeared the compound was on the verge of catastrophe.
What was more frighteneing was the parallel the doc director drew between 'quiet' and our current virtual lives. Equating the interrogation scenes with amazon suggestions was troubling. And Josh harris' remark about selling "'you' back to yourself," was pretty prescient. As usual, a DIF track leads me down the rabbit hole to other media. I will now go download Philip Glass' oeuvre'

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I liked this commentary. Just one very minor correction: The root of Sirius is not dog, it actually comes from the ancient Greek word for scorcher, due to it being the brightest star in the night sky and when it appears in the sky in relation to summer. It's called the Dog Star because of its prominence in the constellation Canis Major (Latin for greater dog).

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Satellite radio has lied to me for the last time.

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18 (edited by Jeffery Harrell 2010-08-19 16:07:31)

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Oh, you knew all along that I was gonna be that guy:

"Koy-ya-nees-kaht-see."

"Poh-wah-kaht-see."

"Nah-koy-kaht-see."

If you really wanna drive the chicks crazy, pronounce the q's with a Hopi accent. Touch the back of your tongue to your glottis and exhale while dropping your tongue. Kinda like a very soft k sound but farther back.

I'm a word nerd. But in my own defense I did grow up in a place where words like Atchafalaya and Tchoupitoulas are everyday parts of speech, so … yeah.

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wat happen

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I literally just saw that man 30 seconds ago.

Reedy, not the gentleman on the cup.

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