Add
to the long list of 20-year overnight successes in show business the name of Jim Carrey. Or
James Carrey, as he is billed in some of the 20 film and television appearances
he has made to this date.
Twenty credits seems an unbelievable number for someone who burst upon the
scene only a couple of years ago in that nutty comedy Ace Ventura: Pet
Detective. Yet it says right here in the Internet Movie Database (enter
this into your Web browser and you’ll get one of several sites with the same
info) that he first showed up in 1983 in something called The Sex and
Violence Family Hour. His first credit possessing any visibility came in
1984 in Richard Lester’s somewhat disappointing comedy, Finders
Keepers.
Today, of course, the same Jim Carrey who played bit parts in such films as
Once Bitten, Peggy Sue Got Married, The Dead Pool, Pink
Cadillac and Earth Girls Are Easy is now the jillion-dollar star of
comedies tailored specifically to his talents. And if some studio wants to pay
him the equivalent of the gross national product of some not-so-underdeveloped
countries, that’s their business. It’s not as if he has failed to deliver the
goods at the box office. Ace Ventura, The Mask, Dumb and
Dumber and Batman Forever were great successes thanks to his
contributions.
Whether he is delivering the goods in the sense of evolving his talents is
another proposition. While I yield to no one in my admiration of the first
Ace Ventura, which was kind of like an old Jerry Lewis comedy thrown
into warp drive, his subsequent films tend to leave a viewer wanting more —
and not just more of the same.
You don’t have to tell me that tinkering with success is risky business, and
in the case of blockbuster comedies perhaps even downright stupid. But even the
most easily amused eventually tire of seeing the face metamorphose into a
thousand wacky poses, of hearing the famous brush-off,
“Loo-hoo-hoo-hoo-SEEEERRRR!
His next film, The Cable Guy, opens this week. It will do terrific
business on Carrey’s name alone, and the buzz is that the film is not bad and
that co-star Matthew Broderick more than manages to keep up with the
scenery-chewing star. For some of us, and not just the extremely picky, this
will be show-and-tell time for Carrey. Can he manage to find new ways of
delighting his fans without abandoning the methods that have served him so
well? Can he assume a character — really assume a character — and still be
funny?
There can be little doubt he has it in him to do it. The question is, at $14
million per picture, will he want to?
n
If you’re a cable guy or gal you may have already heard that the Independent
Film Channel is coming to CableVision beginning June 18.
There is only one problem: For now the channel will be shown only on Round
Rock CableVision. Austin subscribers must wait until the cable company and the
city reach a new franchise agreement.
The desirability of a channel devoted to independent films is self-evident in
a place like Austin. With one of the smartest movie audiences anywhere, a large
market exists for foreign and off-mainstream films. Otherwise, the screens at
the Texas Union, Dobie, and Village wouldn’t be as busy as they are.
The Independent Film Channel has been available to DirectTV satellite
subscribers for a few months now. Programming is only at night, from 7pm-5am
local time. Usually, three films are on each night’s bill with each being
repeated once. On the day this is written, IFC will show Roman Polanski’s
Knife in the Water, Ron Nyswaner’s excellent Prince of
Pennsylvania and Amos Kollek’s Goodbye, New York. Other titles for
June include Life Is a Long Quiet River, Tatie Danielle,
Scorsese’s Who’s That Knocking at My Door, and two Luis Bu�uel
greats, That Obscure Object of Desire and The Discreet Charm of the
Bourgeoisie.
Satellite subscribers can also get the somewhat edgier Sundance Channel, named
for the institute founded by you know who. Here you’re more likely to see
things like John Cassavetes films and the grainy black-and-white movies of the
shoestring-budgeted mavericks.
A source at CableVision said that it is unlikely the service will provide two
alternative movie channels.
n
This is a minority view in the critical community, but Dragonheart strikes me as an almost perfect summer time-killer, especially for older
children.
The thing is so synthetic you can practically see the rivet lines; half the
time I felt like I was watching scenes from Monty Python and the Holy
Grail. Braveheart stirred the same memories, but in
Dragonheart you get the feeling that the artificiality is half
intentional.
It was especially pleasing for those of us who have watched Dennis Quaid sink
into the quicksand of self-parody to see this undeniably charming actor be,
well, charming again. We were heartened when the formerly burned-out or
distracted actor of Suspect, D.O.A., and Great Balls of
Fire! returned to form in Costner’s Wyatt Earp. His wry, emaciated
Doc Holliday was easily the best thing in one of the worst movies of that year.
He is very much fun to watch again.
The other remarkable thing about Dragonheart is, of course, the special
effects. It seems that through Jurassic Park, Jumanji,
Twister, and a couple others that escape memory, the magical art of
computer imagery has reached perfection. The beast in Dragonheart is as
real as anything on screen. No jerky movements, a la Ray Harryhausen; no fake
skins, no glassy, lifeless eyes, no servo-driven movements.
I’m just worried that, now that literally everything and anything can be
created on screen, we will grow jaded. Jurassic Park provoked gasps of
“how did they do that…?” Now, when a magnificent dragon sits down at a
campfire, cooks a chicken with a fiery breath and talks to the hero about life,
death, and morality with lip movements as lifelike and exact as if you were
talking, we take it for granted. n
This article appears in June 14 • 1996 and June 14 • 1996 (Cover).