Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Posted on June 30, 2015 by jaycluitt

Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) is an introverted guy who has difficulty making eye contact with people, let alone asking them out. One Valentine’s Day, on a random impulse, he ditches work and heads to the beach in Montauk, where he keeps seeing a girl in a bright orange sweatshirt with even brighter blue hair. Her name is Clementine (Kate Winslet) and, despite their vastly contrasting personalities, they spend the day together, and the next. Alas, all is not great in their world, however, and sadly their relationship ends when, on another impulse, Clementine decides to erase Joel from her memory using a little known company who specialises in a very concentrated form of brain damage. Joel opts to undergo the same procedure, but it doesn’t quite go as planned when he decides mid-operation that he might have made the wrong decision.
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There’s Something About Mary/Dumb & Dumber

Posted on October 17, 2011 by jaycluitt

Say what you will about directing brothers Peter & Bobby Farrelly (Kingpin, Me, Myself & Irene, Shallow Hal, Stuck on You, Hall Pass), but at times their combination of prat-falls, worst case scenarios, extreme gross-out humour and stellar casts of ensemble comic actors can occasionally work out well, with these two films being pick of the bunch.

The humour may go a tad too far for some) laxatives, urine drinking, masturbation and an excruciating penis-in-zipper-moment), but by ensuring their actors play the roles straight, and staying just the right side of plausibility make sure these films serve their intended purpose, as light-hearted comedy. If anything, it’s the small moments that make these films excel, be it a disc-sanding pedicure in Dumb & Dumber or the infamous spunked-up hair-do in Mary, as well as simple yet spot-on puns and wordplay (“a rapist wit”), and the casting is such that the central actors could not be replaced without seriously jeopardising the characters they play. So yes, the Farrellys have made some duffers in their time, but they’re worth enduring if occasionally they crap out gold like this.

There’s Something About Mary Choose film 7/10

Dumb & Dumber Choose film 8/10

The Truman Show

Posted on April 26, 2011 by jaycluitt

The central concept of the Truman Show, that a man (Jim Carrey, in one of his first reined in roles) is being unwittingly filmed every minute of his life for a reality TV show/, is genius, and on the surface appears well thought out. Round the clock feed is funded by blatant in-show product placement, the town of Seahaven where Truman lives is encased in a giant dome, complete with ocean, and almost everything in the show is set up to keep Truman satisfied with living there, from regular news bulletins and reminders from friends that they live in officially the greatest town in the world, to travel agents displaying posters of planes being struck by lightning, proclaiming “It could happen to you!” The shows creators have even created a fear of water in Truman, by having his father drown and making it Truman’s fault, but if you look closer there are some fairly major faults with the show. Firstly, it makes sense to give Truman’s best friend a menial job, as it requires little skill, but why make his wife a nurse? Surely it’s possible that she may need to see to someone in the presence of Truman, as shown when he goes to see her at work. This is also true of the coach-driving extra, unable to drive a coach, but the main issue here is why there is a coach station at all, when it’s never going to be used, and there not present in every town, even in the US.
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