Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Kurt North, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.
This time, Peter Weir’s The Truman Show.
Truman Burbank has the perfect life. He has a good job, a loving wife, a charming best friend. He lives an idylised existence, one where he wants for nothing. However, a series of freak occurences jolt Truman out of his blissful world and force him to confront a potentially horrifying reality: what if everything that he knows is just an elaborate lie?
At time of recording, it was ranked 177th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.
Show notes:
- Recorded 30th March 2020.
- Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
- The Truman Show at The Internet Movie Database.
- The IMDB Top 250 as it appeared at time of recording.
- Follow Kurt on Twitter.
- Listen to Kurt on The Time is Now.
- Listen to Kurt on Pick Up a Podcast.
- Sean Fennessey at The Ringer offers a profile of Jim Carrey, June 2017.
- Alan Siegel at The Ringer charts the impact of Jim Carrey on nineties comedy, August 2019.
- Peter Weir and Jim Carrey discuss collaborating on The Truman Show with The Los Angeles Times, May 1998.
- Peter Weir and Jim Carrey reflect on the legacy of The Truman Show with Vanity Fair, June 2018.
- Matt Fagerholm at RogerEbert.com discusses the use of Philip Glass’ score in The Truman Show, February 2016.
- Brian Rietzell discusses the impact of Philip Glass’ Powaqqatsi on his work with Vice, September 2014.
- Erik Heine at The Journal of Religion and Film on the use of music in The Truman Show, March 2014.
- Alex Ross offers an introduction to the music of Philip Glass at The Overture Blog, January 2017.
- Philip Glass talks about modern music with The Guardian, May 2009.
- Judy Brennan at The Los Angeles Times explores exhibitors anxieties about Jim Carrey’s decision to commit to The Truman Show, April 1997.
- Richard Natale at The Los Angeles Times reports on studio anxieties over budget and box office on The Truman Show, June 1998.
- Richard Natale reports on the box office success of The Truman Show for The Los Angeles Times, June 1998.
- Erika Milvy at The Los Angeles Times reports on Paramount’s viral marketing of The Truman Show, June 1998.
- Robert Welkos at The Los Angeles Times on the packaging and preselling of The Truman Show to audiences, June 1998.
- Kenneth Turan at The Los Angeles Times reports on the “hype” and “backlash” cycle around the release of The Truman Show, June 1998.
- Kenneth Turan at The Los Angeles Times names The Truman Show as the movie of the year, December 1998.
- Monica Lewinsky compares her life to The Truman Show in The New York Times, February 1999.
- Gil Kaufman at MTV News discusses Kanye West’s fascination with The Truman Show, September 2013.
- Andrew Marantz at The New Yorker discusses Kanye’s processing of reality through the lens of The Truman Show, September 2013.
- Tom Jolliffe at Flickering Myth on the desire of comedic performers to be taken seriously, June 2020.
- Bernard Weintraub at The New York Times offers an account of the development of The Truman Show, May 1998.
- Robert Welkos at The Los Angeles Times reports on the sale of The Truman Show as a spec script, October 1993.
- Peter Weir and Jim Carrey discuss the development of The Truman Show with Newsweek, June 2018.
- Simon Brew at FilmStories reports on Gary Oldman’s test footage of The Truman Show, April 2020.
- Paul Brownfield at The Los Angeles Times on the contemporary resonances of The Truman Show, June 1998.
- C. Brian Smith compiles an oral history of Taxi Cab Confessions for HBO, November 2018.
- Paul Goldberger at The New Yorker looks at the town of Seaside, as featured in The Truman Show, June 1998.
- Kevin Charles Redmon profiles Andrew Duany, the architect of New Urbanism, for The Atlantic, May 2010.
- Sven Birkerts at The Atlantic on the rejection of nostalgia in late nineties hits like Pleasantville and The Truman Show, November 1998.
- Matt Singer at The Dissolve on how Jim Carrey’s belief in “the Law of Attraction” affects his screen persona, August 2013.
- James Parker at The Atlantic on Jim Carrey’s screen persona as an existential clown, December 2008.
- Brian Lowry at The Los Angeles Times reports on the arrival of Big Brother on American television, February 2000.
- Padraig Cotter at ScreenRant looks back on The Joe Schmo Show, September 2019.
- Tom Jacobs at Pacific Standard on how reality television warps the viewer’s perspective, September 2013.
- Ben Lindbergh at The Ringer on the secrets of “the winner’s edit” on reality television, May 2020.
- Riley McAtee at The Ringer on how Survivor handled its sexual assault episode, November 2019.
- Jeff Nisbet at Time argues that Donald Trump is the first reality television president, December 2016.
- Jennifer Gerson Uffalussy at The Guardian on the exploitative nature of reality television, July 2014.
- Kurt Andersen discusses how America lost its mind at The Atlantic, November 2017.
- Sarah Kershaw at The New York Times looks at the emerging “Truman Show Delusion”, August 2008.
- Tom Leonard at The Telegraph looks at the way in which reality television shaped the “Truman Show Delusion”, November 2008.
- Nate Lavey at The New Yorker takes a look inside the “Truman Show Delusion”, September 2013.
- Howard Rosenberg at The Los Angeles Times on the voyeurism of nineties television talk shows like The Jerry Springer Show, June 1998.
- Harmon Leon at Vice tries to lie her way on to The Jerry Springer Show, January 2015.
- Joan Smith at The Guardian on the media circus around Caroline Flack, February 2020.
- David Sapsted at The National looks at the life of Jade Goody, March 2009.
- Roger Ebert invokes Diana Spenser in his review of The Truman Show for The Chicago Sun Times, June 1998.
- Jim Carrey talks to Roger Ebert and The Chicago Sun Times about what drew him to The Truman Show, June 1998.
- Clayton Purdam at The A.V. Club argues that the internet trapped everybody in their own version of The Truman Show, June 2018.
- Mark Dunn accuses The Truman Show of stealing his idea in The New York Times, June 1998.
- William Norwich at The New York Times reports on plagiarism accusations against The Truman Show, February 2004.
- David Chute in The Los Angeles Times reports on the connection between The Truman Show and Secret Camera, June 1998.
- Josh Planos at The Atlantic reports on the town of Hogeway in the Netherlands, November 2014.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: backlash, blockbuster, comedy, drama, hype, jim carrey, kurt north, nineties, Peter Weir, reality, reality television, the truman show, unreality |
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