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Psychedelic Oggles Joel Schumacher's THE NUMBER 23 (Starring Jim Carrey)!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Merrick here...
Psychedelic's back with a quick look at THE NUMBER 23, Jim Carrey's new film.
This is a return to dramatic territory for Carrey who, in general, frustrates me. I feel like there's a lot of talent waiting to be mined, but he rarely finds the right vehicle through which to convey it (I thought THE TRUMAN SHOW was heading the right direction but missed the mark -- it shouldn't have revealed the TV-show nature of Truman's existence to the audience before the character learned about it). Sounds like THE NUMBER 23 also doesn't quite make it, but isn't a complete wash either.
And, GASP, this directed by Joel Schumacher, who just got hooked up with a new film about a Nazi vampire! Schumacher is very hit and miss (more "miss" than "hit")...and it's kind of hard to pardon anyone who brought us BATMAN FOREVER and BATMAN AND ROBIN...but Nazi vampires!?!? That's pretty high on the cool-o-meter.
Here's Psychedelic...
Hey Harry and Numerologists,
They watched in every wall. Cartoon eyeballs slid from cracks cackling secret codes. As they coalesced into a solid figure, I darted into the Pacific Galleria 16 for a screening of The Number 23.
Jim Carrey is in serious drama mode as a dogcatcher whose world becomes unraveled. He’s a few moments late meeting his wife (lovely Virginia Madsen) at a bookstore and she picks up a novel for him called The Number 23. The book throttles his soul. 23 bongs around his head inciting an obsession that may or may not lead to dark deeds of the past.
Carrey and Madsen are wonderful. Along with Logan Lerman as their teen son, they ground this dark psychological thriller in humanity when it could easily fly off far-fetched. Even at that I heard a few unintended laughs near the end. Don’t examine the plot too closely.
This is almost a textbook example of the likeability and familiarity of the star (Carrey) lending sympathy to the character when he becomes extremely neurotic. For the ultimate example, see James Stewart in Vertigo.
The Number 23 is compelling and held my attention all the way through. But I never became emotionally involved. Maybe it’s because it’s purposely unclear where the danger is coming from. Maybe it’s because it drags in the middle (too many redundant scenes) and needs to get to the ending twists sooner. The movie is easy to shrug off once out of the theatre.
Yet I can feel the director reaching so hard to spin a rapturous web; it’s almost there. I was surprised to discover that the director is Joel Schumacher. This is his best movie in a long time. Schumacher’s career is uneven to say the least. I sense he could have been some wild maverick director if he’d been able to shake off some of Hollywood’s more bloated excesses. Here’s hoping he can turn The Number 23 into a full blown rabbit out of the hat.
Glitters in the granite swarmed with cartoon sperm. Eyeballs giggled down the escalator as omens of conception loomed on the Daliesque dawn.
-Psychedelic
Look for THE NUMBER 23 February 27, 2007.
They watched in every wall. Cartoon eyeballs slid from cracks cackling secret codes. As they coalesced into a solid figure, I darted into the Pacific Galleria 16 for a screening of The Number 23.
Jim Carrey is in serious drama mode as a dogcatcher whose world becomes unraveled. He’s a few moments late meeting his wife (lovely Virginia Madsen) at a bookstore and she picks up a novel for him called The Number 23. The book throttles his soul. 23 bongs around his head inciting an obsession that may or may not lead to dark deeds of the past.
Carrey and Madsen are wonderful. Along with Logan Lerman as their teen son, they ground this dark psychological thriller in humanity when it could easily fly off far-fetched. Even at that I heard a few unintended laughs near the end. Don’t examine the plot too closely.
This is almost a textbook example of the likeability and familiarity of the star (Carrey) lending sympathy to the character when he becomes extremely neurotic. For the ultimate example, see James Stewart in Vertigo.
The Number 23 is compelling and held my attention all the way through. But I never became emotionally involved. Maybe it’s because it’s purposely unclear where the danger is coming from. Maybe it’s because it drags in the middle (too many redundant scenes) and needs to get to the ending twists sooner. The movie is easy to shrug off once out of the theatre.
Yet I can feel the director reaching so hard to spin a rapturous web; it’s almost there. I was surprised to discover that the director is Joel Schumacher. This is his best movie in a long time. Schumacher’s career is uneven to say the least. I sense he could have been some wild maverick director if he’d been able to shake off some of Hollywood’s more bloated excesses. Here’s hoping he can turn The Number 23 into a full blown rabbit out of the hat.
Glitters in the granite swarmed with cartoon sperm. Eyeballs giggled down the escalator as omens of conception loomed on the Daliesque dawn.
-Psychedelic
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HE GAVE BATMAN NIPPLES! someone was going to say it eventually...
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http://www.twentythree.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_%28number%29 -
That's the Val Kilmer one, right? Best of the original series. Then there's Lost Boys, The Client, A Time To Kill, Veronica Guerin, Falling Down, Flatliners- Guy can make a great movie when he's got a great script.
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Its in every movie. Its usually awkwardly put in (Waynes World is one example). Its always an important number as well. This movie just confirms it.
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He tends to give slightly too much in his roles. Too much expression, too much emotion, too much reaction etc. In his case, less would definitely be more. There's a lot of talent in him though.
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with the above comments. If you read the original screenplay, you'd see that it actually opens with a cast meeting discussing upcoming plot points, and gives away way too much. Peter Weir is really the mastermind of that film, changing it to where you saw very little bits of interviews at the beginning, but then letting you watch Truman discover the full nature of the show. It works perfectly, if you ask me.
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Outside of Dumb and Dumber and Me, Myself, and Irene, Jim Carrey has pretty much done no wrong. And The Truman Show, Man on the Moon, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind were among the best films of their respective years. You are right on one point. A film like Truman where you didn't know it was a show until later could be an interesting film, but it'd be a different film entirely. Don't fault the movie for going in the direction that it did. Also, keep in mind that that was Carrey's first dramatic-like role. Most audiences probably would have turned on him if he did an Eternal Sunshine-like performance.
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And it was booooring and far-fetched. A very safe, dragging version of THE MACHINIST.
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There would have been no way to market THE TRUMAN SHOW without the "his life is a TV show" reveal, so it would have been pointless to withhold that reveal in the film and have the audience ahead of the plot for the first half of the film. It still avoids showing exactly how the strings are being pulled for the first half of the film, which keeps the audience watching. But without the setup, the moment wouldn't have been pregnant and there would have had to have been some kind of false conflict to keep the audience watching.
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That sounded like it would have been fantastic. Carrey and Burton... Seems like a good match to me. Throw in the ridiculousness of the Ripley's Believe It Or Not universe and I'll buy my ticket right now. To keep the thread, though; I'm not as interested in this project, but I liked ETERNAL and TRUMAN and to a milder degree, his slapstick comedies (MASK was my fave of those). I hope that when Jim gets into his later years, he can do real drama. I think he'll have it in him by then.
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You wouldn't call this "real drama?" I'd call it the best dramatic proformance of the year. Too bad Oscar hates Carrey.
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I caught this test screening the other night as well and it was just ok. Started off good with the set-up and 23 concept but after a while got very repeatative and hit you over the head with every 23 reference. Like a register that had $23.06 on it in the background of a shot. But before the scene was over, Schumacher couldn't resist but give you a close-up of the register and then a look on Carrey's face like "Holy shit! Another one!" Plus the big reveal and explanation at the end took up like half the movie. I was like, "I GET IT ALREADY! I got it 20 minutes ago." Too bad b/c the concept was interesting.
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Man on the Moon - made me forget what the real Andy Kaufman even looked like.
Eternal Sunshine... - if you have a heart and a brain this movie was a masterpiece. period.
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