The Cable Guy (Infotainment)
An Under-appreciated movie.
The first time I ever saw this flick, I found it to be mildly funny because of Jim Carrey’s usual silly shtick. This was when I was, maybe, 6-7 years old. When I got the blessing of having Cinemax for free this week (an event I wait every year for), I got to see it again, unedited, as a teenager (young adult?).
I now appreciate this movie more than ever before. I suppose it was Carrey’s first toe in the water of dramatic acting (he plays a tragic psychopath, for crying out loud), and I found that I enjoyed this better than…most “other” movies (see: The Majestic). It definitely gets its message across (that humans [Americans] spend just too much time and care on Television), and this message is just as true today as it was in the mid 1990s. The fictional case portrayed in the movie about the guy who killed his twin brother (who was a famous child actor) could be related to any of the other news stories that we waste our lives paying attention to (from OJ to MJ). All of these distractions to real life. Infotainment.
It’s ironic, how the very message this movie tries to convey is told through a movie. A kind of poetic irony, I suppose.
Anyway, PS, if you haven’t seen this movie for a while, I suggest you watch it once or twice more. If not for the message, just for the entertaining formula of Jim Carrey, Matthew Broderick, Jack Black (one of his very early movies), and Ben Stiller (his directing debut, I believe). As the first “frat pack” movie (reportedly), it is definitely one “Black Comedy” worth seeing.
Amber Howard said,
October 14, 2008 at 3:15 PM
Ah cable guy must have been one of my favorites as a child, I’d watch it once a month with my brother. I just recently re watched it and i was a bit disappointed with the movie, my memory’s held it so high then it suddenly dropped. Jim is still amazing, but he has his better times.