The Truman Show is astoundingly great cinema, in part because it’s so much weirder than it needs to be. The premise alone, of a man’s entire life filmed and broadcast to millions from birth without his knowledge, is a tremendous hook to get you in the door, but a wide open one. It would be easy to adopt a clear and coherent take on the material with something like a sleek mystery-thriller or a teary melodrama, and end up with something great. But Andrew Niccol’s screenplay and Peter Weir’s direction refuse a simple take at almost every turn, even as they keep the tone lightweight. Instead, they linger in the contradictions, the strange textures, the tough questions about the stories we tell about ourselves. It’s a masterpiece with rough edges, and those quirks are a big part of the magic.

We meet Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey), who is the most boring guy you’ve ever met, interesting only due to his exposure. His prefabricated reality takes place in a fake town called Seahaven, which is all clean lawns, the chipper neighbors, the office job. On the surface, it’s not all that different from mundane American suburbia, fake as it is, which is the joke, of course. The line between a manufactured life and an authentic one is not just thin but unknowlable, and it cuts at the very core of the stories we tell about ourselves. Truman is Adam in his garden and Noah on his boat and Jesus ascending to the heaves. He’s also a weirdo with cartoonish neuroses bursting out of his limbs, because he is, after all, being played by Jim Carrey, whose elastic physicality here becomes a kind of argument for the soul trapped inside a sitcom body. Carrey plays a man on the verge of losing his mind, and part of the thrill is the suspicion that some of the insanity is hardwired into the performer, leaking through the character like light through a crack in the set.

And Weir is taking every visual swing he can to make the ideas stick. The film is a formal specimen as much as a narrative one. Relentless telephoto lenses compress Truman’s world into a claustrophobic flatness; irising and simulated security-camera angles constantly remind you that this reality is mediated, observed, owned. Meanwhile, the production offices where Christof (Ed Harris) orchestrates Truman’s life are rendered with freakish expressionism — a mad science lab perched on a fake moon, screens the size of a John Ford horizon, byzantine gadgetry and Metropolis-scaled autocratic infrastructure filling every frame of the “studio.” Harris plays the creator-god figure with chilling gentleness, a man who has confused control for love and surveillance for care. The contrast between his sleek lunar command center and Truman’s pastel-washed suburbia is, visually and thematically, one of the richest dualities in late-’90s cinema.

The film suggests some truly frightening ideas about the commodification of the human experience and the surrender of personhood to capitalism. Laura Linney’s and Noah Emmerich’s characters — Truman’s “wife” and “best friend,” respectively — deliver blatant product placement mid-conversation, and it barely feels unnatural, which is exactly the point. The Truman Show predicted reality television, yes, but in 2026 it reads even more clearly as a prophecy about social media: every life a broadcast, every moment content, every human connection potentially a transaction. And yet, for all of that thematic weight, the film generally has the texture of a fun caper. It’s a movie that manages to be simultaneously terrifying and buoyant.

The story could have explored a hundred different angles; I’d love to see a version that follows an extra or a stagehand, someone forced to build their entire existence around the whims and routines of a single oblivious guy. But Weir and Niccol chose the most direct and challenging one: the story of a “true man,” the center of all the commotion, whose craving for freedom and knowledge becomes a spiritual epic as much as a dystopian satire. Truman walking up those stairs and through that door in the sky is one of cinema’s great transcendent moments, simultaneously funny and devastating, silly and sacred. A total, undeniably peculiar, masterpiece.

Rating: **** (out of 4)

Stanley Donen’s 1963 film Charade has been described as “the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made,” and it would be tough to put it more elegantly than that. It’s a glossy, gender-flipped North by Northwest, with a healthy squeeze from the screwball comedy lemon. The result is a slick and silly spy story set in Paris with just enough intrigue to keep you hooked. It’s a film that thrives on charm—both in the impeccable craftsmanship of Donen’s direction and in the sheer magnetic presence of its two leads, Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.

Much of Charade’s immediate appeal comes from how ridiculously good it looks. The cinematography by Charles Lang bathes the film in a rich colorful sheen that makes Paris feel like a dreamscape. Every frame could come from a fashion magazine, thanks to Hepburn’s dazzling Givenchy wardrobe (not to mention legendary beauty) and Grant’s effortlessly panache. Their combined star power is intoxicating, and they carry the film with a kind of natural elegance that makes even its silliest moments feel effortlessly chic.

The screenplay by Peter Stone is a little slow to get moving, taking its time setting up the central mystery: after the sudden death of her husband, Regina Lampert (Hepburn) learns that he was involved in some dangerous business, and now three mysterious men (played by James Coburn, George Kennedy, and Ned Glass) believe she knows where a missing fortune is hidden. Enter part two of our romance, Peter Joshua (Grant), a sort of male fatale. Peter and Regina hit it off, but much like a good Hitchcock yarn, the audience learns Peter has more to his story than he reveals well before Regina.

Once the story gets going, Charade is buckets of fun, full of double crosses, excellent quips, and even a little of that ol’ Hitchcock suspense. The film constantly shifts between tones—at times playful, at times romantic, at times thrilling—but Donen keeps it all in balance. His Hepburn’s wide-eyed reaction shots to each turn are half the fun, balancing between genuine peril and lighthearted laughs. The mystery itself is a delight, with enough twists to keep the audience engaged without ever becoming convoluted.

That said, Charade doesn’t have the same underlying tension or psychological complexity as Hitchcock’s best work. It’s more of a stylish confection than a deep, psychological thriller, but it doesn’t need to be anything more than that to be immensely satisfying. If anything, its lightness is part of its appeal. Even in its moments of danger, there’s a knowing wink to the audience, a recognition that this is all part of the fun.

The film does have a few moments that border on the broad and silly—James Coburn’s exaggerated Texas accent is a particularly odd choice, and some of the villainous antics lean toward cartoonish. But none of this detracts from the overall experience. In the end, Charade is a near-perfect cocktail of wit, romance, and suspense, wrapped in one of the most stylish packages Hollywood ever produced. It may not be Hitchcock, but it doesn’t have to be—it’s Charade, and that’s more than enough.

Rating: *** (out of 4)

It’s too bad that basically any positive review of this film in 2024 needs to go on the defensive about the film’s premise, which would seem from a logline level to be “problematic” at best and “gruesome” at worst, because this is a really marvelous example of classic Hollywood musical. But, I’ll start with defending the story: Based on a book written by a woman and with a script co-written by a woman, this is not the sugar daddy, male gratification fantasy you might fear from the “anonymous older man donor” logline, and I’m pretty sensitive to such ookiness. Basically every beat and character dynamic is the best and least predatory version of itself, and the film addresses head on both its May-December age gap and the money-driven power imbalance with nuance and respect for Julie; honestly better than plenty of more recent films built with modern mores. The entire driving conflict of the film’s second half is the characters confronting the potential impropriety of the relationship and ensuring that Julie and Jervis’s love is authentic and earned. I find it notable that none of the female characters, least of all the liberated college women, have any issue with a 22-year-old falling in love with a charming and kind 50-something; it’s only the men obsessed with appearances who question the matter. (Plus, of course, Daddy Longlegs comes from a different time and you need to view it through 70 year old goggles. But even still, it holds up a lot better than it could have.)

With that out of the way, pretty much every aspect of Daddy Long Legs is stupendous. The production is gorgeous and huge, with outstanding Technicolor hues; I would kill to see this on the theater screen with a good projection. The choreography makes terrific use of the widescreen frame, and I just couldn’t believe my eyes that the takes were as long as they were, sometimes longer than a minute, yet the dancing so perfect (is that normal for these musicals?). The songs aren’t at the level of a Singin’ in the Rain, but how is that standard fair to any other movie? Astaire is sensational, but it’s Caron’s innovative, ballet-heavy dream sequence number near the end of the film that knocked my socks off. It’s better AND more narrative-driven and character-revealing than the comparable “Broadway Melody” if I may once again compare the film to the only studio-era musical I know inside-and-out. (I understand Daddy Long Legs to be unusual for not being an MGM production yet closely resembling that studio’s brand.)

And the non-musical stuff works well, much better than I expected. The script is well-structured and interesting, not just bones to get us from song to song; the acting is strong (Thelma Ritter showing up is always a treat); the ’50s college kid time capsule lots of kitschy fun. The story could have picked up the pace a smidge in the opening half, and the cast is maybe missing a giddy comic powerhouse third wheel (or maybe I need to stop just saying “this should be more like Singin’ in the Rain”). Ritter, Fred Clark, and Terry Moore collectively get you much of the way there, anyways.

The classic studio musical is a strange, somewhat forgotten beast of cinema, but Daddy Longlegs is close to a quintessential example of the format. It’s not the most iconic musical, nor the best, and it likely will never be beloved as the classics because of its dated premise, but Daddy Longlegs is a must for any musical lover.

Rating: *** 1/2 (out of 4)

Home Alone is forever a fan favorite and often listed among the all-time great Christmas comedies. I hate to be a Grinch, but Chris Columbus’s film is no masterpiece, though it has charm to spare by the end. Oddly, the film’s opening act is its best and most adventurous even though people mostly remember the third act. I especially love the way these early interiors are shot from Kevin’s perspective: the chaos and powerlessness of childhood rendered almost expressionistically. More than once, I was reminded of Murnau’s The Last Laugh. The exaggerated movement, the towering adults, and the sheer sensory overload evoke a child’s-eye perspective that feels at once surreal and deeply familiar. The filmmaking in this section is energetic and inventive, setting the stage for what should be an equally engaging journey.

The ending, of course, is justifiably iconic. It explodes into an almost cartoonish slapstick symphony that defies physics, logic, and basic human durability. If you’re going to spend twenty minutes watching two grown men get systematically and sadistically dismantled by household objects, it helps when those men are played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. Their chemistry and commitment to physical comedy elevate what could have been tedious sadism into a strangely joyful experience. There’s a reason this sequence remains burned into pop culture memory—it’s outrageously creative in its pain-delivery mechanisms, balancing cruelty with a near-Looney Tunes level of elasticity. If you’re going to watch a couple of hapless criminals get brutalized in increasingly elaborate ways, you could do a lot worse than these two.

However, everything in between these bookends sags under the weight of its own repetitiveness. It’s not just that the film has a predictable rhythm, but that it leans on the same beats and gags multiple times without variation. Conversations and jokes feel like they’re looping, not for emphasis but simply out of an obligation to fill time. The midsection drags, stretching what should be a zippy, tightly-wound premise into something baggy and overlong. I didn’t check the runtime, but I’d bet the actual home invasion sequence—the part everyone remembers—is packed into the final 10 to 15 minutes, meaning that a large chunk of the film is dedicated to setup that often feels redundant.

Much of this dead space is occupied by Catherine O’Hara’s subplot, which is less about entertainment and more about maintaining a sliver of plausibility. Her frantic journey home, while narratively necessary to justify the premise, never quite finds a compelling emotional or comedic groove—except, of course, for the scenes with John Candy, who, in a handful of minutes, injects warmth, humor, and effortless charm. The rest of her arc feels perfunctory, a way to make the eventual reunion land with a sentimental punch. But by that point, we’re already so deep into a heightened, kid-logic universe that realism is hardly a concern.

Culkin, to his credit, is better than expected, particularly in his moments of mischief. He carries the film with ease, his deadpan reactions and self-satisfied smirks making him more endearing than cloying. And if nothing else, John Williams’ score pulls everything together, lending even the slowest, most meandering sequences a sense of cohesion. Perhaps they should have let him edit the film, too.

Rating: ** 1/2 (out of 4)

This documentary about the history of ska music is a deliriously happy film that I personally connected to, so it’s very possible, even probable, that I’m overrating it. But this thing is a joy machine and a fastidious historical document, and I don’t just say that as an ex-marching band geek who loves music and good-time vibes and has very little sense about what is “cool” and “uncool.” Yes, I have predictably been to a bunch of ska shows, and count a handful of third-wave-ska-adjacent bands among my favorites, or at least formative favorites. But Pick It Up is really illuminating.

What is genuinely impressive about the documentary is how many people the crew interviews. It’s not just the quantity of subjects, but the breadth: Pick It Up! offers a rather complete cross-section of the noteworthy third-wave ska bands. Despite a decently thorough knowledge of third wave ska listening to a lot of it off filesharing services in my college and early-20s days, I actually had a hard time coming up with a major ska or ska-associated band from the ’90s without at least one band member offering a talking head or archival interview — only Sublime (who duly get bashed pretty hard here) and Op Ivy (who duly receive reverential treatment) came to mind.

There are some real deep cuts — Travis Barker talking about his time in Aquabats before joining Blink 182, for example. Some road-grinding legends offer great takes: Dan P and Scotty Klopfenstein and Jeff Rosenstock (!). The appearances, surprisingly, include many of the pre-’90s bands, too: the great 2-tone ska bands (like The Specials), and the transitionary figures (like Fishbone), and even a couple Jamaican first-wave legends. Hell, Tony Hawk shows up! (In reference to how Tony Hawk Pro Skater included Goldfinger, of course.) Biggest interview complaints: 1) no Tomas Kalnoky, 2) a bit too much burnt out Aaron Barrett.

So did the ska documentary really need to be over an 1:40 long, especially when it’s as light on concert footage as Pick It Up! is? Almost certainly not, but it really is stuffed with interesting reflection and tangents. You get a little flavor of the knotty story on how an offbeat, local scene could explode and hit Billboard, then implode and become a punchline.

And, most importantly, the film offers a spirited but honest defense of the genre. Yes, ’90s ska from Orange County was mostly white suburban goobers having fun on stage with their horns. They were in the right place at the right time to break out onto the national stage. Gone was the social message of even their direct inspirations, let alone the English and Jamaican protest music that defined the genre in the first place. But it was (and still is) a music fundamentally inclusive and positive and collaborative. Lots of joy in the music, lots of joy in this documentary.

Rating: *** (out of 4)

Hey Earn This friends and readers…

Back in 2009, a group of us started this blog during our senior year of college. 13 years, 22 writers, 900 articles, and 1.2 million readers later, we’ve entered adulthood and have all moved to bigger and (debatably) better endeavors.

I’m excited to share with you one such effort, my biggest nonfiction writing project since I started this blog 40% of my life ago…

My movie review web site, The Goods: Film Reviews. The site was soft-launched in 2020 but fully launched just a few weeks ago. The archive already includes several hundred reviews.

The site is a companion to the podcast that my fellow Earn This writer, Brian, and I started back during the pandemic: The Goods: A Film Podcast, which is nearing 100 weekly episodes when I write this.

I hope you’ll come check out my film reviews and also give our pod a listen. I’ll also post the occasional review here as well.

Or just keep clicking through our Earn This archives. You’re always welcome here, too.

Best,

Dan S
Earn This – Co-Founder / Editor
The Goods – Co-Founder / Critic / Podcast Host

Welcome Interstate Managers is a perfect and great album. Every song is necessary and loved. Some of the songs are serious, some are lighthearted, but even the trifles are brilliant.

That said: this album has 17 tracks (including the bonus). Some of these great songs are greater than the other great songs. I’m here to help you figure out which songs are indispensable and which ones are merely excellent.

I should caveat this discussion with the obvious: All of Fountains of Wayne’s albums are deep and rich and full of gems. You may have a fondness for one or two specific songs that I don’t, and vice versa. Neither of us are wrong; this album is just that good.

17. “Peace and Love”

A fun rollick, gently skewering hippies with a straightforward tune. But it ultimately doesn’t leave much of an impression — none of the lines or musical flourishes are as clever as this album’s peaks.

16. “Yours and Mine”

The abbreviated acoustic closer is a hallowed rock album tradition, and this is a great one. The portrait of a predictable suburban couple winding down is vintage Fountains warm satire, equal parts affection and eye-roll. It’s a minute long, but makes the most of those 62 seconds: two lovely verses and a melodica solo.

15. “Supercollider”

If “Yours and Mine” is too short, “Supercollider” is too long. The power ballad showcases some Liam Gallagher-esque vocals by Chris Collingwood and skillful guitar. It’s far from a stinker, but would have been just as effective at 3 minutes instead of 5.

14. “Elevator Up”

The driving bonus track fondly depicts a night of debauchery, with not-so-winking nods to various recreational narcotics. The guitar work is cool, if not as catchy as some Fountains tracks. Bonus points for ending the song (and album) with “any way the wind blows.”

13. “Halley’s Waitress”

The gag is dumb, but the song is absolutely gorgeous. Poor restaurant service inspires a wistful plea. Luscious horns and vocal harmonies elevate the throwaway to beauty.

12. “Little Red Light”

When Fountains focuses on minor details, the writing always shines. Here it’s the voicemail light on a “big black Radio Shack digital portable phone” as the protagonist waits for his ex to call him back. A muscular power pop composition complements the heartbreak wonderfully.

11. “No Better Place”

A delightful pop confection about struggling to say goodbye. The melody is a bit less tuneful, a bit more reflective and abstract than some of Fountains other work, which immediately makes me think this is a Collingwood joint, not Schlesinger.

10. “Bought for a Song”

Rarely does Fountains of Wayne come across as jaded, yet here we are (oddly, before their one big hit). The band’s power pop chops are unleashed with shimmering guitars and peppy beats.

9. “Fire Island”

The parents are out of town, so the teenager throws a big party. What if this wasn’t a cheesy high school cliche, but an earnest moment of contemplation? You’d get “Fire Island” — a spiritual sibling to “Prom Theme” from Utopia Parkway, nearly as exquisite as the latter but not quite as evocative. (A prom, unlike a party, is already symbolic as a farewell to childhood.)

8. “Hung Up on You”

Fountains go alt country to fantastic effect. This deep cut plays around with the idiom “hung up” as both unrequited love and cut off phone call, with some of the album’s best lines: When the narrator is at a bar to use its payphone to call his baby, he has “an appetite for poison and a suitcase full of dimes.”

7. “Valley Winter Song”

There’s a depressing numbness to snowfall, the kind that can wear down a romantic heart. “Valley Winter Song” hits paritcularly strong because there’s almost no jokiness in sight — just longing for sunbeams in one of the loveliest tunes on the album.

6. “Bright Future in Sales”

One of the slickest tracks (also funniest) on the album; this could have been a single. The lyrics make clear the alcoholic protagonist doesn’t have a bright future in anything unless he “gets his shit together.”

5. “Hey Julie”

One of the most straightforward love songs on Managers, yet still fueled by satire: “Hey Julie” is as much about a soul-crushing white-collar 9-to-5 as it is the wholesome love waiting at home. The melody is bright and chipper, buoyed by some warm acoustic guitar and harmonica.

4. “Mexican Wine”

A goofball power pop epic, “Mexican Wine” is maybe the catchiest song on the album. Chronicling two losers who deserve each other (in a sweet way), the song glides on crunchy chords and a layered, harmony-filled production. The lyrics are jokey but charming, and it’s hard to imagine a stronger opener for this album.

3. “Stacy’s Mom”

When Adam Schlesinger wrote “Stacy’s Mom,” his songwriting partner Chris Collingwood didn’t want to record it. He didn’t want to release it as a single. He knew it was too good and would define the band’s legacy. He was right. The song towers above everything else around it. “Stacy’s Mom” has a historically euphoric chorus, elevated to the stratosphere with power pop alchemy equal parts technical precision and sophomoric giddiness. Yes, it’s a MILF anthem, but it’s also an all-time banger.

2. “Hackensack”

It would be easy to take the subject of “Hackensack” and turn him into a pathetic punching bag: A paint-scraping schmuck who can’t escape his dead-end Jersey hometown, but pines for the movie star he went to high school with. Yet, Schlesinger went the other way. He made his protagonist a longing, romantic hero — hopeless and deluded, for sure — but pure of spirit. The song’s melody is heart-rending and perfect, hummable yet spiritual like a church hymn for the loser who still believes in love. If it’s not Adam Schlesinger’s best song ever, it’s pretty damn close.

1.”All Kinds of Time”

A moment in amber: The college quarterback dodges defenders and scans the field for his receivers. The air is pregnant with possibility and tension; of hope and culmination.

Adam Schlesinger takes this moment, and the phrase that announcers often use to describe a quarterback in the backfield (“he’s got all kinds of time!”), into something infinitely poetic. The repeated cadence of “all kinds of time” builds in power as it recurs and its implicit scope expands. “Time” becomes a marker of youth, but of inevitable mortality, of a reality bound by a universal currency.

There’s a triumph in the song’s climax, a hint of a great score on the horizon. Yet even that drowns in a cadence of “all kinds of time” — a moment gone as quickly as it appeared, powered by a “Champagne Supernova”-style guitar swirl.

The song was and always will be a masterpiece. But it feels especially powerful in the wake of Schlesinger’s abrupt COVID death: Time was more fleeting for Adam than he (or we) realized. And while he certainly made the most of his years, his “all kinds of time” vanished too quickly, snuffed out like a candle. A year later, it still fucking sucks to think about, the irreplaceable void of genius he left behind.

“All Kinds of Time” makes me think about Adam’s days and weeks and years that could have been; it also makes me grateful for the fantastic music he created in the time he was here.

Join the hosts of The Goods as they a dive into the dreamlike Seussian curio, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. Brian expresses his longstanding admiration for film’s set and costume design as Dan sings the praises of August Zabladowski. From the wild dungeon ride to the “Do-Mi-Do Duds” to the apocalyptic ending, Dan and Brian find themselves celebrating as often as scratching their chins. So why wasn’t it a hit? And, more importantly, Is It Good?

Music credits:

RetroFuture Clean by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4277-retrofuture-clean
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

It’s an extra special episode of The Goods as Dan and Brian celebrate Dan’s birthday with an in-person private screening and episode recording. Join as they revisit the 1999 animated classic, The Iron Giant, directed and co-written by Brad Bird. Dan discusses his long-thriving fascination (borderline obsession) with animation, and Brian notes the film’s connections to Bird’s later works. They discuss the film’s and WB Animation’s sad commercial fate, the cold war aesthetics, and the film’s director’s cut/Signature Edition.

Music credits:

RetroFuture Clean by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4277-retrofuture-clean
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Dan’s brother Will phones in from Japan to discuss the outrageous B-movie Tokyo Drifter. Dan, Brian, and Will discuss the film’s off-kilter storytelling and low-budget roots, breaking down both the stylistic chutzpah and thematic underbelly of the cult-hit Yakuza flick. Will revels in the film’s “bombastic” visuals and dark humor, while Brian and Dan draw comparisons to some previous Goods selections. The three play a round of “Does It Make Sense?” (as a spinoff to our signature “Is It Good?”). Lastly, the group discusses the director’s follow-up, Branded to Kill, and Will shares a couple of stories from life in Japan.

Music credits:

RetroFuture Clean by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4277-retrofuture-clean
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/