Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: EDtv (1999) - Phenomenal cast shine in Howard's witty mega-flop

4/25/2017

EDtv (1999) - Phenomenal cast shine in Howard's witty mega-flop

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Mega-Flop Movie of the Year + Best Satire of the Year

This eye-catching poster for Ron Howard's EDtv conveys the intrusiveness of cameras that the plot centers around

A major reality TV channel launch their new venture: 24 hour a day covering of one person's life. That person is 30 year-old Ed, who works in a video store and is falling for his brother's girlfriend.

EDtv is written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (Robots (2005), both) and directed by great Oklahoman filmmaker Ron Howard (Cocoon (1985)), based on the Canadian film Louis, 19, King of the Airwaves/ Louis 19, le Roi des Ondes (1994). Howard plays the material broadly, and he continually brings us audiences into Ed's drama along with the TV audiences by their screens, which is a little unengaging and a bit depressing as well, because it puts us in the same boat with the TV audiences who are content to completely pause their own lives in order to follow Ed's...
Luckily, EDtv has some really funny lines and situations, and the cast is phenomenal, filled with endearing personalities: Ellen DeGeneres (Finding Dory (2016)), Woody Harrelson (After the Sunset (2004)), Matthew McConaughey (Fool's Gold (2008)) and Jenna Elfman (Damages (2012), TV-series) are good in big parts, engaging and funny; Rob Reiner (The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)) as the cynical TV channel boss and Martin Landau (Firehead (1991)) as the wheelchair-bound stepfather are both perfect. Dennis Hopper (River's Edge (1986)) is icing on the cake in some of the more emotional scenes.
EDtv is a good movie that seems in some way to participate in the reality TV wave of the late 1990s while also criticizing it some.

Related posts:

Ron Howard: Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011) - Stapleton's Corman doc. is among the year's best films (interview subject)
The Da Vinci Code (2006) - Howard's first Brown adaptation is a popcorn thriller hoot
Top 10: The best biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
A Beautiful Mind (2001) - John Nash given the Epic Treatment

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Backdraft (1991) - Howard's giant, stupid Chicago-set firefighter movie
American Graffiti (1973) or, Cruisin' Modesto '62 (actor)

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 80 mil. $
Box office: 35.2 mil. $
= Mega-flop
[EDtv was released 26 March (USA) and runs 123 minutes. Shooting took place from March - July 1998 in California and Florida. The film opened #3 behind hold-over hits Forces of Nature and Analyze This to an 8.3 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its second week and grossed a paltry 22.4 mil. $ (63.6 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5/4 stars, translating to a notch harder than this review. The film bears a striking resemblance in plot to Peter Weir's highly successful The Truman Show (1998), starring Jim Carrey, which revolves around a reality TV show about one person's life, lived in an artificial world only he doesn't know is a huge set. While Howard's career could take a hit and was fast back on track, (with How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), starring Carrey, and possibly his career's best, Oscar-winner A Beautiful Mind (2001)) the incredibly over-budgeted, hugely expense flop EDtv marked a more severe downwards turn career-wise for McConaughey, who mostly starred in smaller and lower quality films for the following decade before beginning his come-back to form in 2011 with Bernie and Killer Joe. EDtv is fresh at 63 % with a 6.3 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of EDtv?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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4/25/2017

EDtv (1999) - Phenomenal cast shine in Howard's witty mega-flop

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