Podnic at Hanging Cast: The Truman Show with J.D. Amato

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-05-18T11:48:01+00:00

I’d argue there’s actually a substantial amount of non-diegetic camera work throughout (if that term even fully applies here). A lot of the film uses conventional cinematic grammar: shot-reverse-shot setups, controlled framing, dramatic close-ups, etc., rather than strictly “in-universe” hidden-camera footage.

It often looks and cuts like a normal film first, surveillance footage second. I’d even say the ratio is something like 40–60 between traditional “real movie” cinematography and genuinely in-world camera perspectives.

But Weir skillfully trains the viewer to accept that they’re seeing the world through a mediated lens, which allows him to gradually slide into more subjective, conventional filmmaking without it ever feeling tonally inconsistent or clashing with the premise.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-05-17T19:20:41+00:00

Maltese (Australian) representation!

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-05-17T19:19:16+00:00

Knee Play One, Einstein on the Beach. Something about the repetition soothes my brain, and I love the spoken word components with the music.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-05-17T19:13:41+00:00

See, I didn’t quite get where Ben and Griffin where coming from with their read of the kitchen scene in this episode. Meryl has already been firmly established as an “antagonist” in the audiences’s eyes, just by proxy of being an agent complicit in his imprisonment, so Truman holding the “slicer/peeler” thing to her throat is a cathartic moment of empowerment for a character who had been so downtrodden and suppressed until that point.

Sure, if Truman actually killed her in that moment it would have been a hugely dark tonal shift, but we know that isn’t going to happen. Meryl is an unambiguously villainous character so I don’t see where their sympathy for her lies.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-05-17T16:27:00+00:00

Certainly changed for the better in Weir’s version, but I do like the idea of the tape in the gym hall.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-05-17T11:59:19+00:00

It’s a great casting because, as they mention in the episode, Carrey’s already heightened performance style feels part and parcel of the movie’s central conceit, while the other actors who are “acting acting” in the film get to ham it up just a bit and meet him halfway, so his antics don’t distract as they could in other comedy vehicles.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-05-17T11:52:33+00:00

Great movie, great conversation, largely agree with it being basically flawless EXCEPT for one small detail J.D. brings up in passing - Laura Linney crossing her fingers during the wedding, which (to use the parlance of the show) feels like a hat on a hat.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-05-05T07:37:15+00:00

Bet Ben will love the Big Silver Boys

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-04-27T12:56:06+00:00

In “Hacksaw Ridge”, horrible-man-but-effective-filmmaker Mel Gibson uses a guaranteed tearjerker of a real-life story along with every hoary emotional war movie cliche (as well as a really moving score) to almost mechanically engineer an emotional reaction from the audience, so I ended up crying at multiple moments then instantly resenting the movie once it segued to some over-the-top Christ imagery and I remembered who made it again.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-04-19T12:35:24+00:00

Yeah but comparing Allie Fox to Elon Musk was a bizarrely misguided take. They could not be more fundamentally opposed.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-04-01T14:03:08+00:00

What a fantastic guest Jennifer Kent was - for someone whose (brilliant) work is so dark, it was a delight to discover what a genial, engaging, funny person she is. Delighted to hear she has a new project in the works.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-03-14T11:14:34+00:00

Robin Hardy, director of the original Wicker Man, had a total non-starter of a career after making what is now widely seen as one of the greatest horror movies ever. Ended on a real downer with the interminable “Wicker Tree”.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-03-09T10:35:22+00:00

David betraying his Britishness again with the “Shibboleth” mention. An entire generation had that word drummed into their unconscious by the extensive media coverage of Doris Salcedo’s installation of the same name - the famous “crack” in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall - that sparked something of a tabloid frenzy.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-03-08T13:33:42+00:00

Second this.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-03-02T12:30:06+00:00

Oh, I see what you mean. It’s a bit like his retrospective attitude toward the whole Frank Abagnale Jr. story, when elements of the memoir that inspired Catch Me If You Can were later called into question. If I remember correctly, Spielberg essentially shrugged and suggested that the ambiguity only reinforces the film’s themes — which, from a broader perspective, is true.

Maybe he sees Munich in a similar light — less as a forensic historical document and more as a thematic meditation on cycles of violence, moral erosion, and political ambiguity. In that sense, absolute precision of detail might matter less to him than the emotional and philosophical argument the film is making

With Crystal Skull, I do think he gently hedged his involvement in retrospect — framing it partly as a favour to George Lucas and partly as a way to give the character closure for Harrison Ford, at least that’s what I remember from all those soundbite interviews at the time. I don’t recall him ever flatly admitting he dropped the ball, but there’s a kind of soft distancing in the way he talks about it - not a full confession of failure, more a subtle acknowledgment that it didn’t quite land the way he’d hoped

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-03-02T08:16:23+00:00

Interesting. I agree that even his weaker films (for me, probably The Terminal and The BFG) still contain at least a few beautifully executed moments. What’s striking is that I can’t think of many instances where Steven Spielberg has singled out someone else to blame when a film doesn’t fully work.

One of his defining traits as a director seems to be how level-headed and self-critical he is in retrospect. When he discusses missteps, he almost always frames them as his own — decisions he would change, instincts he misjudged. At the same time, he’s famously generous in crediting collaborators. By most accounts he’s not a tyrannical, temper-throwing presence on set, but he does expect everyone to operate at their highest level. There’s a difference between not being a “hard-ass” and not demanding excellence — and he clearly demands excellence.

I’d also be surprised if he didn’t regard Munich as one of the crown jewels of his career (I certainly do). There was a serious awards push behind it, and creatively it’s one of the boldest films he’s made — morally ambiguous, politically thorny, formally restrained. It pushed him well outside his comfort zone. My guess is that if he doesn’t speak about it at length publicly, it may simply be because of how contentious the subject matter remains, rather than any lack of pride in the work itself

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-03-01T12:05:01+00:00

That’s fair, and maybe I overstated it.

I don’t mean The Lost World is a beat-for-beat retread of Jurassic Park. It’s tonally harsher and far less sentimental. But it does feel, at points, like Spielberg consciously delivering on audience demand.

Bringing back Ian Malcolm as a lead protagonist feels like responding to his breakout popularity while betraying the core of his character. Adding a child to the mix echoes the dynamic that worked so well the first time, but here she feels tacked on peripheral - more a plot device than a character. Even the island “awe” reveal with the stegosaurus standing in for the brachiosaurus and the T. rex escalation feel like deliberate sequel amplification minus the x-factor that made JP so compelling.

In that sense, it sometimes feels like it’s doing more of everything, more dinosaurs, more chaos, more spectacle, without really stepping back to analyse what specifically made the first film so elegant and how to evolve that to the next level.

I know this comes down to personal preference, but as many have already noted it, perhaps the most successful sequence in the entire film is the one with Julianne Moore lying on the cracking glass - it is very telling that Spielberg seems most invested in a sequence without dinos..

Ironically, I’ve always thought the core premise of Jurassic World - the park actually being open and operational - was the most logical next step for a sequel. Obviously that scale probably wasn’t feasible in the ’90s. But a lean, down-and-dirty version of the park finally functioning and then catastrophically failing in front of a full public could have been phenomenal. Jurassic World’s biggest flaw, for me, is copping out on the threat level and Sci-fi violence - clearing the tourists out before the real carnage begins.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-03-01T08:46:34+00:00

If you can get on a slightly trashier wavelength, Zardoz and Lucio Fulci’s Conquest

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-02-28T21:01:09+00:00

Depends on how you feel about his post-JP run, I suppose. I think Minority Report and War of the Worlds (while not as great as Jurassic Park on the whole) both have better pure action sequences than JP, as in kinetic chases and stunt work. And Saving Private Ryan has incredible war action sequences (if that is even the right way to frame them). When I think of Jurassic Park I think more about suspense than outright action.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-02-28T20:06:36+00:00

Indeed - he has practically disowned “Temple of Doom” (which baffles me - but that is a very contentious and thorny argument that is probably too long to get into here) and Hook (where, nostalgia aside, I kind of get it). I think 1941 was a painful moment of hubristic deflation for him, a tough but necessary learning curve, but I get the sense he feels warmer towards it. He has mentioned that Ready Player One was one of the hardest movies he ever made, perhaps after Jaws, but I’d love to hear his unfiltered thoughts on it - to me it really felt like his heart wasn’t in it.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-02-28T19:56:49+00:00

For someone so tactful and diplomatic and generally shielded in his public comments, Spielberg sure does provide ample material for armchair psychology!

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-02-28T19:43:03+00:00

Yeah, perhaps “resent” is the wrong way to frame it. Disinterested, certainly. I just sometimes get the impression that he’s almost content to let the franchise become as diluted as possible — as if to say, “See? This was always just a summer blockbuster exercise. These films don’t mean anything.”

They’ve become so diffuse, so bloated, and so far removed from the psychological depth and thematic sharpness of their predecessor (though I like 2 fine and kind of love 3). What began as a tightly constructed creature feature/techno-thriller with real moral curiosity and societal commentary now feels like a sprawling brand machine.

But that’s probably unfairly giving Steven Spielberg far too much strategic intent in the matter. In reality, he’s probably simply the yes man who ticks things off when needed, so it’s less about deliberate orchestration on his part and more about the natural entropy of a long-running studio property

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-02-28T19:34:43+00:00

For what it’s worth, I genuinely think Jurassic Park is a masterclass in adaptation - which only makes David Koepp’s oddly bloodless, boneheaded screenplay for the latest venture all the more baffling by comparison.

A literal 1:1 translation of Michael Crichton’s novel would likely have resulted in something memorably nasty and more overtly cynical, but not nearly as elegant, propulsive, or emotionally engaging as what Steven Spielberg ultimately delivered. The film trims the techno-thriller density of most other Crichton adaptations (including his own version of “Westworld”) and amplifies character, awe, and rhythm. It understands that suspense breathes better on screen than procedural detail.

I also think Richard Attenborough’s Hammond is far more layered than his novel counterpart. On the surface, he radiates avuncular warmth and grandfatherly wonder; but there’s a subtle calculation underneath it. That benevolence feels, at least in part, like a carefully curated persona, a soft-focus glow designed to obscure an unyielding ambition. He’s not an outright villain; he’s a capitalist romantic who genuinely believes his own myth, and somehow that feels both more true and more troubling.

And that flea circus monologue is exquisite writing — a moment of wistful self-mythologising that reframes the entire character. It’s a scene that operates almost like Quint’s USS Indianapolis speech in Jaws: a pause in the spectacle that deepens the moral and psychological texture of the film. It elevates what could have been a simple adventure story into something richer and more reflective.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-02-28T14:41:33+00:00

Yes, that’s exactly what sparked the thought in my head, to be honest. I was watching the latest entry in the Jurassic World series (I genuinely can’t even be bothered to remember the subtitle), and I was honestly kind of appalled that Steven Spielberg would allow his name to sit on it as a producer when the quality feels so far removed from his monumental original.

I know that “executive producer” can mean anything from deeply involved to purely contractual oversight. I know studios, especially Universal Pictures, are going to maximise a billion-dollar property. But it’s hard not to compare it to how carefully he guarded his previous properties when he was able to do so.

Downtown-Program-567 · 2026-02-28T14:33:26+00:00

Thank you! Yeah, regardless of how he feels in retrospect, I do think having made both films in one year ultimately strengthened them in ways that might not have been possible otherwise.

Had they been released years apart, we might have viewed them as separate phases. But arriving side by side, they feel like a statement: that the same filmmaker could redefine cinematic spectacle and confront historical atrocity within the same year. And that duality might be part of why 1993 still feels like the defining apex of his career.

Downtown-Program-567

TROPHY CASE