| THE CABLEGUY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| FILM REVIEW | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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It's a time-honored urban ritual: Slip the cable guy fifty bucks and you'll get all the movie channels for free. But when Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick) moves into a new apartment, his Cable Guy (Jim Carrey) is not like the others. He doesn't want your fifty bucks; all he wants is a friend ... and he won't take "no" for an answer. Steven is about to learn that there's no such thing as free cable. Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick star in the Columbia Pictures comedy The Cable Guy, directed by Ben Stiller and written by Lou Holtz, Jr. Andrew Licht, Jeffrey Mueller and Judd Apatow are the producers. Brad Grey, Bernie Brillstein and Marc Gurvitz are the executive producers. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Leslie Mann, George Segal, Diane Baker and Jack Black head a strong supporting cast that also features appearances by Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick and Charles Napier. Steven Weisberg is the editor. Sharon Seymour is the production designer. Robert Brinkmann served as director of photography. John Ottman composed the score. Matthew Broderick, Tony Award winner for "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" as well as star of such films as Ferris Bueller's Day Off, stars as Steven Kovacs, the young architect whose furtive attempt at getting free cable is misinterpreted as an open invitation into his life. "Basically, Steven's open to psychos because he can't say 'no'," explains Jim Carrey, who stars as the strange yet charismatic Cable Guy. "And that's a problem that so many people have, not being able to tell someone when they're invading your space. And even when he tries to say 'no', the Cable Guy knows how to manipulate him and get around that 'no.' He will keep banging at the door until he finds a way." "The Cable Guy sees an opening in Steven's life because this guy has just broken up with his girlfriend and is on his own," adds director Ben Stiller, who directs his second feature film after the critically-acclaimed Reality Bites, in which he also starred opposite Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke. "The Cable Guy has obtained this information from the cable billing. And when Steven gets up the guts to ask him for free cable, which his friend told him to do, and subtly offers him the fifty bucks, the Cable Guy gets right up in his face and scares him a little bit." | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Leslie Mann, who appears in the upcoming Last Man Standing, plays Steven's girlfriend Robin, who | misinterprets the Cable Guy's gestures toward Steven as the caring acts of a friend. George Segal (Flirting With Disaster) and Diane Baker (The Silence of the Lambs) play Steven's parents, who are won over by the Cable Guy's antics much to the dismay of their victimized son. Jack Black (Dead Man Walking) plays Steven's dispossessed best friend Rick, whose anger over the Cable Guy's interference in Steven's life leads to his investigation into his true identity. "This movie has two distinct aesthetics crashing into each other," explains Carrey, whose complex interpretation of the Cable Guy is at once disturbing and comical. "There is something about it that is very strange and disquieting, yet is fall-off-the-chair funny. Let's call it Hitchcock meets Jerry Lewis. Or, as I prefer it, Rosemary's Baby meets The Odd Couple."
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