Word: scripting
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Niccol, a young New Zealander, wrote the script in 1993, and wrote and directed last year's swank science fable Gattaca, which has much the same story (in the near future, one human man is surrounded by handsome humanoids). Niccol says the only source material he needed for The Truman Show was his own paranoia. "I often felt people were lying to me," he declares. But as the '90s devolved into media spectacles of Bronco chases, freeway suicides and Jerry Springer grudge matches, the conceit of TV as worldwide psychodrama seemed prescient. "I used to think the idea was ludicrously...
...spirit of Japan's most popular mutant antihero was solemnly handed to Dean Devlin, 35, and Roland Emmerich, 42, in 1996, almost as soon as the pair signed to produce and direct a new version of the monster classic. "We had to read it before we could write the script," says Devlin. The implicit caution: thou shall not take Godzilla's name in vain...
...Emmerich approached the project gingerly, having rejected four previous overtures from Sony to take charge of Godzilla. The monster appeared to be unmanageable. Jan De Bont (Speed) tried to tame the beast for a while but gave up after Sony balked at the budget he wanted for a script that had Godzilla battling a shape-shifting beast. James Cameron (Titanic), Tim Burton (Batman) and David Fincher (Alien 3) were among the directors at one time considered to update Godzilla. When Steven Spielberg, who knows from dinosaurs, heard that Devlin and Emmerich were contemplating the movie, he tried to talk them...
...does a smashing turn (accompanied by a grungy back-up band) as the fictional Hedwig, avoids high camp, low sex jokes and Judy Garland impressions. True, Hedwig's stage patter has its share of double entendres ("I do love a warm hand on my entrance"), but the literate script is also a poignant meditation on loneliness, gender confusion and the Platonic notion that sex is the effort to reconnect two halves of one ideal being. All of this is embellished by 10 muscular, melodic rock songs by Stephen Trask, which combine hard-driving punk with Beatles-style lyricism...
...deadly path. We could probably do with fewer of ambitious TV reporter Tea Leoni's problems with her wayward dad, but on the whole there are worse people with whom to spend our (presumably final) days. Director Mimi Leder handles the scene of mass panic very well, and the script does not allow the world to escape disaster completely unscathed. That's believable, and so are the nicely understated moments of self-sacrifice that bring the movie to its emotionally redemptive climax...