Jim Carrey and his magical year

Since I was very small, I have loved comedy.  I have followed many comedians and their work with wonder and fascination.  Some are funnier than others; some reach me more than others.  Very few comedians make me laugh as much as Jim Carrey.  He’s one of those people who you either love or hate.  He either gets on your nerves or everything he says or does makes you fall over laughing.  He has proven that he’s a wonderful dramatic actor as well in films like The Truman Show and (the AMAZING) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  However, where he really shines is in his earliest films, specifically in 1994.  The three films he made in that year, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber, were some of the funniest movies I have ever seen and are just as funny today.

The film that made Jim Carrey a huge star was Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.  His explosive energy and crazy antics were like a hurricane on screen that a lot of people didn’t know how to handle.  This is where the “Love him or hate him” thing comes into play.  Either you were quick enough to just about get what he was doing and follow along or you saw him as a certifiable lunatic and switched off.  While I can see both points of view, I loved his brand of mad humor.  It’s oh so stupid but, like all of Jim Carrey’s characters, he had real heart driving everything he did.  Even in Ace Ventura, where you sometimes watch Carrey and think “He’s GOT to be on SOMETHING”, there’s a spark in his eyes that lets you know that this is all in fun and he knows exactly what he’s doing.  The fact that Ace Ventura was smart but still over the top goofy was a unique combination that kept you guessing.  Kids love it because it’s silly and base humor abounds.  Adults love it because it’s just so damn funny.

My all time favorite Jim Carrey movie is The Mask.  This movie is in my top 5 favorite movies.  It has so much going for it: an amazing script, art design to die for, Jim Carrey being both insane and endearing, and the entire thing is pretty much a love letter to Looney Tunes and the cartoons of the 40’s and 50’s.  Stanley Ipkiss, (“a little repressed and a hopeless romantic”) is an everyday nice guy with a hidden goofy side.  When he finds a magical mask and puts it on, he becomes “a love-crazy wild man”.  The mask brings out your basest desires and fantasies and lets you become them or bring them to life.  That concept has always fascinated me and I feel like they barely scratched the surface of the potential stories it could provide.  (The ridiculously crappy sequel “Son of the Mask” made in 2005 is not what I had in mind.)  The glue that holds this whole movie together is Jim Carrey.  The fact that you can see Stanley behind everything the Mask does, and vice versa, makes them both so endearing that you are behind him (them?) the entire way.  We get to see the craziness of rubber-man Jim Carrey as the mask, but also the sweetheart side as Stanley Ipkiss.  It just works.  

To me there is a big difference between stupid dumb humor and smart dumb humor.  For example, stupid dumb is movies like Jackass, stupid for stupid’s sake.  Smart dumb humor can be summed up perfectly with Dumb and Dumber.  I like when you have to understand why something is funny for it to be funny.  Besides the airtight script, what makes this movie so enjoyable is the relationship between Lloyd, Carrey’s character, and Harry, played hilariously by Jeff Daniels.  Martin Scorsese, after seeing the film, called it the best representation of real friendship he’d ever seen.  While it may be impossible to tell who’s Dumb and who’s Dumber, there’s no question that Harry and Lloyd were made for each other.  The same thing that makes me love The Mask makes me love Dumb and Dumber; Carrey’s characters have so much heart that you can’t help but love them.

 

There’s something wonderful about watching someone who genuinely loves what they do.  When you watch Jim Carrey, especially in movies like these, it’s a joy to watch that spark in his eyes and that dedicated heart that makes those characters last forever.  It seems lately he's been trying to get back to his comedy roots.  I say more power to him, and I hope to see some more classics from him in the years to come.

Why Life is Like an Adventure Game

Life is like an adventure game.  No really, it is.  You know how in the beginning of a game you’re given this big task that you have to complete and it’s basically the underlying plot of the whole game?  “You must save the La-dee-dah Princess of Blah Dee Blah from the Sinister Herp-Derp of Evil Thingers.”  Sure.  Great.  Let’s do it!   But then you start playing and Mr. Shopkeep wants you to do this for him, old hag in disguise wants you to do that, and before you know it you’ve been playing for 12 straight hours and are seemingly no closer to Princess Sparkly-toes or whatever her name was. Granted, you’ve been having a pretty good time, since you (hopefully) play adventure games not for their magnificent (yea, ok) plots but for their challenging puzzles and the “journey” as it were.  

The adventure game of my life has been pretty straight-forward.  I have an ultimate goal and a number of side goals that I feel would make my life more meaningful until the time when I reach my final goal.  Because I wouldn’t get very far in life if all I focused on was that ultimate goal, when I don’t yet have everything I need to get there.  Things always end up keeping me busy or taking up time.  “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”  Mr. Shopkeep wants me to do this for him, Old hag (not in disguise, cause we’re in reality now) wants me to do that.  Here I am, nearly 26 years old, and what do I have to show for my work?  No closer (seemingly) to that ultimate goal, but oh the things I have done so far!  I have slayed the dragon of unemployment, traversed across the mountains of self doubt, bested fate in a chess game to end all chess games, and come out (almost) unscathed.  So where’s the pot of gold?  How do you finish the game?  Do you just keep doing mindless tasks and combining arbitrary objects until you have suddenly created the most useful tool EVER that no one ever though they would need?  Keep distracting yourself with little things, always trying to keep something on the To Do list above Agenda #1?  Often our ultimate goals are not something we can work towards, they are something that we someday hope will come to us, but we cannot pursue them or even see any steps we can take to get us closer to them.

Unfortunately there are no cheat codes or walkthroughs for the game of Real Life.  We just have to keep wandering from screen to screen hoping that something pops out at us that we didn’t notice before, keep trying different combinations until finally, hopefully, something breaks and the path becomes clear.  That piece of chewed gum you picked up in the first level may be just the tool you need in the last minute.  You just never know.  I’ve got my menial tasks to keep me busy, plenty of them.  The everyday ups and downs of simply surviving are enough to keep anyone busy for a lifetime.  The trick is to keep that goal in sight so that when opportunity rears its head, like the proverbial “Cutscene to Act 3”, we will be ready to forge on.  Here’s to eventually winning the game of life.