The Cable Guy [Blu-Ray]

For its 15th anniversary, unfairly maligned dark comedic gem The Cable Guy is treated to a Blu-Ray release jammed with features lovingly assembled by the team of director Ben Stiller, star Jim Carrey and producer Judd Apatow. If you're unfamiliar with the story, Carrey plays cable installer Chip Douglas, an overbearing, manipulative man desperately seeking friendship. Matthew Broderick plays Steven Kovacs, a guy working through a separation with his girlfriend, Robin. When Chip agrees to upgrade Steven's cable package for free, Chip bends Steven's polite deflection of an invite to hang out into a man-date for the next day. Chip infiltrates Steven's life, being a genuinely good, if genuinely weird, buddy, until Steven fails to reciprocate the desired feelings of friendship. Carrey goes for broke, relishing the opportunity to challenge his audience and providing the first glimpse of his real acting and comedic potential. His every line and gesture creates the picture of a fractured psyche, a man who can only relate to the world as he understands it through television, seething with love and rage, cunning, yet naïve. It's hysterical and more than a little creepy; you've got to give kudos to the man for going to such a darkly subversive place at the height of his popularity. All of the behind the scenes studio gossip and insider banter you could possibly want and more are discussed in a delightful newly recorded feature commentary with Carrey, Stiller and Apatow. They dish on the film's impact on their respective careers and poke fun at the reversed fortunes of the principle players ― Carrey practically begs Stiller and Apatow to work with him again. And it'd be a great reunion. The Cable Guy is oddly prophetic and relevant today, both in terms of its media-obsession lampooning and its use of uncomfortable dark humour in a mainstream project. There is a wealth of funny deleted and alternate scenes, a gag reel full of borderline filth, rehearsal footage of Carrey and Broderick working out the basketball, Medieval Times and breakfast scenes, a brief "Nightmare Camera Test," Jerry Cantrell's "Leave Me Alone" music video and a surprising amount of behind the scenes footage. "HBO First Look" is an early example of Apatow's love for lampooning the process, painting Stiller as an angry egomaniac while still giving the crew a lot of solid info on the production. "Comedy Central Canned Ham Presents" is a raw, informal interview between Apatow and Carrey, with Apatow reading questions submitted by real cable guys, including a mention of, and response to, Carrey's infamous 20-million dollar salary. Most charming is the audition video of Leslie Mann reading, with Judd Apatow as the Cable Guy; it's the first time the future married couple ever spoke. For all of its perceived bad Hollywood mojo, The Cable Guy was an early spark in many successful careers, and it remains an enduring testament to bravely doing whatever the fuck feels funny and leaving popular tastes to catch up.