Dial File: Movies and TV — shall we dance?

Friday, March 26, 1999 | 11:50 a.m.

"Hey, I wanna see what's gonna happen" ... "I'll save ya the suspense -- absolutely nothin's gonna happen."

"With no privacy there is no dignity."

"Whaddaya like about him?" ... "I dunno -- just let me watch!"

Dialogue from 1999's "EDtv."

"You people sit there day after day, night after night. ... You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. ... This is mass madness, you maniacs!"

Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) to his viewers in 1976's "Network."

Welcome to the Funhouse. Look in the mirror.

S-U-R-R-E-A-L, isn't it?

And "surreal" sums up not only "EDtv" -- the new Ron Howard-helmed flick in which celebrity and reality double back on each other until they nearly disappear within each other -- but now an incessant big screen/small screen synergy in two cinematic permutations: TV as social commentary (Wow, look at how TV rules our lives!) and TV as contemporized nostalgia (Wow, look at how TV memories rule our lives!)

As such, "EDtv" -- a comedy/parable-wannabe about a garden variety lug whose life is televised to a tube-addled America -- bears comparison to both its thematic sibling, the highly acclaimed "The Truman Show" (that's the social commentary) and its thematic cousin, the latest series-turned-movie, "The Mod Squad" (that's the contemporized nostalgia).

Let's take the second one first.

"EDtv" is the fourth cinematic rumination of TV's death grip on American culture in the past 18 months, following "Mad City," "Pleasantville" and "The Truman Show" -- all descendents at heart of 1976's savagely prescient "Network." And "EDtv" opens today, competing with ... "The Mod Squad," the newest in a seemingly endless parade of series-gone-silver-screen.

(Word is that "Mod," while no masterpiece, is better than its immediate predecessor, "The Avengers," the mere memory of which is wince-inducing).

The side-by-side openings are a vivid reminder of how television increasingly brackets the movie scene, and the effect is eerie: Baby boomers unabashedly celebrating their pop culture past in one theater while skeptically skewering its societal side effects in another.

Think of it as media-induced psychotherapy: The first generation raised on television hits the couch (actually, those quasi-rockers in the better multiplexes) to untangle and understand the psychological ramifications -- played out in "EDtv" and "Truman" -- while simultaneously rediscovering its (forgive me here, psychobabble haters) "inner child" via a glutton's delight of big-screen "Brady Bunch"-es and their ilk.

The latter ranges from the sublime ("The Fugitive," "The Untouchables," "Mission: Impossible") to the megaridiculous ("The Beverly Hillbillies," "Mr. Magoo," "Sgt. Bilko").

Of course, nonboomers are just as welcome to shrink their heads and wallets. "Mod's" dual-purpose marketing equation -- premise (old TV show) plus casting (new superstar: goodbye Peggy Lipton, hello Claire Danes) -- equals teen, Gen X and boomer bucks (and even the stray senior-discounted ticket) at the box office.

"EDtv" should do likewise. While the premise ("The Real World" run amok) is contemporary, the casting covers both hip young stars (Matthew McConaughey and TV's "Dharma," Jenna Elfman) and a Nick-at-Nite-style dream team (Rob Reiner, Ellen DeGeneres, Woody Harrelson, Martin Landau, Clint Howard and Donny Most; their shows, respectively: "All in the Family," "Ellen," "Cheers," "Mission: Impossible," "Gentle Ben" and "Happy Days").

And it's the casting of "EDtv" that helps knock it out of "Truman's" superior league as satire with substance. Not that "EDtv" isn't wildly entertaining -- it's laugh-loaded, more so than "Truman," ironic given that the latter starred Deluxe Loon Jim Carrey. (The hysterical "EDtv" sex scene between McConaughey and a sizzling Elizabeth Hurley -- televised to a lusty America -- seems like "The Starr Report" taken to its logical conclusion in a media-mad nation.)

But where "Truman" gained poignancy from having its star unaware of his stardom, "EDtv" -- which conceptually is "Truman" with knowledge aforethought -- is all too aware: He auditions for it. "EDtv's" exhibitionism isn't nearly as affecting as "Truman's" victimization by voyeurism.

And sealing "EDtv's" self-awareness -- what makes it a massive media in-joke that invalidates any pathos -- is indeed its cast, both fleeting and frontline. In the former category, Jay Leno (is there any flick of any kind he doesn't poke his big chin into?) and Bill Maher provide cameos as the "Tonight" and "Politically Incorrect" hosts they are, interviewing the movie's characters.

That sets up the surreal sight in that funhouse media mirror -- deep breath here -- of the actors who play the characters on the big screen showing up on the real-life shows on the small screen that are portrayed on the big screen, hawking the big screen film about the small screen that stars them all.

Wink-wink.

In the latter category, we have: the TV executive squeezing ratings out of a controversial hit, played by the co-star of one of TV's most controversial hits (Reiner); the TV programmer who concocts a ground-breaking show and later literally flips the bird to her fellow programmers, played by the star of a ground-breaking sitcom who publicly dissed her network's programmers (DeGeneres); and, for a twist, a character conceived as fairly frumpy who hates being on TV, played by the sexy star of TV's sitcom-of-the-moment (Elfman).

Wink-wink.

And, of course, the man behind the camera for this tale of life before the camera is ... Ron Howard, the original grew-up-before-our-very-public-eyes kid, post-Opie/Richie.

Wink-wink-wink.

And in the "EDtv"/"Truman" saga of dueling satires, that's where "EDtv" blinks.

But in this burgeoning -- and bizarre -- phenomenon of TV-movie tie-ins, perhaps the public will eventually blink.

Or we'll start showing up at the multiplex with remotes.