Andy's Film Blog: Charlie Kaufman

Showing posts with label Charlie Kaufman. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

A hopelessly depressed office drone (Jim Carrey) opts for a revolutionary new procedure to have his flighty ex-girlfriend (Kate Winslet) purged from his memory after discovering she had the operation done in reference to him. While put under, he finds his subconscious clinging tight to the memories while intuiting that his own identity is being siphoned by one of the technicians. Impressive Charlie Kaufman screenplay (and amazingly one of his least cerebral) is given an overly fanciful treatment by director Michel Gondry and probably not as deep as it purports itself to be. I found Winslet hard to take, despite the glowing press she received at the time, and Carrey truly owns the movie.

*** out of ****

Friday, March 31, 2017

Adaptation.

During production of Being John Malkovich, overanxious screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) begins his latest undertaking, a big screen adaptation of Susan Orlean’s (Meryl Streep) decidedly small scale and narratively bereft The Orchid Thief ostensibly about a magnetic Florida flower poacher (Chris Cooper), which blocks his creative process and becomes a major source of consternation. Meanwhile, his twin brother Donald (also Cage), a novice writer, tries his hand at the trade and effortlessly produces a moronic and completely bankable thriller. Kaufman’s Spike Jonze directed Adaptation. is a brilliant self-conscious examination, self-referential a hundred times over, that manages to be warm, surrealistic, cynical, funny, and sad all at once. Cage gives the finest performance of his career in creating two distinct, humanized characters and Streep, especially Cooper, and Bryan Cox in a key walk on role are all tremendous.

**** out of ****

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Anomalisa

A sullen British expat, undergoing some sort of mental breakdown and on the verge of a marital crisis, arrives in Cincinnati to deliver a speech at a customer service conference and acquaints a dumpy sales rep whom he finds to be a ray of light in a world of meshed sameness. Charlie Kaufman's Anomalisa, which he adapted from his own stageplay and directed with Duke Johnson, is less heady than the cerebral director's other work but still has all those elements (wry dark humor, unforced sentiment and tenderness, the peculiar and bizarre) and told in an odd stop motion format that seems perfectly suited to the material. David Thewlis and especially Jennifer Jason Leigh provide great voicework and it is a neat touch to have Tom Noon provide the voices for the rest of the similar looking cast. The ending seems abrupt though exemplary.

**** out of ****

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Synecdoche, New York

A local playwright and theater director in upstate New York receives an illustrious grant, moves to the city, and, inside the confines of a massive dome, begins to stage his interminable, ever expanding, and autobiographical masterpiece. "Synechdoche, New York" is the extremely ambitious, largely incomprehensible, and endlessly fascinating directorial debut of eccentric screenwriter Charlie Kaufman who creates another analytical, intellectually stimulating masterpiece. As the equally neurotic and physically decaying playwright, Philip Seymour Hoffman is excellent in an arduous and incredibly demanding role, where he is given great support from his impeccable female cast which includes Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton (delightful), Michelle Williams, Hope Davis (hilarious), Emily Watson, and Dianne Wiest. When I first saw this film upon its release, I thought Kaufman had made an incomprehensible film solely for himself. Upon a second viewing, however, much becomes evident while, like Hoffman's constantly aggrandizing opus, more questions continue to arise.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Chuck Barris was known as the creator of inconsequential game shows such as "The Dating Game" and "The Newlywed Game", as well as the host of "The Gong Show". In his 1984 titular autobiography, he purported to also be a trained assassin for the CIA, eliminating many of his targets while chaperoning the winning couples of "The Dating Game" while they vacationed in exotic East Berlin. "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" is the wildly outrageous and imaginative directorial debut from George Clooney, in a script that could only have been adapted for the screen by Charlie Kaufman. The underappreciated Sam Rockwell is incredible as Barris, blending moments of humor with scenes of sadness and capturing all of the emotions in between. Drew Barrymore surprisingly has a good role here as Barris' flaky soul mate, and Clooney is in fine form as an operative who recruits Barris. Kaufman's script is engagingly vulgar and bizarre and Clooney handles the direction with such style and panache as both men tap dance the fine line between reality and farce and pull it off swimmingly.