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BEING JOHN MALKOVICH

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Rating: - Quirky and Beautifully Crafted

Subtle but bizarre, Being John Malkovich is a modern day classic for the thinking person.

Rating: - US Film

I used to wonder how multiplicity in the work place came about, not after this film. Illustrative really, it'll metaphorically open your mind to the reality of modern day organised identity fraud. Good film by the way, quirky/weird though.

Rating: - Strange, Yet Compelling

If I asked you to name 3 John Malcovich movies, could you just recite them? I know personally I couldn't, so why was a man, who isn't that famous in the UK have a parody made about him? Well with a mind as sharp as Spike Jonze on the case, I guess it would be rude to not take up the opportunity to work with the man, who's got a music video back catalogue more impressive than most.

I'm a fan of John's, films like Ripley's Game are really good, and recently Burn After Reading - but I don't think I would want to go down a portal in a strange office to live 15 minutes of fame like many of the characters do. Craig Schwartz discovers it when he goes to work in a zanny office somewhere in NYC, and meets the love of his life Maxine Lund; and they exploit this, all without John realising?

This is a fantastic movie, so well thought out and artistic. John is a good sport too and laughs at himself - and Cameron Diaz is superb as animal loving Lottie who's not sure who or where she is; and obsessive Craig Schwartz portrayed by rising star John Cusack; the bizarre puppeteer who thinks he can be a star is just compelling. The journey of the script is amazing too, and sometimes a bit lost, but it's such a good story and keeps you on the edge of the seat you really don't care about faults.

Well worth renting this, buy it if you like it, otherwise you might not enjoy it.

Rating: - Profoundly odd...but compelling. But why John Malkovich?

This movie is quite possibly the oddest thing that makes sense you'll ever see. You see unlike some David Lynch films there is actually a story that doesnt fall apart into subconcious meanderings (mulholland Drive, half a movie finished off by 40 minutes of post production sellotape). Basically pupeteer John Cusack's street pupeteer disovers a portal into a famous actor's ("a better person's") mind and ironically comes to use Malkovich as a real life puppet. But why John Malkovich of all people?

I can imagine director Spike Jonze,writer Kaufman (no stranger to mindbending tales) and Malkovich sipping beers at a bar and wondering what it would be like to enter someone elses mind, and from there this gem arose.

And it is a gem. All the actors are spot on. The direction is great. The writing and the script are outstanding. John Malkovich playing himself and then himself as a puppet of Cusack is outstanding; even down to Cusack's characters mannerisms and figures of speech.

The film starts as a hilarious satire of modern life. Crummy offices, weird secretaries, moronic co-workers, tacky induction videos - Been there done that. But once Cusack finds the portal a whole wheelbarrow of philosphical questions arise. His wife Cameron Diaz falls for another woman while in Malkovich, he uses Malkovich to be close to co-worker Catherine Keener and his eventual partner in crime, his boss secretly is a captain of industry from 100 years in the past that uses 'vessels' like Malkovich to keep surviving. Its truly amazing stuff. What an imagination Kaufman must have, induced by many the acid trip no doubt.

The philosphical questions are profound: Malkovich becomes a tool and loses free will - for the greater good? The nature of love -physical or spiritual? etc etc The one flaw of the film is that there no Disney ending. Its very cyncial stuff about the nature of humanity. Catherine Keener's characters speech about getting whatever you want no matter the cost is the prevailing ethos. Both Cusack and Diaz characters are sexually attracted to a woman embodying this. Their own characters are lousy people. Cusack is revealed to be pathetic lifeform with no upstanding principles in the face of sexual attraction whose only redeeming characteristic is, ironically, only apparent by using his host. Diaz, Keener's characters are deplorable in their own ways. And the ending which i wont reveal is very flat and a bit of a tragedy. It makes sense but arent movies just better when the lesson is learnt/good guys win. Its just better that way. Dont ask me to explain!

Its odd. Its intelectual but its got a lot of slacker humour too (this must be Jonze influence). But why John Malkovich?! 8/10

Rating: - A very ambitious film that falls flat

The first twenty or so minutes of this film are amazing. It's weird, intriguing, funny and engaging. You wonder how is this going to unwind in a convincing and satisfying way? The answer is it can't. It sags and stretches credibility, it becomes coarse and silly. It was a drag to watch it to end and that end was a confusing mish mash. This is an overrated film.

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