Being John Malkovich

Rating:
Summary: GREAT MOVIE- BUT HERE'S A DVD REVIEW
Review: First of all, the sound is great and so is the picture quality- no problem there. I liked the menu design, clever tv spots (one soo weird it sticks in your brain forever) and the documentaries...very, very odd.

I couldn't wait to hear an interview with director jones..., but he ended up throwing it away for a two-minute joke that teaches us nothing. I guess his interview was meant to be funny- we don't get any useful information out of him, but WE DO get to see him puke...sorta funny, but come on- I want to know how he went about making this film.

The other documentary is slightly amusing, but also a waste. "The Art Of Background Driving" pretty much gives us an insight on the boring job of driving in the background of a shot...the New Jersey turnpike in particular. The driver is a bubbly valley girl who seems to take her job seriously, but we get tired of her mouth within a minute. Funny ideas, but they're done soo seriously that we're not sure whether to take them as a joke...wish there was a commentary to make up for it...still, I don't regret buying the DVD cuz it's a wonderful flick! If you just want good extra feautures- skip it.

Rating:
Summary: Mad, Provocative, Astonishing
Review: Being John Malkovich is a movie that defies description. The opening scene plunges the viewer into a wild, funny, and incredibly bizarre world that doesn't relent until well after the final credits start rolling.

The plot itself is intricate and discourages passive viewing, and is layed out in such a refreshingly understated fashion that you won't even realize just how unusual what you are seeing actually is. The story involves a down and out puppeteer (John Cusack) who starts work in a "filing company" in an office that has to be seen to be believed. While working there, he discovers a hole in the wall that is a portal to John Malkovich's mind. Along with a mysterious and beautiful coworker(Catherine Keener), Cusack's character starts a company that gives people who are tired of being themselves, the chance to enter the portal and be John Malkovich. Eventually Malkovich himself gets wind of the company (how and why this happens is another element that defies description) and the movie enters a new realm of engaging wierdness. This movie is not wierd in the sense of most 90s "wierd" movies (i.e. externally eccentric, but essentially lifeless characters), but is wierd the way a Van Gogh painting is or a piece of music by Scriabin or Schonberg is. The acting is absolutely superb (Cameron Diaz, for example, shows herself to have a real sense of irony in her self-effacing performance), and it is a lot of fun to imagine what Malkovich himself must have been thinking while filming the movie. A portal to his mind indeed would be handy in this respect.

Finally, the film explores what it means to be a person in an existence in which we are limited by our own consciousness. The film plays on this theme in inventive ways, most revealingly I think, in a scene in which Malkovich enters his own mind. The conclusions that the movie draws from this are quite surprising, and a little depressing. Do not hesitate to watch this film. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Being John Horatio Malkovich
Review: This is hands down, the funniest film I've seen from '99. I wasn't sure anything could top "Election," but Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich" is such a funny, inventive, revolutionary film, that it was no surprise it affected me the way it did.

Ask yourself when was the last time you saw a movie where every character felt completely real while at the same time getting a feeling that you've never really met anyone like this before. Well, that applies to every character in the film, and the wonderful thing about it all is that they all compliment each other and enhance the story enormously.

John Cusak is at the same time pathetic and endearing, an artist who finds the zenith of his art in the unlikeliest of places; John Malkovich. Why Malkovich chose to back this project is easy to see, Charlie Kaufmann's script is not about an actor, but about the persona the actor projects. It could have been anyone, and yet the choice of someone like Malkovich adds quirkiness to an already crazy story.Catherine Keener and Cameron Diaz are wonderful. Keener can play cool like no one else and Diaz is great in the role of sensitive Lotte.

The film is visually stunning, the musical score is appropriately sullen and magical. Spike Jonze created a world I'd never seen before and even more incredibly, it made me really appreciate puppetry!

Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: I'll keep it short, given the 80-some-odd wordy reviews. -- "BJM" is a must-see one-for-your permanent-collection film. The premise is unique. The scenes showing the puppeteering are awesome -- in the hands of the artist, the puppets come to life. Charlie Sheen's observations, putting JM's misgivings about Maxine to bed are a high point, encouraging JM, envying him for having a relationship with a lesbian witch who is channeling a dead lesbian through him. The scene with JM going in the door himself is unprecedented. "M..M...M...M..." Lesson learned: The world is divided into people who go after what they want, and those who don't.

Rating:
Summary: Form over substance.
Review: This film features an avant-garde puppeteer, his frumpy, animal-collecting wife, and an office building that has a 7 1/2 floor where one has to walk hunched over like Igor. And that's just the beginning of the weirdness. In fact, the weirdness is so pervasive that by the time we get to the real whammy -- a secret cubbyhole on the 7 1/2 floor which happens to be a portal into actor John Malkovich's brain -- we're scarcely surprised . . . some of you may be scarcely interested, if you're anything like me.

However, it might be worth hanging in there just to watch Mr. Malkovich not take himself so seriously. (My estimation for him has gone way up since seeing this movie.) And I must admit: the scene where Malkovich goes through the "portal" and into his own brain is insanely inspired and absolutely hilarious, and almost makes the film justifiable.

But one brilliant sequence is not enough to salvage this immature baby. The "plot" goes off the deep end during the last act. Some perhaps find -- for example -- the Malkovich cult's resemblance to the *Rosemary's Baby* coven very clever, but after an entire movie full of such derivative stuff, it finally drove me beyond the bounds of patience. This is an insipidly clever film about NOTHING, which, for a generation raised on *Seinfeld* and other facile entertainments, will undoubtedly stand as a seminal work. Shrugging my shoulders, I say: "Whatever."

Rating:
Summary: "Being" spellbound for two hours
Review: Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich" is like a breath of fresh air. Even those who watch many films (like me) may not be prepared for this movie.

The film is about an unsuccessful puppeteer who is in love with a woman and wins her heart by controlling the actor John Malkovich, to whose brain he has found a portal. Though the story is absurd, the film is not merely about its gimmick but full of fantastic twists and turns which I would not dream of revealing here. The film is so original, so unique indeed, that during watching it I sometimes found myself asking: "Is this really happening, am I really watching a movie right now or is this just a Kafkaesque dream." Like "Fight Club", the film manages to be intelligent, furious and very entertaining.

"Being John Malkovich" is a reminder that even today it is still possible to tell a story in a way like it was never done before. It will be a daunting task for director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufmann to live up to this film in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Intelligent, gloomy film. Edgy philosophy, great cast.
Review: This strange, intelligent movie features some of the gloomiest, off-kilter scenes since Brazil. It's visually depressing, but it's also provocative and inventive, and ultimately touches on some unexpected philosophical issues: the importance of not losing one's identity, and the vacuousness of immortality. Director Spike Jonze deserves top marks for casting against type, a brave decision which elicits truly career-expanding performances from Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener. All in all, I like the idea of this movie better than I liked watching it.

YOU MAY NOT LIKE THIS MOVIE IF: If you like movie stars to look like stars, and you're disturbed by the idea of watching Cameron Diaz and John Cusack play physically unattractive, frumpy losers ... if you're expecting to see lots of scenes with John Malkovich ... if you're uncomfortable with gloomy film-making and introspection.

Rating:
Summary: VERY WEIRD, BUT VERY ENTERTAINING...
Review: Was 1999 the year for weird movies, or what? This movie was one of the most bizarre yet! but that doesn't have to be such a bad thing. While it was very bizarre, it held my interest, and was a very original story with an amazing screenplay and the acting was pretty good too. Both Catherine Keener and Cameron Diaz(who i hardly recognized!) were deservant of their Oscar nominations. The acting all around was excellent. This film was also very funny, I laughed alot. There were a couple of parts, where the laughter kind of died, but that's because i was kind of weirded out. I think Spike Jonze did a great job directing. This movie is definetly not for everybody. If you want to see something different, very different -- watch BEING JOHN MALKOVICH.

Rating:
Summary: Spend your time elsewhere.
Review: Adultery and foul language. And just weird. Spend time elsewhere. Turned the movie off in 30 minutes.

Rating:
Summary: Very unusual and very clever
Review: Once in a while a movie comes along that really challenges the mind. It is a movie that differs from the usual formulas of filmmaking and develops its own genre. Such fine examples would be David Lynche's "Lost Highway" and David Fincher's "The Game". Spike Jonze's "Being John Malcovich" is the most unusual film I believe I have ever seen.

John Cusak is a puppeteer who finds work on the 7 1/2 floor of a building. One day he finds a door that takes you inside the head of actor John Malcovich for 15 minutes before dumping you on the Jersey turnpike. From there it gets even more strange.

There are good performances for this film even from Malcovich as himself. Watch for Charlie Sheen's humorous cameo in the film as well. The film tends to go a little long and it seemed like they used the last 30 minutes to throw as many oddites as they could in the last part of the film.

But overall the film is great and should be viewed by those in search of a different film to watch.