Rating: 
Summary: Smartest movie ever made
Review: What fascinated me most about this film is it's originallity . The script is simply outragous . A wannabe famous puppeteer discovers a portal to Malkovich head which allows you to be him for 15 minutes . The guy deceides to try to use it for his financial profit with the help of his work-collegue Maxine ( Keener ) . Problems soon begin because his fiance Lotte ( Diaz ) tries to make her sexual turn a reality via the portal and he tries to get in bed with his object of lust Maxine with the same way .The script has such high I.Q the viewer will have to see the movie several times to believe it . Jonze directs his film with a speedy , bold way . Scenes like the one where Diaz chases Keener into J.Malkovich's subconscious memories or the one where Malkovich actually enters his own mind are hysterical moments of a creative banquet . The characters nad further more the dialogues ( " ... after dinner i'll introduce you to my chimp Elija " ) are irresistably crazy and fun while all the cast delivers great perfomances . Special credit should be given to Diaz though who was brave enough to go after the role of the sexual frustrated Lotte and hide her good looks under a huge wig . After the end titles you can't help but wondering if you ever gonna see a movie like this again .
Rating: 
Summary: Can somebody please turn on the light?
Review: The plot in itself is inventive: a looser-puppeteer discovers a secret entrance into the brain of the great actor John Malkovich while working as a filing clerk on floor 7½ of a building inhabited by a load of very strange people. Together with a ruthless female colleague, with whom he falls utterly in love, they try to make money out of this finding by charging 200 dollars for 15 minutes in John Malkovich'brain. The problem is that his wife is one of the first to enter and also falls in love with the ruthless colleague while being John Malkovich. In the end he finds a way to stay take over the body of John Malkovich and turn him from an actor into a puppeteer. The main problem for me was the fact that almost all the scenes were very dark, meaning that it was most often impossible to see people's expressions. While this may work in a dark theater, it does not work while watching the video at home. I even tried watching it with all the lights in the house out, but I ended up being irritated and loosing my interest after about 45 minuted.
Rating:
Summary: Being John Malkovich
Review: This is definitely one of the best movies of 1999. It was so interesting. But a movie being interesting is not the most important features for a movie to have. All movies need to be creative. And 'Being John Malkovich' is one of the most creative movies of all time. Just the idea of having a 7 1/2 floor with the ceilings so low was enough to have a creative score of 10/10. Then, there's the whole idea of going into John Malkovich's brain and seeing through his eyes. John Cusack is the main character (other than the obvious, John Malkovich). Even though he's sort of the main character, his character is the most boring of the four (Cusack, Malkovich, Catherine Keener, and Cameron Diaz). Catherine Keener is what keeps the whole movie going. Her presence, whether having sex with Malkovich and Diaz or Malkovich and Cusack or running 8 months pregant from a crazy Cameron Diaz with a gun, Keener is always the scene-stealer and definitely deserved that Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actress. And yes, in case you're wondering, that really was Cameron Diaz. Why her hair was all frizzy and hanging down her face I don't know. But she was also excellent as a pet-obssed wife of John Cusack. Seeing her locked in that animal cage with her mouth taped shut was heartbreaking. And it made you laugh to hear her explain how good it felt to be having sex with Catherine Keener's character through John Malkovich's body. This movie is intelligent, funny, creative, and it's one that you have to see. It's not boring but it's not an action flick. There's really not any violence, except for the gun-shooting scene near the end, and only a little profanity. I completely recommend this movie to everyone.
Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: What a film. I mean, WHAT A FILM! I'm struggling for reference points here. 'Being John Malkovich' defies objective analysis. It cannot be judged alongside other, similar, films, because there are none. It is totally unique - and God only knows how anyone was persuaded to finance it. Or indeed how John Malkovich was persuaded to appear in it. But thank God they did, because this film is the most outrageously original, absurd, thought-provoking and hilarious 'mainstream' film released in years. If this film was a person it would be diagnosed clinically insane. Leave your preconceptions at the door because they won't be of any use to you here. The genius of 'Being John Malkovich' is that it is played totally straight. It would have been easy for the actors (Cusack, Diaz, Keener and, er, Malkovich) and director (the fabulously eccentric Spike Jonze) to play to the more cynical viewers' jaded sense of irony, but this would have been a mistake. Instead Jonze has taken a much more interesting route, and the film thus seems unaware of its own barely comprehensible brilliance. Most people will have an idea of the premise of the movie: struggling, tortured pupeteer Cusack gets admin job on floor seven and a half, discovers portal into Malkovich's brain, gets catapulted out onto New Jersey turnpike. The ensuing events I will withold for fear of ruining what, for me, was a journey I certainly didn't expect to take, and one that left me feeling like a child discovering snow for the first time. Wow.
Rating:
Summary: Good comedy, not good enough
Review: "Being John Malkovich" is like being tossed in an enigmatic New York City with John Cusack with a bad hair day and Cameron Diaz with a really bad hair day. Add a comedic/fantasy twist, faithful Malkovich and Catherine Keener, and you have an anemic, enigmatic comedy that has no doubt whether it be dry/wet wit, but is lacking heart. Well, it WAS nominated for 3 Academy Awards. It begins with a lackluster puppeteer (Cusack) who accepts a job as an exceptionally fast filing clerk, and he falls for the sharp, cool debutante Maxine (appropriately Catherine Keener) who rejects him. Later, he finds a portal that takes him into the mind and brain of John Malkovich for 15 minutes, and he coerces Maxine into making the portal in a entrepreneur business, and unpredictability occurs (but I won't give it away). This dark comedy has a sort of dramatic effect, and the ending is quite unbelievable. To me, I see little comedy and it goes in my book as a "not bad" movie. But, the utter brilliance and the sharp, witty performance by Maxine makes it a movie to watch two times and forget about it. But, the movie should have won a Razzie for worse costuming of the year. Look at Cusack and Diaz's hair in the movie! I think it would be better if Diaz and Keener switched roles, but it's a fine comedy for a rainy day, though "Shrek" is far better than this profane comedy/fantasy. Rated R for language, violence, and for mild nudity.
Rating:
Summary: PoMo MishMash
Review: This madcap journey through definitions of self celebrates, in the best possible way, everything the postmodernists have been babbling about. Layers of images lace into nests to rival the most greedy crow's, stealing unabashedly from the best in new digital effects (Malkovich malkovich malkovich?) and the worst in sci-fi gimmickiness (head swaps are not a new idea), not to mention an uproarious two-minute sequence from the perspective of a depressed chimpanzee. But from those nests hatch all kinds of unsettling questions. Manipulation is a key to this film, as both Craig Schwartz, an emotionally needy puppeteer forced to get a day job as a file clerk, and his wife Lottie (Diaz) compete for the affections of Craig's saucy, self-centered new coworker Maxine (Keener), sometimes while inhabiting the body of John Malkovich. Who's manipulating whom? Craig's boss, Dr. Lester (caricature acting by Orson Bean), while evidently the mastermind behind the entire philosophy-shattering portal phenomenon, is totally wrapped around the non-consonant-sensitive ear of his secretary. And Maxine, arguably the most grasping but in the end the most altered human in the film, conceives (pun not intended) what could be considered a crime against selfhood: the sale of another's experiences and identity ($200 bucks a fifteen-minute pop). Who is whom, and who is pulling whose strings? When Craig uses Malkovich's body to puppet puppets, which is the greater realization of Craig's art, his use of JM or his mastery of expression through wood-segment bodies? (JM soi-meme plays a peculiar version of himself during those scenes when he isn't playing Cusack-playing-Craig.) What reason, what morality, what intimacy can exist when people can commit theft of volition and adultery by proxy? Which selves really self-actualize (besides the chimp)? Curiouser and curiouser, how different is Malkovich's own art from Craig's puppeteering or Maxine's power grappling? All the characters are shown in their own worst lights, revealed as manipulative and selfish, capable of extraordinary cruelties despite their individual starts from almost cartoonish ordinariness. Deliciously impossible, complex, and darkly witty a la Gilliam and Lynch, this film is studded with stellar performances by principals Cusack, Diaz, Keener, and Malkovich and is directed by the unexpectedly keen Spike Jonze. Jonze, to his credit, has engineered a visual world and character moments that underline the story rather than gilding it, as Hollywood generally prefers. Almost X-Filesish atmospheres surround the depressed Craig while earth tones broadcast volumes about Lottie's real desires. Subdued, like Malkovich's loden towels - but all the better to contrast the vivid reds and whites that signal power in this film. The speed and dynamics, too, vary from the terribly honest dragging of a dinner night to two brainwrenching chase scenes through Malkovich's own levels of consciousness. Like much made in the postmodern image, this film plays with dualities (compare dinner with Maxine and dinner with Dr. Lester; compare the women's starting and finishing motivations; compare Craig's dark surroundings and Emily's swin through the shifting lights), and then undermines dichotomies (man/woman; heterosexual/homosexual; self/other; will/action). It flirts with left-of-center humor and demands viewer attention. Like haute-cuisine, this kind of film is an acquired taste, and can be watched again and again for many "flavors" of imagery, style and idea. For those who liked Gilliam's .Brazil., the novels of Flann O'Brien or Jeanette Winterson, or Derrida's .The Post Card., this is definitely a winner. For those who thought .Fargo. was too art-school to be viewable, those who dislike dark humor or films with grotestque overtones, those who are going to see Cameron Diaz (unrecognizably frizzy), or those who find non-heterosexual intimate relationships unpalatable, this film may not be to taste. So. Two people who love each other end up together; some despair can be found in two other characters' fates, and some hope can be found in one character's resistance to another's will. Is it a comedy? That depends on whose head you've been in when the credits spit you out into your real world. Have you, as the viewer, been manipulated into thinking this is a good film? Absolutely. And can manipulation, deception, and ugliness sometimes reveal beauty and hope anyway, and be funny while they do it? That, I am told, is art.
Rating:
Summary: Second best film of 1999
Review: Bested only by American Beauty as the best film of 1999. Featuring a great cast and an insane premise, Being John Malkovich is one of the most innovative films in a long time. Malkovich himself (as himself) is a marvel. He keeps impressing me with each new role he gets. The dvd is well done and includes some interesting extras.
Rating:
Summary: Anything less than DVD, and you're not getting full effect
Review: I gave this film five stars, and there's nothing I want to add to the other reviews. If you haven't seen this movie, it's best to just see it without reading reviews because they all contain spoilers. This is such an outrageously original movie, it's best to see it without knowing much about it. If you're the type who is willing to buy rather than rent if a film is "known good," this is definetely worth buying. I saw it first on a rented DVD, then saw it later on VHS and I was stunned by how VHS' poor technical quality detracts from the enjoyment of the film. This is one movie that demands the quality of DVD. And this movie is so delicious, it's worth buying a DVD player just to treasure it.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, inventive cinema
Review: With Hollywood cranking out more mindless films each and every year, it's important to take some time to stop and appreciate those rare films that combine strong writing, inventive direction, fine acting and a unique story. "Being John Malkovich" fits the bill. But don't go into it expecting standard Hollywood fare. The movie twists your understanding of the movies and leaves you wanting more. Is the story possible or believable? Nope. Does it require the viewer to suspend disbelief? Absolutely. Of course, that's also what makes it so much fun. The film is director Spike Jonez's debut, but he makes the transition from music videos to cinema seamlessly. The acting is top-shelf, with John Malkovich brilliantlty playing himself, the always excellent John Cusack and Cameron Diaz leading the way.
Rating:
Summary: An Actor's Karmic Nightmare
Review: "Being John Malkovich" is about a secret passage that allows anyone who crawls down it to peep into the mind of the actor John Malkovich. The film portrays the havoc that the existence of this passage engenders, both in the life of John Malkovich, and in the lives of those who utilize this passage to get their own cheap thrills. For the record, those thrills may be "cheap" at first, but very quickly they become far more costly to those who pursue them. The storyline of this twisted, darkly hilarious movie shuttles back and forth between the viewpoint of John Malkovich, and the viewpoint of the people who discover the secret passage. These people include John Cusack, as a professionally unsuccessful puppeteer, named Craig; his wife Lottie, played by an almost alarmingly de-beautified Cameron Diaz; the office babe that Craig and Lottie both lust after, named Maxine, who is gleefully played by Catherine Keener; and finally, the genteel, grandfatherly, yet completely deranged owner of the business which occupies the floor in the building where the secret passage exists... if you are still reading after that swamp of prepositional phrases that I just became lost in, the business owner's name is Dr. Lester (as in "Lester the Molester") and he is played by Orson Bean. You must see this movie to appreciate the unbelievably twisted relationships these characters get involved in. The best way to think of this movie is "more twists and turns than a spiral staircase that has been filled neck-deep with neurotic pretzels." Actually, that doesn't even begin to describe how twisted this movie is, but it's a fair start. After seeing this, I guarantee you will feel incredibly curious about how Spike Jonze came up with the whole idea. Here's my opinion -- I think the movie got started as the result of a bizarre late night conversation between the director and his friends, probably amidst many empty beer bottles, bootleg Greatful Dead albums, and bags of Doritos. My guess is that Spike and Co. decided to take the actor's craft and turn it on its' head. "What if," they may have asked, "an actor suddenly had the tables turned upon him?" An actor peeps into the minds of strangers for a living, to understand the characters he must play -- how would he like it if total strangers suddenly were able to do the same thing to him? How would he like it if strangers seized the right to speak for him -- to literally put words in his mouth, and thoughts in his mind? The result is the total chaos portrayed in this film. If you think about it, all the main characters are really quite vampiric, or, you could even say, demonic -- they take over another person's body for their own purposes. They basically possess him. I think video libraries with a certain sense of humor could shelve this movie next to "The Exorcist" -- it makes a twisted kind of sense, if you think about it... An interesting subplot is the commentary this movie contains about the nature of obsessive "love." Craig and Lottie both lust after Maxine, but in order to be with her, their only option is to go through the body and soul of John Malkovich... What does this have to say about this kind of "love?" Can we draw any lessons from this? There was a song popular in the 80s, I forget who sang it, which was called "Obsession." One of the lyrics went "who do you want me to be/to make you sleep with me?" Forgive me for attaching cosmic meaning to a basically forgettable 80s tune, but, well, if you see this movie you'll agree with me that it has a lot of relevance. This is a seriously weird movie, but one you will never forget. I recommend the living daylights out of it. It's definitely worth owning -- you'll want to see it again and again. Two thumbs way up.
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