Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

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Summary: about this movie...confessions of a dangerous mind
Review: I find that the movie is not interesting at all and the last part of the movie shows that he is hosting a entertainment/variety show. The opening shot of the movie in both the sex scene are fast paced and one of the scene was quite funny.

Rating:
Summary: Great movie
Review: George Clooney has outdone himself in this film as both an actor and a developer.director of a great film. Sam Rockwell, who shoudln't hav e been overlooked for an Oscar is stellar as well. He's consistently been a fun, twisted actor who takes chances on characters that aren't simple. Julia Roberts plays a really great dark spy in this film and Drew Barrymore plays bubbly and fun.
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Summary: Concoctions of a ... mind.
Review: George Clooney's directorial debut works if you believe the main character of the movie. But you shouldn't, of course, and what's left is a painful display of amateurishness heavily dependent on the stylistic mannerisms of Clooney's mentor (and producer of this film, I believe), Steven Soderbergh. *Confessions of a Dangerous Mind* begins with our hero, Chuck Barris (played by Sam Rockwell), hiding out in a New York flophouse circa the early Eighties. Acting as if on methadone, Barris commences to write his biography in the hotel room, and we get the movie in one bigfat flashback. Even this opening scene is rather unbelievable: Barris was a millionaire, and from what I understand spent a good deal of his time on the French Riviera after he was through with *The Gong Show*. One doubts he would've lived on Skid Row, even if he was being chased by shadowy double-agents. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The movie then goes on to tell the dual story of Barris' rise as both TV producer (*The Dating Game*, *The Newlywed Game*, et al.) and . . . HIT-MAN for the CIA! We're barely cognizant of Barris' day-job -- very little time is devoted to the day-to-day routine of producing TV shows. Perhaps I'm naive, but Barris' life seems quite interesting enough without even bringing up the hit-man stuff, which I suspect he invented during a fit of pique after *The Gong Show* was cancelled. (For those who don't remember, this guy was HATED by almost every culture-commentator out there.) Meanwhile, director Clooney seems perfectly willing to take Barris at face value, refusing to imply that it's all a bad, belabored joke. (How much more interesting a movie it would've been if it had told the story of why Barris made all this up!) Beyond Clooney's woeful credulity, the movie is photographed in that cotton-candy-colored, high-contrast garishness that Soderbergh copyrighted in *Ocean's Eleven* and *Traffic*. It's apt to end this review with mention of Soderbergh, if only because the movie is almost a cast-reunion of several Soderbergh's past films. There's Clooney, of course, directing and in a supporting role, but there's also Julia Roberts, unbelievable as a murderous female double-agent. There are cameos by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. Sleepwaking, every one. Sam Rockwell, at least, works hard, delivering a pretty creepy imitation of Barris. But the puerile dishonesty of the whole story makes Rockwell's mimicry seem rather pointless. Why imitate the game show host so accurately, when the movie itself is almost totally fabricated?

Rating:
Summary: An exhilarating directorial debut for George Clooney.
Review: We can be pretty well assured that the basic story of "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," Chuck Barris' purported memoirs of being an assassin for the CIA, is bullhockey. But what delightful, exhilarating, trenchant bullhockey, thanks to the artful direction of George Clooney and the astonishing performance of Sam Rockwell as Barris. Barris is, of course, the man who first numbed American sensibilities with such TV programming as "The Newlywed Game" and "The Gong Show." To pretend that his life was really a cross between Goldfinger and The Day of the Jackal--what better way for a guy like that to build up his importance in his own eyes? And, further down the line, what better metaphor for a guy who knows he's wasted not only his own life, but the lives of countless others as well? In any case, the movie is pure fun most of the way, with some unexpected darkness and nuance toward the end. I hope this isn't the only directing gig Clooney gets, or the only starring role Rockwell gets.

Rating:
Summary: SO COOL IT LEFT ME STONE COLD BORED
Review: Well, I knew it had to happen sometime. After forty six reviews I finally have found a truly worthy recipient of only a one star rating. I have a fairly eclectic taste in movies, and usually manage to be entertained as long as the film has a decent story line and good production values. After all, the time and effort invested is a lot less than to read a good book. And since I love comedies, like stories based on real life characters (in fact, I remember Chuck Barris and when his shows were popular), and have truly enjoyed Julia Roberts and George Clooney in previous films, I had reasonably high expectations for this movie despite it's mixed reviews. However, I was so bored that I almost walked out during the movie.

This is a Charlie Kaufman film, so I was prepared for some combination of different/strange/experimental and unique. It is based on the autobiography of Chuck Barris, the controversial game show creator famous for developing THE NEWLYWED SHOW, THE DATING GAME and THE GONG SHOW, which at the time were viewed as prime examples of the decline in this country's culture resulting from mass market television. (And certainly were in some sense the tame and self censored forerunners of the current wave of "reality programming".) Supposedly, Barris was simultaneously a clandestine operative for the U.S government utilizing his cover to engage in espionage and murder. Sam Rockwell plays Barris, and may well capture the essence of his personality. Clooney and Roberts are undercover operatives, and actually are two of the mildly entertaining characters in the film given the way they overplay their characters. Drew Barrymore is Barris' perfectly matched long time girlfriend.

The movie is a combination of social commentary, parody, Hollywood artistic creativity, and comedy, but the elements are in the wrong proportion and never gel. It starts slowly and occasionaly picks up but never hits it's stride. It also has a lot of vulgarity, crude sexual references and what seem like almost continual views of Rockwell's naked butt. While I understand that the purpose of these techniques was to recreate the authentic essence of Barris, they came across as somewhere between distracting and too heavy handed.

I considered giving the film two stars, because there were a few really comic lines and it certainly contained moments of artistic brillance. But approximately ten minutes of enjoyment is not enough to sit through this almost two hour film. The relatively large audience seemed to share my reaction, there was occasional scattered laughter, but generally little obvious reaction and several people left before the conclusion. I understand the risks of engaging in artistic creativity, and the fine line betwen success and failure. I am fully aware that some reviewers enjoyed this film immensely. But for me it was not even close to being informative, entertaining or artistically compelling. I would not watch it again unless paid a huge amount of money. Not horrible - perhaps even worse, boring and banal.

Rating:
Summary: Great film, but recalls "Beautiful Mind"
Review: "Confessions" purports to tell the story of Chuck Barris the "creator" of such early "reality TV" as "The Dating Game", "The Newlywed Game" and "The Gong Show", and, if this flick is taken at face value, a CIA killer with about 30 corpses to his credit. Reviled for his shows, both the passage of time since his primetime heyday and the sheer volume of repellant programming today that passes for reality TV would make Barris a character fit for rehab (nobody had to eat horse rectum on "Gong Show"). Barris, in an inventive spin, says otherwise: he was not only as bad as he appeared in 1976 (when there looked like no end to how much "stuff" he had for us), but that he was a killer and a user of women. Even the idea for "The Gong Show" came to him in an epiphany in a classic scene in which he imagines gunning down the vast swath of untalented Americans he'll need for his show.

The flick opens with Barris as a desiccated loser going to hell in a seedy NY hotel room in 1981. Penny, a love interest played Drew Barrymore, tries to save him, but Barris's sins are too great - he must tell all. Flashback to a younger Barris, the perfect loser - a sexually challenged/driven white male whose inability to connect costs him the few chances of love that come his way (despite, or more likely, because of how sexually knowing he was as a child). By the late 1960's, at a creative, career and romantic nadir, Barris is implausibly recruited for the CIA by a charming cold warrior named Jim Byrd (George Clooney). Conceiving the idea for "The Dating Game" while learning how to torture and kill The Enemies of the American Way (in some apparently disused industrial park where it's always winter), Barris becomes a perfect killer (he's the only recruit who can shoot straight). After a few apparently successful CIA missions, Barris's career and life pick-up. The networks become interested in "Dating Game", and he gets serious with Penny. When Byrd reappears, Barris hits on a "perfect" idea to explain his trips abroad - with winners on "Newlywed" and "Dating" winning trips to exotic Helsinki and glamorous West Berlin to go with their Amana refrigerators.

Unfortunately, Barris learns to hate himself - for both halves of his life (we learn that he was very sensitive to criticism, which he earned when creating "Gong"), and when the networks cancelled his shows, he withdrew to a lonely existence with nothing to protect his fragile ego from the scorn it earned.

This flick is a bit of a gem, but it loses much of its inventiveness in the 2nd half (it takes a real nosedive after Barriss's inspiration for "Gong"), and it's never the laugh riot the trailers make it out to be. The flick suffers because of its dual story, neither connecting with the other, no matter how the plot tries to unite Barris the Prime-time impresario with Barris, the CIA killer. In that vein "Confessions" seems to unintentionally mirror "A Beautiful Mind" - loose espionage subplot with a charismatic spymaster/mentor (Clooney instead of Ed Harris); the spy characters breeze in and out of Barris's life, including the wedding scene, without ever touching Barris's career or Penny. The "spy" story is inherently unreal, and it hurts more than helps "Confessions" because it quickly begins to appear like something Barris cooked up to explain his unproductive life. Instead of a purveyor of horrible TV, profiting at the exploitation of average (untalented) Americans, Barris was a death-defying spy and himself a victim of exploitation. The point is made best when one of Barris's more pitiable gameshow contestants victims is revealed as an enemy spy (and apparently a more valuable one), but it's made much too early in the film. Unlike the guys who made "Beautiful Mind", "Confessions" can't divorce itself from the idea that somebody will buy Barris's spy story and its meaning, instead of Barris story of a guy who made millions from humiliating countless Americans.

Unreality is reinforced by the spies' characters - Julia Roberts supposedly worked less than a week on this movie, and it shows (as a sexy spy who doesn't let her cold war smarts keep her from going to bed with Barris faster than any of the other women who reject him immediately; the story improbably allows Barris to get the better of her in the end); George Clooney (who improbably settles on Barris as prime killer-material immediately after watching him lose a bar fight) and even Rutger Hauer as a drunk CIA operative who eludes an East Berlin dragnet that nets Barris, yet succumbs to a KGB mole that Barris eludes. The implausible premise (well known and presumably recognizable pop-culture figure being sent undercover) doesn't help, and the fact that Barris's less plausible life as a spy is the one he runs to (rather than from, despite its menace), underscore how invented it sounds.

The spy-plot is a shame, because the film reveals a dark secret of Barris's past, one that frames the sorrow that sets the tone for the entire film, yet one neglected in favor of its sexier subplot. Barris, it turns out, is a surprisingly sympathetic and even acceptable character by the end of the flick, which is otherwise wholly draped in shadows. Despite its loyalty to the spy-subplot, the script bravely reconciles us with Barris as the master of exploitation, and makes clear that Barris can face that sin as well. This is a film that won't appeal to everybody, but it's a clear sign that we need to see more from Clooney and Sam Rockwell.

Rating:
Summary: watching the gong show is much better
Review: this movie was not bad. sam could of played barris much better. i am a huge gong show fan and i own 400 episodes on vhs. i cut out all the commercials. i loved this show because of chuck barris. no one else could have done it better then him. he himself was better then the show. they should put the gong show series on dvd. i would buy every one of them.

Rating:
Summary: Fine Writing, but Crude and Ridiculous
Review: Growing up and watching The Gong Show, I always got the feeling that Chuck Barris was coated with a thin, oily residue. This movie does nothing to change that.

First, praise where praise is due. Confessions is engaging, and well written. Barris slips between his show-biz and spy personas seamlessly, and the movie explains his inspirations for various game shows in a way that is ingenious. The principle actors are good in their roles (with the possible exception of George Clooney, whose mysterious spymaster is a trifle wooden) and Sam Rockwell's performance as Barris during his Gong Show days is dead-on.

That said, I didn't like the movie. Why? For one thing, I don't care for films containing scenes where one child actor asks another to perform a sex act. (But I'm just crazy that way.) This scene occurs a few minutes into the movie, and the child that does the asking plays the young Barris. We are then informed by the adult Barris, narrating, that he got what he wanted and that he's been looking for one thing from women ever since. He puts this in the crudest terms possible, and any sympathy I might have had for this odious little man pretty much flies out the window at this point. And we still have most of the movie to go.

Confessions also takes itself far too seriously. One would expect the odd concept of a game-show-host-turned-CIA-assassin to be played for laughs, and the film does have its lighter moments. But particularly towards the end of the movie, things become unrelentingly dark, culminating in a bizarre and belief-straining scene where Barris imagines The Gong Show audience to be filled with bloodied dead bodies. (Not to be missed is a prior scene where Barris pulls his gun and takes a bead on The Unknown Comic.)

Confessions contains crude language and some swear words, some scenes of sexuality and some of graphic violence. I also saw Rockwell's bare butt so often, I began to think it was some type of cinematic metaphor. When the end credits rolled, I was left with two bits of basic information. 1) Chuck Barris is not a happy camper (and maybe not too sane, either), and 2) I could care less.

Rating:
Summary: Awful in Every Way
Review: Only the second movie in my life that I walked out of for fear of dying a horribly painful death from bad movie contamination. The story is uninteresting, the acting is unimpressive and looking at Sam Rockwell's butt gets dull after the first 10 seconds.

Rating:
Summary: Barely three stars.
Review: ...What is good about this movie is that it tries hard to be iconoclastic and gritty. And, no question, this is a warts, warts, and more warts portrayal of the money-grubbing, narcissistic creep who brought us such fine entertainments as the Dating Game, the Newlywed Game, and the Gong Show. As our culture sinks lower and lower into the pit of schlock TV, Chuck Barris was nothing if not incomprehensibly boorish before it became a mainstream thing. Remember, he was a sick slickster before Robert Bork fell face down drunk in his yard, before Bill Clinton tickled himself while an intern got to know a cigar, before Survivor and Bachelor and all the horrendous exploitation television that has so captured the American imagination.

The story is a familiar one of materialism and lust leading to physical and emotional self-destruction and despair. And that's part of the problem. Chuck Barris is an awful and unsympathetic human being whose descent into the gutter--we finally see him grizzled and morose at the very end--is anything but appealling. Sam Rockwell is a terrific actor who probably has captured Barris' empty soul, but there's only so much time you want to spend with the man.

Julia Roberts is adequate in her performance (looking quite unattractive in the process), as does George Clooney--who looks like a poor man's Tom Selleck as a mysterious CIA man. And Drew Barrymore mails in the same character she's played in every one of her films.