Adaptation (Superbit Collection)

Rating:
Summary: The Amazing Peebs
Review: I quite simply loved this movie it is perfect and unique and every time i watch it i see more and more of its beauty

Rating:
Summary: Even better than advertised
Review: Alright, let's just get the honorifics out of the way right now: Adaptation is as smart as Election, as endearing as Rushmore, and as original as, well, anything I've ever seen all at the same time. It's a testament to how much a clever idea can make a movie, but it has a lot more going for it that that. Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has written himself into a movie about writing himself into a movie, and if that sounds like a pretentious idea it's because it is. But at the same time, Adaptation more than holds its own in the areas of wit, characterization, and plot development. Its concept is decidedly highbrow and unquestionably outlandish, but at the same time Adaptation is a boldly unconventional, relentlessly unpredictable, and unapologetically quirky movie.

So, what exactly is Adaptation about? Well, here's a partial list: creativity, self-loathing, emotional attachment, forbidden love, fraternal relations, the movie industry drug use, and last but not least, flowers. Of course, that's not all it's about, either, as there is a plot holding everything together. Adaptation mainly centers around Charlie Kaufman's attempts to adapt Susan Orleans's book The Orchid Thief into a movie while simultaneously trying to tune out his twin brother Donald as Donald attempts to write a screenplay of his own. After some, er, questionable decisions in recent years (Gone In 60 Seconds, anyone?), Nicolas Cage apparently once again finds his niche here, pulling off the difficult task of portaying the polar opposites of the tormented artiste Charlie and the charming hack Donald in a dual role that has an awful lot to say about the nature of creative genius. The rest of the movie notwithstanding, Charlie's frenetic inner monologue alone is practically worth the price of admission.

That said, there's plenty more going on in this movie, well more than can be easily encapsulated in a simple review. Constantly leaping back and forth in time and blurring the line between fiction and reality until it's difficult to tell which is which, Adaptation is considerably more challenging than even Kaufman's latest effort, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which wasn't exactly an easy watch itself. Various plots are juggled in a seemingly haphazard manner, but seeing them all come together in the end makes for much of the fun of watching. More to the point, the movie never sacrificies emotional depth or humor for the sake of cleverness, largely avoiding the self-congratulatory air that has doomed so many lesser movies of its ilk (this means you, Lost in Translation). It certainly doesn't hurt that there are startingly authentic performances from skilled actors like Merryl Streep, Chris Cooper, and Bryan Cox on display, or that the insanely adorable Maggie Gyllenhaal is around in a minor role.

Now, before I take my leave I should stress that Adaptation is most certainly not a movie for everyone. If you favor movies with conventional storylines, fast-paced plots, or lots of action, you probably will not like this one. But, if you're in the mood for something different, Adaptation should not be missed. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is worth checking out as well.



Rating:
Summary: surprisingly disappointing
Review: "Being John Malkovich" was a wacky and off-beat film. I have screened it many times. I eagerly anticipated similar joy from Adaptation, given the same director and screenwriter.

Poachers - in the maze-like Florida Everglades swamp. After plants? Flowers? Whoa, this could be interesting!

The film purports to be an "adaptation" of a novel called The Orchid Thief. The novel chronicles the legal and seemingly environmentally-motivated struggle of a flower poacher who "doesn't touch" the flowers (Native Americans - Seminole Indians, apparently, are permitted to harvest them, under the guise of "religious rituals" - and also seem to be employed by the poacher). The object of attention is a rare "ghost" orchid, and the real reason for harvesting them (which I won't reveal) emerges in the closing act of the film...

Adaptation's best performance was delivered by Chris Cooper, as the poacher. He's practically unrecognizable (compared to other recent film appearances) as an intellectual, charming, and tragically (as explained in the film) toothless, incongruously mop-haired, redneck horticulturist.

Meryl Streep's performance is as expected. Good but robotic... There is a weird bit showing her partially nude torso on a porno website (the poacher's later vocation). As genuine as the magazine cover photo of Julia Roberts with the pasted-in photoshopped head.

Nicholas ("Nicky Coppola") Cage overdoes his take on socially-compromised professional screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, identical twin of "still finding myself" brother Donald. Is Kaufman really that neurotic? More? Who bloody cares? Nowadays, everyone knows someone as crazy as this.

On the other hand, I laughed out loud at some of Donald's antics, providing an absurd focus to Charlie's astringent behavior. Donald's character was more aligned with Cage's presence, as Charlie's screen doppelganger. Donald was hilariously deluded and irrational (yet sane in a Hollywood - or perhaps even everyday - context). By contrast, Charlie was introverted and cynical (even doubting his own sanity, in light of Donald's unaccountable success as a formulaic, by-the-book screenwriter).

The mantra of Adaptation was "know your genre." What's the genre? "Movie - within - a movie" has been done numerous times, not often with success. "Malkovich" provided a creative twist (as "person - within - a - person"). The protagonist in Malkovich was a struggling puppeteer who was rightfully derided as a boring sot, by other characters in the film. And we expect that a screenwriter, by contrast, has an interesting life? Perhaps the parable is that the story portrayed by The Orchid Thief is more boring than the life of a screenwriter. Making Kaufman, by extension, interesting?

As the film's final scenes played out, a glimmer of salvation emerged. Could it be that The Orchid Thief, as a novel, was an ingenious, fictional construct, created (in the "Real Screenwriter Kaufman's" imagination) expressly for the purposes of the film? Within this fiction, the protagonist injects drama to recussitate his flailing adaptation of the novel, by surreptitiously discovering the grim secret hidden by the book's author. Unfortunately, this hope was extinguished on discovering the truth - The Orchid Thief is a published novel.

After seeing this film, I don't care to read The Real Orchid Thief. (Is this a cynically planned, and therefore ironic - in Charlie Kaufman's eyes - film / book tie-in? Does the film studio profit from increased book sales, etc... ) Anyone who is interested in a different, and similarly illuminating take on Hollywood screenwriters, and which might have inspired this effort (without a "happy" or "fair" ending) just might enjoy the film "The Player," starring Tim Robbins.

Rating:
Summary: UTTERLY HYPNOTIZING
Review: Easily one of the most audacious, spellbinding films you'll ever see. Trust Kaufman to stretch the boundaries of fiction with a delicious narrative that unfolds into itself, a script that's sporadically humorous but almost always thought-provoking, characters that you end up caring deeply about or even relating to - all of them, and some fabulous acting round the house!

Charlie (Cage), our main man, is a writer in a rut stumbling on his way to adapt a screenplay from a book about orchids. The first two-thirds of the movie is an amazing writer's journey through the mutually linked paths of creation and self-doubt.

His twin brother Donald (also Cage) however is everything Charlie is not: comfortable among people, facile with women, and, on his first time at the bat, quite capable of dashing off an action script of incomparable goofiness that instantly makes him a screen-writing rage. The moments between the two brothers are filled with comely gaffes but shroud a sinister snub at Hollywood for rewarding the alter-image, Donald.

Woven into this narrative is the parallel universe of Susan Orlean (Streep), whose book Charlie is adapting, and her encounters with an interesting bunch of Orchid hunters in Miami, specifically Laroche. As a pent-up New York journalist in a withering marriage, Meryl Streep is as riveting as you've seen her. As the orchid thief Laroche, Chris Cooper turns in his meatiest characterization to date.

Following these two skeins, the film engenders a sort of auto-auto-biography with mirror curtains. In addition to Kaufman's voice-over monologues about his inability to render the book onto the screen, it offers ancillary tidbits for contemplation and amusement at every turn. The Charlie in the movie wants to be able to write a movie about flowers, but to do so he must tell the entire history of the universe. Which is troubling. Yet, a montage sequence early in the film actually manages to relate this multimillennial history in an awesome and amusing display of cinematic bravado. This sort of switch and bait happens at several points in the film, and the effect is captivating.

There's a finespun undercurrent of the essentially parasitic relationship writers have with their subjects. Orlean's obsession with Laroche is mirrored by Kaufman's obsession with Orlean, and though the overall tone of the film is acerbic, Adaptation is poignant in its portrayal of both writers' struggle to engage with the world and develop passions of their own.

Ultimately, Adaptation both succeeds and fails at its own game. By the third act, Kaufman adds in a secret love story, drugs, swamp chases, etc. -- everything that any studio production chief would want to see in a script. My first thought is that Kaufman couldn't find a way to write himself out of his wacky story and therefore opted for the easy way out. Only later did his tactic occur to me, the zany action-packed denouement was perhaps a rebuke of his desire to completely renounce narrative conventions. Not only are conventions handy and reliable, they offer structure to a protagonist (such as our Charlie) who is inert in the extreme.

Plebeians may enjoy seeing it at least once for the sheer boggle of it but if like your movies daring/complex/offbeat, then this DVD should be in the front row in your most-precious rack.

Rating:
Summary: Writers will love this movie.
Review: I had no idea that other people had a voice in their heads that constantly says that you are definitely a fraud and a moron. Especially when it comes to writing something with meaning versus writing for the masses. This movie is a very unique view of the brain of an artist/writer.
Also, Chris Cooper deserved that Oscar. I was planning to riot if he didn't win. Because he succeeded in making me think that a man with no front teeth was sexy. No really folks, I have my Crest White Strips in now - I have a thing about teeth. But he pulled it off, of course with help from the writers.