Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I’ve gotten letters from many of you asking what happened to the CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND review that I posted last week. There was a mix-up in press embargo dates, and I simply removed it from the site until the day before release, when I’ll put it back up. Same review, but it’s a simple matter of making sure that the material is released when it’s supposed to be, and when it’s an official press screening you’re invited to, there are rules that have to be followed.
However, to the best of my knowledge, Joe Slutt didn’t attend the same screening as me, and isn’t bound by the same rules, so I’m happy to hand you over to him so he can tell you a bit about the film...
Howdy! It’s Joe Slutt once again. I would guess that reviews of “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” are beginning to spring up from just about every leak in the flood-dam, but if it’s still cool news, I’d like to share my thoughts with the talkback queens.
I have a feeling that the majority of my comments might overshadow the sheer satisfaction of seeing a completed film that is (at least presumably) adherent to Charlie Kaufman’s adaptation of Chuck Barris’ autobiography of the same name. I remember wincing at the possibility of the production collapsing at any moment during its troubled development process, characterized by a parade of Hollywood personalities whose flirtations and eventual “irreconcilable differences” with the project left its future in doubt.
The fact that George Clooney took the initiative to choose this as his directorial debut speaks to his evident passion for the material. This is on proud display, from his insatiable lust for color-correction to a sense of “mise en scene” that often favors the synchronized antics of background extras over the meatier adventures of their foreground counterparts. The broadly exaggerated nature of almost every aspect of the production suggests an enthusiastic but equally indulgent first-time filmmaker whose rein on the matter-of-fact tone of the piece tends to slack.
I am probably not the most appropriate person to review the credibility of Rockwell’s performance as Chuck Barris. My only exposure to Barris’ misadventures was in the form of his own rarely screened 1980 directorial effort, “The Gong Show Movie,” which predates the publication of “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” by two years and has never surfaced as a legitimate home video release. Co-conceived with cult filmmaker Robert Downey, this feature-length venture stars Barris as himself and vividly illustrates the annoyances that he must face as a result of his own notoriety. He also paints himself as a depressed mess who is inching closer and closer to a complete mental breakdown, although it doesn’t explore his autobiography’s claims that he was employed as a government assassin during his tenure on the show.
It’s not exactly clear what Charlie Kaufman wants you to believe about the validity of these claims. He suggests that the memoirs in question are merely an exercise in pulp revisionism but he also gives us every indication that Barris might also be completely out of his mind. The moral ambiguity that surrounds Kaufman’s more interesting characters (Miranda Otto in “Human Nature” comes to mind) is key to his sympathetic presentation of Barris as an anarchic spirit and entrepreneurial wunderkind.
Kaufman’s imagination is at its most unrestrained when preoccupied with the darker nooks and crannies of this tale; you can hear the emergency brake scrape against the pavement every time the film is redirected to a subplot involving Drew Barrymore as a love interest who meets cute and lives cute. Other A-list supporting cast members come and go with such fleeting certainty that the closing crawl reads like a catalog of indentured servitude.
Jaye P. Morgan and the Unknown Comic, themselves fixtures on the original “Gong Show,” return in documentary-style interviews to wax nostalgic. Most of the members of my preview audience were profoundly saddened to learn the fate of Gene Gene, The Dancing Machine.
I would be remiss if I did not mention Rutger Hauer’s contribution to the film, a study in understatement as a philosophical hit-man who has warmed to the Old Testament. After years of watching Hauer battle post-apocalyptic nasties and wander through one low-profile international co-production after another, it was jarring but refreshing to see him in an honest-to-goodness “prestige piece.”
Until next time ...
Earlier this year, one of our chat room regulars, FreshG, called me up to say he’d found a copy of THE GONG SHOW MOVIE for rent at Rocket Video here in LA. If you plan to see CONFESSIONS, there’s no better way to warm up for it than seeing that Robert Downey oddity. It’s a surprisingly fitting companion piece that defies any easy descriptions. It’s a miserable film, but it’s endlessly fascinating.
"Moriarty" out.
