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Man, it has been a crazy month and a half! As most of you
know, I've had to move out of two, count 'em 2, apartments
this past year due to black mold. I even had to move the day
before Thanksgiving the last time. Well, that was the same
night shimes and I went to see Solaris. We went out
with some friends afterwards and the poor bastard just had
this look on his face of confusion and bewilderment. He kept
talking on and on about Dylan Thomas and about Stanley Kubrick
and something about "antiseptic passion that Soderbergh
never achieved". Geez, and I just thought it was boring
and stupid! And what was up with those George Clooney butt
shots? Gross. He just kind of looked at me with defeat. Then,
I said that I was needing a place to live for the next few
months and I said that he probably didn't have anything going
on. Could I stay with him? I said, "It's not like you're
going to spend the next two months writing a Solaris review",
I said. Then, he started to cry and said that sounded like
the best thing ever! So, I brought over my portable computer
device and some toiletries and camped out on shimes' futon.
It was something else! I had a lot of time on my hand and
got the chance to look more closely at some of these other
film critics on the World Wide Web. I would spend hours going
through all the OFCS and Cinemarati members. It's not like
it was my money I was spending. Well, these reviews were the
most pathetic thing I've ever seen! There were all of these
reject losers who had so little self-awareness that most of
them spend their reviews talking about their love life or
their lousy coworkers at their lousy software/publishing jobs.
Some them even put their picture up as though this would attract
some amorous e-mails from some wayward soul looking for an
Enterprise chat room. Then, they spend the rest of
their review recounting the plot and then the last paragraph
would contain some nonsensical hyperbole about their opinion
with nothing substantial backing it up. Just think, I have
spent the past eighteen months thinking I needed to justify
my thoughts on the film. Or thinking that my criticism
had to reach some level of art. Nobody else does that and
they have even worser spelling errors than I do but they get
50,000 hits a month. So, I immediately ran out and
bought Leonard Maltin's Film Reviews Made Easy book.
And after reading it, I agree! Writing film reviews is EASY!
It used to be fact that I would see a movie like Spike Jonze's
Adaptation and I would feel the need to talk about
the "conflict between the artist and the art" or
about how "sadness evolves in the mind and is extended
through our pain." Oh, please! Who do I think I am? So,
here it is. The new and improved Jimmy O and my Adaptation
review:
Adaptation is one of those movies that leads the viewer
down a twisty and thought-provoking road. What else would
you expect from Charlie Kaufman, the mastermind behind such
hits as Being John Malkovich and Confessions of
a Dangerous Mind. Kaufman knows how to create surprise
and complicated stories, and Adaptation is no different.
The film is centered around Charlie Kaufman, but this is no
True Hollywood Story. Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is a sexually
frustrated, panicked writer who can't stand living with his
twin brother, Donald, who is also played by Cage. The most
interesting thing about this is the fact that, while Charlie
Kaufman is a real person, Donald is completely imaginary.
Despite this fact, Donald is listed as co-screenwriter which
has all of Hollywood scratching its head. (Excerpt from www.ew.com
) Charlie has been pegged to adapt the book The Orchid
Thief, a tale of treachery in the Florida swamps written
by New Yorker columnist Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep).
Charlie tries to work out this story in his head, balancing
the descriptions of flowers with the relationship that buds
between Orlean and toothless Orchid Thief John LaRoache (Chris
Cooper). While this story seems compelling on its own, it
is made funnier by the film's decision to filter it through
Charlie's twisted mind. In addition to trying to adapt this
book, Charlie also has to deal with his twin brother's success
as a screenwriter of more popular genres. Donald writes a
film about a cop chasing a serial killer and his victim, and
I started thinking to myself that THIS would be a pretty interesting
movie as well. But this is never shown because this is ultimately
Charlie's story. He attends the same screenwriting seminar
that his brother went to learn about this exciting craft.
The screenwriting guru (Brian Cox) gives him some advice about
how to punch up the story with some sex, some violence, some
REALNESS. This is the same point where Adaptation picks
up the drama as well, having Charlie and Donald begins an
adventure that leads them to discover the real relationship
between LaRoache and Orlean. This revelation quickly becomes
deadly and cumulates into an explosive conclusion.
The great thing about Adaptation is the way it gets
just crazier and stranger and weirder as it goes along. The
film covers everything, from love to siblings to the sleazy
underbelly of the film industry. But it does it in a way that
only filmmakers like Kaufman and director Spike Jonze could
do. The writing is sharp and the directing really follows
everything perfectly. I did have some problems with the third
act. For most of the film, the story is clever and thoughtful
and unpredictable. Then the last part of the film, while exciting,
feels cliché and almost turns into the Hollywood formula
film that Adaptationhad been making fun of until that
point. But it gets the job done, and how can I not trust that
Kaufman and Jonze knows what they are doing? The film ends
on the right note, with Charlie winning the girl. Ultimately,
any great film is about love and Adaptation is no exception.
But I can't talk about the film and not discuss the great
acting ensemble. Nicolas Cage gives his best performance since
Brad Siberling's 1998 City of Angels. (A criminally
underrated film if I do say so myself.) Being Charlie Kaufman
would be hard enough, but Cage has to play Donald in many
of the same scenes. There's only so much that special effects
can do before the actor has to take charge. I think I smell
another Oscar for Nicolas Cage as well. And Meryl Streep is
a delight! This veteran actor really packs an emotional punch
as the looking-for-love-in-all-the-wrong-places Orlean. Her
scenes here remind me of her best work. And Chris Cooper,
who I haven't seen since his dastardly turn in American
Beauty, brings a real humanity to the toothless hillbilly
LaRoache. He even brings in the family conflict that reminds
me of his great role in that 1999 Oscar-winner. It can be
certain that he will be returning to red carpet this March.
In the end, Adaptation is a film that is about the
craziness of writing. Kaufman and Jonze are real talents,
and one never knows what to expect. So if you're looking for
some big laughs and some thinking man's entertainment, one
could do much worse than Adaptation on a cold, winter's
night.
What did you think? It gets right to the point and tells
you all that you need to know. I got Adaptation in
the mail a few weeks ago since the studios send those promotional
tapes to any dork with a URL and an opinion. I cranked this
review of Adaptation out in ten minutes. I even sent
it to the Topeka Capitol-Journal and they're going
to publish it. And they're giving me $20 on top of it. Man,
I'm like a professional critic now. I was sitting there reading
my e-mail confirmation on my new job while on the futon and
shimes stumbled out looking all frustrated at me. "What
happened", he asked. "Did Miramax send you another
goddamned DVD." I told him about my big break and sweat
started dripping around his acne scars and he slouched back
into his room. He turned up his music really loud like he
does when he self-pollutes and came out two hours later. He
said he needed to get out of the house because he kept staring
at the fifteenth caption he had written for the "See
It For" picture on his uncompleted Gangs of New York
review. I don't know what his problem is. This critic
writing stuff is so easy. I told him we should go to Blockbuster
so I could pick out some flicks I never had time to review
before. If I can get these out in ten or fifteen minutes,
there's no telling all the movies I could review! We were
walking around and I saw a copy for the 1972 version of Solaris.
I told him we should rent that because originals are always
better than the remakes and it might pick up his spirits.
Besides, I could crank out a review in no time flat. He was
reluctant, but eventually concurred. Boy, I should have listened
to him. It was boring and stupid also, but this time it was
in Russian! What a crock! Why couldn't they have dubbed it
like Pinnochio? I was going to write a review, but
then I saw where these online critics like Stacie Lynn Wilson
talked about how literate and beautiful the Russian
Solaris was. What a bunch of hacks, I thought! It's
just like they say things like that because it might impress
somebody at the Los Angeles Times or something. So
maybe I'll keep looking to the great Maltin for advice. I
hear he's putting on a weekend seminar in March...
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