2009 - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

I love this film, and welcome any chance to revisit it.  It's funny, a conversation about this film has come up a few times over the last week or so so I really wanted to check it out.  Also, anything Kaufman related is worth spending time in.  I love any kind of film that has an element of mystery to it with an unreliable narrator, and this is one of the tops.  For those who don't know it's a bio pic about Chuck Barris who was a television game show producer who wrote an autobiography about having been an assassin for the CIA - in reality no one knows if it's true or not, and this film is an adaptation of that book.  It's so fucking good.  Sam Rockwell is one of my favorite actors, and he's surrounded by pure talent in this film.  If you haven't ever seen this it's a shame and should be rectified.  I love it so hard.

1997 - Adaptation

I was in film school when this came out, and at the height of my screenwriting neediness - so the meta-ness of this film was always it’s strong point for me.  I’m curious how it’s viewed outside of industry circles.  This might be the first time that I really took to heart the additional layer of us being in constant adaptation - our inner change.  It’s beautiful.  This film is packed with amazing actors in roles large and small and Nicholas Cage gives one of his career best performances.  This was part of an amazing run from Charlie Kaufman that has come to a, kind of, depressing halt.  I shouldn’t say that he hasn’t lived up to his promise - because if he never made another film he’d still be responsible for some of the most interesting and innovative films of my lifetime - but I guess I was just hoping for more by now… 

If you’ve never seen this film and you’re a film nerd in any way, it’s a must see.  

1980 - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Fuck I love this film.  I always say that Annie Hall is my favourite film but this one might just be a close second.  It’s such a beautiful way to do a love story.  It’s sad, smart, heart-breaking.  I love the scenes that drift between memory and commentary on memory - it’s such a meta device and used so effortlessly and brilliantly.  It’s, in my mind, one of the best screenplays of the last decade or so - but the directed of Gondrey is so perfect and matches so well.  Jim Carrey is phenomenal here and Kate Winslet is magical - the two of them together is such a beautiful thing - the casting of them is inspired, as is everyone else.  If you’ve never seen this film stop everything.  Get on it.  In my opinion it’s required viewing - especially for anyone who loves films about relationships. 

1676 - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This is absolutely one of my favourite films.  I remember the first time I saw it and just having my socks blown off.  It's one of those films that makes a writer just feel absolutely ashamed that they haven't written something as clever, honest, and rich as it.  I normally revisit this film regularly anyway, but I did so tonight in preparation for a project I'm going to start up to be inspired with a metaphysical love story.  For those that have never seen this film it's about a man who learns that his ex has had him erased from their memory and decides to have the same procedure, only to change his mind half way through. 
In a lot of ways it's a really simple and basic concept - who doesn't have things they wish they'd forgotten?  Probably the reason that this film is so well loved is because it speaks so well to so many people. 
Having seen Michel Gondrey's more recent work it's clear that the man is not much of a writer, however as a director with a great script it's easy to see how well he can take his unique visual style and really evaluate a project.  There is an enormous attention to detail in this film, in particular with how the memories of each scene transition to the next, how items, or weather, etc… carries over.  I can't imagine how complicated all of that stuff was to do from a projection stand-point.  Kudos to Gondrey and his team for making it look effortless.
This film is full of talented actors and yet it has most of them delivering the performances of their careers.  Jim Carrey has never been better before nor since.  Kate Winslet is so adorable here, and fantastic as well.  Kirsten Dunst is heartbreaking and lovely.  Elijah Wood plays the role of the pathetic wanna-be to a tee (he's truly wonderful here) and Tom Wilkinson and Mark Ruffalo round out the cast in a really great way as well (not to mention small roles from the always awesome David Cross and Jane Adams). 
What I love most of this film and I hope that I carry over into my own project, is how well approached the core idea is, and how it translates to the stories of all of the characters - it's all wonderfully interrelated, and yet everyone involved has a different take and thought process on how it all works - if it's a good thing, etc…  I love the side stories as much as the main story, and that can't always be said of films.
This is an absolute gem of a film and it never gets boring no matter how many times that I've watched it.  If you like smart films and you've never seen this one you really really have to - it's on netflix as well.  Enjoy!

1484 - Synecdoche, New York

I think that it would be really easy to call Charlie Kaufman, and this work in particular, pretentious. And to be clear, when I say "easy" I mean "lazy". Complicated doesn't equal pretension. The fact that something is multi-layed and complex doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense, nor that you're stupid if it isn't instantly clear of all it's meanings.
This is a hard film to write about because, as with all of Kaufman's works, it's a film of ideas. And those idea are as simple and universal as anything. On it's surface this is a film about a theatre director trying to make a work of importance, but really, it's about us trying to make our lives important. It's about our fears, and desires, and it's about us trying to get down and be honest about ourselves.
I can't pretend that I got even a fraction of what Kaufman has going on here, and I'm not praising him because I'm 'supposed' to think that he's a genius (and he is). There is a level of comedy in his work that makes it all the more enjoyable and all the more honest. He has no problem poking fun at himself and at his ideas - that's part of the whole point of it.
At this point there are about a half-dozen films that have been written by Kaufman and each and every single one of them make me extremely jealous in terms of the ideas that he is playing with inside of them. Kaufman inspires me greatly, as does the people that inspire him.
If you're a fan of ideas, you will enjoy this. It's not overtly pretentious, or tedious. It doesn't feel like homework to watch, if you have that fear. But fair warning - it is the kind of film that you're going to feel like you have to revisit and revisit and revisit. And I look forward to that.