Synopsis:

A puppeteer discovers a portal that leads literally into the head of the movie star, John Malkovich.

Sebastian's Rating: A+ : This would most definietly be the most challenging, confusing and utterly hilarious movie I've ever had to review.

Around 6 months ago I rented out this film from the video store, as I loved Charlie Kauffman's movie "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" So much, I thought I may as well give his first movie script a go.

As I first put in the movie into my dvd player, I was all eyes on the movie. It started off (as far as I can remember) with Joan Cussacks character playing with his puppets. However, the directer of this film didn't just make him PLAY with the puppets, he put a sense into making you feel like he WAS the puppets. During the course of this film, the puppetering is the most amazing thing you'll ever see in your life. The first time I saw it, I adored it. At the time, it was the only thing I appreciated about the film.

However, the first time I saw this movie I was also hopeing for something different. At first, I was fairly impressed with it, however I found it all fell so deeply apart towards the end. The problem was it was so messed up. It wasn't your typical hollywood film, no no, It was very, very different. When you watch a film with morals, you expect for the ending to still be happy, But with "Being John malkovich" It's a cruel, cruel world.

As I said, the first time I saw this film, I was about to write a review straight away. I was prepared to rate it a C, or in any case lower. It was not until the second time, I've decided to boost it straight up to an A+, where it truely belongs.
I was very hesitant when re-watching this movie. I was expecting myself to be truely confused again, instead of picking up the parts where I dropped out. Instead, I laughed, I cried, and I felt a huge connection with all the characters. The way the puppets all had their own feelings, the way all the human characters had their own life, and the way the portal just works all together is truely amazing. As mentioned before, it's also very funny, but not the sort of drama/comedy funny as in gran torino, it's funny like an actual comedy. It's stupid at some parts, and just totally bizzare at others, but tends to make sense at the end of the day.

Being john malkovich dares, it dares to be different. It's creative and visually stunning in it's own way. There are endless possiblities to give this film a review, yet I'll have to leave it with an A+. Right now, the only dissapointment I have with this film is, I don't own it yet.

Brian's Comments: We'll see if this flies.  I am not reviewing the movie, but rather am commenting on Sebastian's review.

Sebastian, I find it very intriguing that a movie you would have rated a C or lower after a single viewing would get boosted all the way up to greatness in your mind after another viewing.  I am not challenging that statement, however, it does make me wonder how much I (and others) may change our ratings after seeing a movie more than 1 time.  Alsmost all of our ratings are based on a single viewing, first impression sort of thing.  I would bet, that like you, if we all had the time to watch movies again, even those we do not thing we liked, then we would see drastically different ratings.  Your review is testament to this.  Alas, we all have only so much time, and since my list of movies that I want to see is so long, and continually growing, I almost always choose to use that time to watch a new movie, rather than rewatch another.

A small note on the movie.  I did watch this a while ago when it was a new release DVD.  I don't remember much about it other than it having an interesting style.  I certainly don't remember enough about it to make any intelligent comments, let alone give it a rating.  We'll see how Scott handles this comment ;)

The Freak's Comments: This will be the first movie I'm allowing/posting comments on, but it may spawn some really interesting ones.  I stand by my ratings regardless of how many times I see the film or how often as each and every time I fully evaluate the film on a number of levels and am very rarely affected by timely stimuli.

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