73. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (Spike Jonze, 1999, USA) [700.6 points; 10 votes]
S&S: 1,176 | TSPDT: 1,105 | BOXD: DNP
MORBS SEZ: (asked about what his recent-ish nominees for the ILX comedy films poll would be) "I'll give you freebies: Groundhog Day, Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine"Malkovich hasn't aged well.
― milo z (mlp), Saturday, May 6, 2006 4:39 PM
Charlie Kaufman scripts are never quite as good as you want them to be for the simple reason that movies, like most stories, operate best from inside the heart, and Kaufman's anti-romances are really only concerned with your mind. But before the plot kicks in, and before things start making "sense," Jonze sets up a brilliant showcase for the plot's built-in disorientation, and Catherine Keener's Stanwyck-on-steroids turn.
-- Pete Scholtes
And Being John Malkovich I downright loved. I thought that movie was underrated even by a lot of people who liked it -- it got a lot of, "Oh, it's so zany, so fresh, so FUN" reviews, when I actually thought it was an intensely philosophical and deeply considered film. I think that movie grapples with some things (about the nature of existence and identity, the perennial struggle for transcendence via the Other, blah blah blah) that don't turn up in many films this side of Bergman. And it's funnier than Bergman.
-- JesseFox
Being John Malkovich was even better, and I think in both cases the PoMo games are not empty flourishes but ways that make very good sense to me as ways of addressing some genuinely interesting subjects.
-- Martin Skidmore
malkovich is maybe a 5 on the comedy scale, feel like it has cohen brothers syndrome where its more just a weirdo mindspace w/elements of black comedy w/o being an actual comedy, they try to say too much abt life to be an actual comedy, the end of malkovich is srsly p dire and not funny too for the record
― lag∞n, Tuesday, March 6, 2012 12:59 PM
guys, I could drop the screenplay for malkovich on the table and point to every other line as a joke. one of the few movies I laugh out loud at. Not only is it a comedy by definition & intended as a comedy by it's creators, but it is hilarius and has tons of classic scenes like the monkey flashback, the dude punching cusack, "let's have sex on the table an make malkovich eat eggs off it." "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO", "Think fast, Malkovich.", or the whole Charlie Sheen scene.
― (he did what!) (Austerity Ponies), Tuesday, March 6, 2012 1:16 PM
I also loved "Being John Malkovich" and I'm not emo.
― Dan (Bah) Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, May 8, 2006 9:22 AM
malkovich was just way too dark for me. as in: i had trouble actually seeing what was going on at times.
― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, May 8, 2006 10:10 AM
really though this movie is way too much concept not enough heart
― HOOS next aka won't get steened again (Hurting 2), Friday, August 9, 2013 9:47 AM
the first half of Being John Malkovich is ingenious. Although based on an extraordinary premise, the film doesn't just indulge in it, but instead uses it to explore themes such as identity, manipulation and celebrity. Strangely, much of this is thrown into the trashcan after we hear the explanation why there is a portal into Malkovich's mind (in my opinion, there was no need for explanation, and the one given was stupid and incoherent). After that, the film is nothing more than a battle of who controls John Malkovich; it suffers the exact fate it kept avoiding for its first half. The last 30 minutes of the film are nothing more than an intellectual masturbation with no direction nor a deeper meaning. The ending, albeit quirky, is unsatisfying and does little to save the movie. A minor letdown in the film is John Cusack. His literary lines and over-the-top acting would work well if Being John Malkovich were just a comedy. But when he tries to play the tragic character and display inner conflicts he simply isn't credible. This is hardly Cusack's fault, though; the dialogue, the characters and their emotional reactions are not crafted in a believable way (the only exception being John Malkovich himself). Whether this is deliberate or not, it ruins much of the films dramatic tension.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, February 21, 2005 4:51 PM
[after BJM landed #21 in the ILX comedy movie poll]
LOL looking forward to ILX's #1 Comedy of All Time, Eraserhead.
― I will transmit this information to (Viceroy), Tuesday, April 3, 2012 12:03 PM
― Milm & Foovies (Eric H.), Wednesday, 27 October 2021 21:00 (two years ago) link