Burn After Reading (2008)

What do CIA signal interception, internet dating and the fitness culture have in common, not much you would say, not in the minds in the Coens they do, and the result is comedy called "Burn After Reading".

Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) is a CIA analyst in the Balkans Siging devision, he is married to a cutthroat bitch (Tilda Swinton) and lives in the velvet carpeted boring life of a princeton graduate in Washington DC, but his ejection from his job into a marginal position leaves him frustrated, and to make things worse Mrs Cox is not exactly a model wife, so out of frustration, he decides to write a memoir about his years in service, and to make things worse again, this memoirs fall accidently in the hands of Chad (Brad Pitt), and Lynda (Frances McDormand) fitness coaches at "hardbodies" a successful gym run by (Robert Jenkins), who see in this an oppurtunity to make some money.

Lynda who is into internet dating and "re-inventing herself" ends up meeting Harry Pfaffer (George Clooney), a treasury executive and who is inclined to filandering and buliding weird artifacts, and who is also a friends of the Cox's especially Mrs Cox.

This intricate web of characters relationships is what connects a rather impressive set of subplots, but hey these are the coens, and when it comes to multiplex plot and gourmet dialogue, they never disappoint, but what is essentialy a charcter movie populated with idiots in the big tradition of the much excellent "The Big lebowski" offers opportunitys of acting departure for it's stars, Brad Pitt is such a cartoon of himself in the perfect coenesque tradtion, miles away from the cool clever Rusty Rean from the "Ocean's Trilogy", Clooney continues his hilarious job for the coens, which he started with "O'brother", and continued with "Intolerable cruelty" as a larger then life buffoon.

And Frances McDormand is so touching as a fourtiesh woman trying to re-invent hersrlf, and getting acciedently in the world of espionnage for that, and Tilda Swinton plays her exact opposite, incredibly stuck-up and cold, and in this myriad of characters, the award goes to super John Malkovich, in the "Being John Malkovich" tradition, overworked, and over the edge, reminding everyone that when it goes wrong, it goes wrong all the way, all this set on a rythm of a beautiful paraniod soundtrack by Carter Burwell.

The Washinton DC politics , the fitness culture, the jogging buffs, the CIA bigshots mergey in this unlikely but very tasty stock, it is the Coens laughing at themselves and at everybody, who take themselves and their little stories too seriously, because if the DC people are like that, who can blame Canada.

The movie's weakness is perhaps the ending, which comes at a surprising moment, in a surprising way, it makes you wonder why, but i guess this whole movie is a "feel good movie" after the much darker "No Country For Old Men", and a near miss is also a near hit, but you will laugh your guts off when you see the artifact harry builds, it's a pure coen-clooney moment you can't affoard to miss, in the days of "40 years old virgin" type of gross comedy.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)

Actors turned directors, are in general spoiled kids of a system, who are rewarded for making so much money, by being allowed to play with a camera and a crew for three months, and make a movie people will watch anyways, because they usually star in it too, i can name so many of them but not the one i'm talking about tonight.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind came as a knockout punch in the early 00's, George Clooney making a movie, with a Charile Kaufman script, and everybody thinking that a handsome face can't be a director anyways that he is going to ruin the script, and to the general surprise the movie was good, some even say very good.

So you have Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell), for those of you who don't know him (and i didn't know him before the movie neither) is the creator of such TV shows as "the dating game", or "the gong show", which means he is responsible for this downward spiral whitch the Television took resulting with such atrocities as "the obbournes" or "Laguna Beach", but it is not his total responsability, because he claims that he was giving people what they want, and you almost can't argue with that, because if nobody watches a show it will get canceled, and this egg-chicken argument can entertain you one afternoon when there is no DVD to watch.

So this movie is about his life, as depicted in his unauthorized biography, where he claims he was hired as an assassin for the CIA, killing thirty people for them, but this is not even the theme of the movie although being a good part of it, the whole theme of the movie, is alienation and schizophrenia, because it's either that Chuck Barris did invent this fictional life because he was going crazy with all these accusations of him running the whole Television, or just representing everything decadent, or it is that these stories are true, and then it makes perfect sense too, because as Jim Byrd (George Clooney), the CIA recruiter says to him "you fit the profile", and god knows that he does.

This is a brilliant first movie, and shows that clooney has been a good students of his great director friends such as the Coens, or Soderbergh, some even accused Soderbergh of ghost-directing it at the time, as rediculous as it might be as an accusation, the cast also is fitting, with Drew Barrimore as Chuck's love interest, and Julia Roberts as a Cold War Femme Fatale, while the ever great Rutger Hauer, plays a ruthless fellow assassin, all this while projecting the audience into the heart of the Cold War and it's world of double identities, and spies, and it's Berlin wall, and all the stories around the wall, and the dirty work the CIA did in South America.

It is arguable what's more disgusting, killing people for the CIA, or making shows that show how decadent everybody is, or even shows like "the gong show" made in purpouse to make fun of people, for the sake of making fun of them, but then again, people kept coming to these shows to participate, and they were aware of what it was about.

The Dating game shows that dating and relationships are just another form of gambling, because at the end of the day you can't know much about a person unless you spend months in their company, and Chuck Barris knew that, he is at the same time, the victim of this culture and also it's catalyser, because he holds deep scars going back to childhood and early teenage.

So this movie is about failure, like much of Charlie Kaufman works, and one of the most common facets failure, is failure to be accepted, especially by the other sex, this failure can trigger creativity, and it can trigger nonesense, but it can project one into this sweet illusion of an imaginary life, for better of for worse.

And that's where the movie gets away with it, because it has true persons statments about chuck berry, it has his point of view on life, and his obvious alienation shown using clever color schemes, and it deals with self despise, self worth issues, and it deals about the consequences of being a misfit.

The movie starts with Chuck Barris standing in a dirty hotel room naked, facing a TV, watching Ronald Reagen inauguration in 81 (something everybody should do more often), and this scene is revealing because when we absently watch television we are naked, because it shows us the way we are, consumers, gossipers, and cruel, at least Chuck Barris, was not afraid to face his own flaws, and failures, I wish many other people, intoxicating the TV, movie, or the music world, has the same courage to watch themselves in the mirror of reality , or of TV

This movie is a buried treasures, it deserves to be watched, as scary as it be in it's revealing what we became.