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Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

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Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)

December. 31,2002
|
7
|
R
| Drama Comedy Crime
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Television made him famous, but his biggest hits happened off screen. Television producer by day, CIA assassin by night, Chuck Barris was recruited by the CIA at the height of his TV career and trained to become a covert operative. Or so Barris said.

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Steineded
2002/12/31

How sad is this?

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Intcatinfo
2003/01/01

A Masterpiece!

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Hadrina
2003/01/02

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

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Kamila Bell
2003/01/03

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

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Johan Dondokambey
2003/01/04

I like how the story rolls out smoothly with the pace stable at the right speed. The opening is also successful in igniting curiosity to stay and keep watching. The movie also presents some very good photography especially the coloration and light usage. Sam Rockwell did quite okay in this movie. He can nab the outgoing nature of the character nicely, something that he also exhibited in his character in the later Charlie's Angels. The thing that nags a bit for me is that Sam Rockwell hasn't gotten any more spotlight after this and Charlie's Angels. I also like the fact that there are great names acting for this movie like Drew Barrymore, George Clooney, and Julia Roberts. They gave out great supporting character role in this movie. I also like the fact that there are nice cameos by equally famous faces like Maggie Gyllenhaal, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon.

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SnoopyStyle
2003/01/05

George Clooney doesn't have the visual imaginations of a great director. He does a competent job. The best thing he does is to point the camera at Sam Rockwell. Sam rocks out on this crazy story.Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell) is a liar, womanizer, schemer, TV producer, and a CIA trained assassin. The first on the list is the most important one of them all. Based on his book and Charlie Kaufman's screenplay, it goes into some less than believable parts of Barris' life. Although Kaufman's script was changed by Clooney. CK's version would probably be too daring for Clooney's amateur hands.This is good starting point for an actor doing directing. It doesn't have a sharp interesting point of view. It does work as a platform for Sam Rockwell.

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lasttimeisaw
2003/01/06

I have no idea who Chuck Barry is, but I guess I should not miss Mr. Clooney's director debut, furthermore Charlie Kaufman is billed as the screen writer, so the premise looks rosy. The film kicks off with a self-inspective unreeling of Chuck's life-long hustle and bustle jostling with his TV show-runner identity and a clandestine CIA assassin, interspersing with black & white snippets of interviews with people who know Chuck in the real life (but mostly are pithy sound-bites whose only purpose is to mystify his personage), occasionally the film switches into an over-saturated, over-exposed hue which may engender some hallucinatory reverberation, since the most obvious selling point is the enthralling double life scenario and leaving all the traces which could be siphoned (by viewers) to make one's own judgment whether it is plain fictional or not. But the ramifications are as much ambiguous as what George Clooney (an exemplar of the mainstream Hollywood mindset) wants us to believe, it does manage to shape a believe-it- or-despise-it logjam and according to the film's depiction, Chuck Barry is nothing but a pipsqueak (there is no reference of any flair in his ascending in the show business), a lunatic has a very troubled mental state (a dreadful imagination of someone is going to finish him off), a repellent womanizer/sex-addict has big commitment issues if we simply remove the " hit-man" halo, so from which one could imply is that the "other identity" suits well to rationalize his personal mire, it is his last straw, but from the eyes of an audience, it flunks by blatantly over-beautifying the double-identity situation, I never feel the frisson albeit the film is being cunningly shot in a retro-redolent grain, with a friendly comic tone and lively interactions between the cinematography and the editing, plus an ace soundtrack with the trademark of its time. But pitifully Charlie Kaufman's script doesn't have too much to bite. The biographic nature demands a wider range of chronicle, which may also be the Achilles heel of the genre, without zooming in any enhanced center-pieces, everything runs episodic, leaving no instant aftertaste at all to be amazed and appreciated. All sidekicks are come-and- go (with Drew Barrymore and Julia Roberts the female auxiliaries have longer stints, both equally awful I must say, Barrymore doesn't age at all along a two-decades span which is so dragging viewers out of the picture), the sole comic relief is the performance from Sam Rockwell, who was largely unknown at that time and overlooked by the awards season (a SILVER BERLIN BEAR for BEST ACTOR is his only trophy), his panache proffers the vitality of the film against its slightly mind-bogging narrative tempo, also his personal charisma transcends his character, and sublimates his character Chuck, a connection has been substantially built across the screen, a triumphant achievement in deed. Rutger Hauer, a fellow assassin, said in the film "killing my first man (in the WWII) is like making love with my first woman", which strikes a chord with my previous argument in DR. STRANGELOVE (1964, 8/10), war and killing may truly be the by-product of heterosexual men's hegemony in the society, if actually the raving stupidity germinates from the biologic impulse, along with evolution, let us hope a less macho but peaceful world is ahead of us.

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spamsville-1
2003/01/07

there are times when i need to see films that are intelligent, provocative, questionings as to our nature as human beings.chuck is supremely gifted in insight and spontaneous creativity to the point of finding himself alone, a zoo-keeper in a zoo of humans. successful TV producer, loved by a most adorable woman, affairs, money and acclaim fall to him. the paradox is that he still needs a fatal fix. the film is not so much about the CIA, the Gong Show or the meaning of love. the film is more about how we handle the paradox called life however we find ourselves living it.the actors that turned up in this movie were a complete bonus, an icing. beautifully shot, a beautiful ordinary world.

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