Being John Malkovich

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🎙️ EPISODE 433: 03.30.22 *begins ~19:23 Insane to think that this is the feature film debut for both Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze (in their respective roles as writer and director). It’s as good of a tandem collaborative effort as you’re ever gonna come across and it blows my mind that this was the maiden voyage for each of them. I was struck by two things mostly: (1) how incredibly funny this is, and how well the humor holds up, and (2) how Kaufman’s main themes of isolation, feeling misunderstood and generally uncomfortable in the world are so present here, and now — having finished my watch/re-watch of his entire filmography — seeing the throughline and how it all ties together across this amazing career.

This also made me pine for more Jonez/Kaufman films. They are 2 for 2 when it comes to making nearly flawless movies together. (Spoiler for my forthcoming “Ranking Charlie Kaufman” episode, but I will give the slight nod to Adaptation over this, but they’re both 10s and it’s damn close.)

Anyway, as you know if ya listened to the nearly 20-minute intro to the podcast, things are changin' round these parts. The YouTube channel associated with the show was assassinated in the dead of night by the evil overlord bots who hate the human body (I talk all about it on the show, or I make what sense of it the best I can). This also prompted me to — and I swear this isn't as rash of a decision as it sounds — abandon all other outlets for this show that aren't A) the embedded Bandcamp audio above, and B) the written word, the words you are reading right now dumb-dumb, the damn posts. So no more podcast, twitter, letterboxd, and (no duh) youtube.... I'm also extremely paranoid now so my next big that I started today is copy-pasting all the reviews on this site and keeping them offline, in case another hammer comes down on my ass (Blogger = Google, also so...).

Loooook. This world is a rotten place, and it is designed to crush every creative person who is not contributing a dime towards/for the "powers that be." All I ever wanted to do was watch movies and create a log with my thoughts on them. And I'm fixin' to continue to do that. Amen.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 432 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 434 ⫸

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Being John Malkovich is a 1999 American fantasy comedy film directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman, both making their feature film debut. The film stars John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, and Catherine Keener, with John Malkovich as a satirical version of himself. Cusack plays a puppeteer who finds a portal that leads into Malkovich's mind. It was released on October 29, 1999.