Being John Malkovich

1999 head trip about somebody's head

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A loser puppeteer gets a real job and discovers a portal leading to the inside of actor John Malkovich's head. He tells the cute woman he's crushing on at work about it, and she begins dreaming of ways to exploit it and turn a profit. The puppeteer's life begins to spiral out of control.

Here's a John Cusack movie that I like. I remember watching this when it came out and just digging how fresh it all seemed. It made me laugh, it made me think, and it made me fall in love with Catherine Keener. She's just so playful and cute here, and yes, I'm typing that fully aware that my wife is going to be reading it. Her response of "We'll see" to the question "What happens when a man goes through his own portal?" might be my favorite moment in any movie ever. I already loved John Malkovich although I can't say I was exactly in love with him, and this performance is brave and inspired. It's hard enough to play yourself accurately but when you're playing this satirical inflated version of yourself? Now that I think about it, my favorite moment in any movie ever might actually be when some random driver-by yells, "Hey, Malkovich, think fast!" before hitting him in the head with something. But yeah, Malkovich is brave here. Doing an interpretive dance in a towel, poking fun at his celebrity, possibly convincing audiences of this movie that he's good friends with Charlie Sheen. Actually, that's one of my favorite tidbits from this--learning that Charlie Sheen gets Malkovich's leftovers. Who knew? My favorite moment (and quite possibly the best few minutes of any movie in the history of cinema) is the delirious trip Malkovich takes through his own head. I giggled myself to the point of exhaustion, passed out, and woke up a week later facedown in the mud during that scene. Bonus points given for Keener, a monkey, and puppets, but most of these points come from the raw, arguably film-school-quality creativity and the willingness everybody involved had to take this wild concept and run with it.

For all you Andy Dick completists, he is in this one.

Urine Couch AM Movie Club: Gross Pointe Blanke

1997 80's movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Professional assassin John Cusack takes a job in his old hometown. His homecoming is ruined when somebody keeps trying to kill him. But that's not the worst of it; his high school reunion is also going on. Oh, snap!

I don't like John Cusack. The ghost of Gene Siskel, however, is a fan. I don't like Dan Aykroyd either. I just read somewhere that he's got webbed feet, but I disliked him long before I knew about that. I really don't want to write about this movie. I didn't like it. More interesting to me were the goings-on at the dumpiest motel in Indianapolis the night that I watched this movie, a full moon and sinewy clouds. I think I had a sweatshirt with me that night. And I broke my record for prostitutes that night, chasing seven from the premises. One of them told me--after I watched her leave one truck in one truck parking lot, walk to the neighboring Waffle House to clean herself up, and then leave the restaurant and head toward our truck parking lot--that she was looking for a band-aid. And when I approached a truck driver who was illegally parked in our lot, I could see clearly through the flaps that separated his bunk from the rest of his truck that he was watching some pornography. I was so exhausted after watching John Cusack and a bunch of commercials for two hours that I fell asleep right there on the urine couch until Charles, the maintenance man/shuttle driver came in at around five in the morning because he thought there might be some doughnuts. Unfortunately for Charles, there weren't any doughnuts because the guy who was supposed to put them out and make the coffee was sleeping on the couch, spooning with the ghost of Gene Siskel and having a dream about having his way with a totum pole.