BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999) *** I think you have to give them an "A" for creativity. Original ideas are so plentiful that you keep running into new ones while following others, and at times the film generates an incredible pounding lysergic momentum in the middle of your head. One of the most wonderful of the ubiquitous multi-layered ironies is that John Malkovich, a star playing himself in a work of fiction!, is actually someone else, or in fact many other people who have waited in line in a room with 3 foot high ceilings. Plenty of skewed perceptions and double helix twists to amuse stoned people, impress contributors to Ivy League cinematic reviews and, obviously and best of all, absolutely enthrall and spritz stoned contributors to Ivy League cinematic reviews. Malkovich delivers the best moments, the Malkovich saturated restaurant scene when he's inside his own head stands out, but the rest of the cast (longhaired John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener's knowing toothy smile) does well to keep up with him. Spike Jonze delivers thrills for the subconscious including a souped up meditation on voyeurism, a sex change aspirant in a cage with a monkey, a brilliant faux documentary on an actor turned puppeteer, an advertisement for carrot juice and an explanation for how those people walking along the Jersey Turnpike got there.
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