Gideon58's Reviews

Director and writer Richard Linklater's 2014 drama Boyhood is one of the most ambitious and unique cinematic undertakings I have seen in a long time...this time capsule of one family over a 12 year period is unique because Linklater chose to film the movie over an actual 12-year period, allowing us to see the boy of the title literally grow up before our eyes, at the center of snapshots from significant points in his life; unfortunately, this unique idea does not sustain interest for a film of this size and length.

The film starts off interestingly enough: We meet Mason (Ellar Coltrane) a six year old kid who, along with elder sister Samantha (Lorelai Linklater) watch his mom (Patricia Arquette) and dad (Ethan Hawke) split up, watch his mother return to school and fall for one of her professors (Marco Perella), who turns out to be an abusive alcoholic and eventually carves out a life for herself as a college professor and continuing to smother her children. We watch Mason and Samantha bewildered by some of their mother's choices but still trying to survive the constant moving from place to place as the mistakes the mother cause the children's lives to be uprooted more than once and we get to see Mason's teen angst in direct contrast with the unconditional love he has for his mother, which is in direct conflict with the independent life Mason tries to establish for himself as he graduates from high school and begins college.

Linklater had a really wonderful idea here, but it gets away from him. I initially didn't understand the title of the film because the film starts off focusing on the mother and her poor taste in men but eventually it does come into focus as Mason's story, but I like that the mother and father remain pertinent parts of the story. Usually in stories like this, the biological father's role in the story fades as the story progresses, but bio dad remains a vital part of the story and is even allowed to become a better person as the story progresses and the love of his children is never in question. I also loved the flawed but vividly realistic characters that the mom and dad are, parents who do the best they can, admit when they are wrong, and most importantly, admit when they just don't know.

Sadly, Linklater's screenplay is long and rambling and takes some odd and unmotivated snapshots of Mason's life...there's a scene of Mason being bullied in a high school bathroom that comes from nowhere and has nothing to do with the rest of the story and watching the boy receive a shotgun as a 15th birthday present was just disturbing, but it all went on too long.

Linklater's direction is better than his screenplay and he pulls some first rate performances from his cast, especially Patricia Arquette who won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for her mom, Hawke as the well intentioned dad, and a bone-chilling turn by Perella as mom's second husband. This was a terrific idea but I have to admit that about 90 minutes in, I was checking my watch and I was barely halfway through the movie.

I agree with your review of Boyhood, but your words don't seem to match with your rating of 7/10.

I think the words go with the rating OK...if this film had sustained interest the way it was intended, I would have given it a 9/10, but it did not. I think there's enough right here to earn it a 7.

The creative force behind Election, Sideways, and About Schmidt scores another bullseye with an imaginative and, at times, deeply moving comedy-drama called The Descendants, a riveting story with an attractive backdrop that takes some surprising twists and turns, which we've come to expect from the gifted director and writer Alexander Payne.

Matt King (George Clooney) is a wealthy Hawaiian land baron who finds his life thrown into a tailspin when his wife slips into a coma after a boating accident. Matt is then forced to become the primary caregiver for his two daughters, virgin territory for him, as well as dealing with the revelation that his wife was unfaithful to him.

As always, Alexander Payne has found a way to take a subject that on the surface should be fairly painful and maudlin and find unexpected humor that catches the viewer by surprise. We find ourselves laughing during situations that we normally wouldn't associate with humor. We're OK with it though because the screenplay by Payne and Nat Faxon blends the smile and tear so effectively that it won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

The film also works due to the offbeat casting of Clooney, also in virgin territory as an actor...Clooney instead of playing the womanizing stud is playing the bewildered husband and father who is often clueless about the choppy waters that being a father require him to negotiate, so clueless that at one point he even seeks the advice of his older daughter's dim-witted boyfriend (Nick Krause). Clooney makes a smooth transition into this kind of character, delivering a performance of warmth and depth that earned him an Oscar nomination as well. He gets solid support from Shailene Woodley as his eldest daughter, Beau Bridges as a well-intention relative and Robert Forster as his father-in-law. Some lovely island-influenced music and some beautiful location photography are the final touches on this warm and richly human comedy drama that documents Alexander Payne as a movie maker to be reckoned with.

There is an old expression, "Let sleeping dogs lie", which seems to be the primary message being delivered in 1999's Arlington Road, an engrossing and disturbing psychological thriller/character study that delivers the goods for the most part; unfortunately, the story never delivers the payoff expected.

The film stars Jeff Bridges as Michael Farraday, a widowed college professor who teaches a class in terrorism and whose wife was an FBI agent killed in the line of duty. A couple of minor coincidences lead Michael to suspect that a neighbor across the street named Oliver Lang (Tim Robbins) is not who he says he is. His background in terrorism and conspiracy theories motivates Michael into an investigation that puts himself and everyone he loves in terrible danger.

Ehren Kruger's intricate, Oscar-worthy screenplay is a jigsaw puzzle of a mystery and the initial fascination of the story is watching the central character figure out who his neighbor really is. There is no unnecessary exposition provided...everything that appears on the screen becomes pertinent to the story at some point, even though it's never clear when certain story points are going to become important, every single one does. I love the scenes of Michael trying to figure out who Oliver really is, they're something akin to the scenes of Redford and Hoffman putting the Watergate scandal together in All the President's Men...our central character is smart and wonderfully human and the through line of his character is always clear and central in Bridges' interpretation of the character...this guy was deeply in love with his wife and continues to process how she died and that, along with the need to protect his family, discovers a conspiracy that goes even deeper than he ever imagined.

Director Mark Pellington has mounted a first rate action thriller here that had me literally jumping out of my chair one scene and wiping tears from my eyes the next. Pellington also pulls two superb performances from Bridges and Robbins...Robbins' baby face was a brilliant juxtaposition to the character he plays and the results are, at times, genuinely frightening. This film is completely engrossing until the denoument, where the payoff that we have been waiting for never comes and that pissed me off. Up until then, it's a helluva ride and first rate film entertainment.

Bigger isn't always better which Adam Sandler found out with his elaborate 2008 comedy called Bedtime Stories, a comedy that tries to substitute spectacle for a viable story.

Sandler plays a hotel handyman named Skeeter Bronson who agrees to babysit for his niece and nephew for a week and entertains the kids with outrageous bedtime stories that he makes up and allows the kids to contribute to and, oddly enough, the day after he tells the story, the story comes true in some form or another. At the same time, Skeeter has been put in competition with an ass-kisser (Guy Pearce) for management of the hotel, a hotel which was originally owned by Skeeter's dad, but now belongs to a wealthy germaphobe (Richard Griffiths).

Sandler and director Adam Shankman have poured a lot of money into this movie...the bedtime stories presented here are elaborately mounted with stunning period-appropriate sets and costumes and some state of the arts special effects, but the stories lavished on these glamorous canvases that are presented here just aren't as interesting as the story of this uncle trying to connect to his niece and nephew or a guy trying to regain his birthright. The spectacular bedtime stores, which are intended to be the hook that allegedly make this movie so special, are exactly the parts of the movie that just don't work, making their real life recreations come off as pat and contrived.

On the plus side, Sandler has always had a gift for some off-beat casting and he really scores here with Pearce and Griffiths, both showing some unforeseen comic timing here as well as Lucy Lawless playing a snooty concierge. Unfortunately, Sandler wasn't as lucky with his leading lady. He has no chemistry with Keri Russell who also possesses no gift for comedy...Sandler had more chemistry with Courtney Cox, who played his sister. This was an interesting idea that just got away from the creative team involved here...for hardcore Sandler films only.

Bedtime Stories is my favorite Adam Sandler movie, but your rating is pretty much right on the money, which tells you what I think of his movies in general. This movie is basically just the best of the worst.

I've always liked Adam Sandler, but his movies are always a gamble...I'll love one and hate the next, kind of like Spike Lee, but I never give up on him.

Ted 2 is the overblown 2015 sequel to Seth MacFarlane's 2012 surprise hit about the friendship between a guy named John Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) and his Teddy Bear (voiced by MacFarlane) who John brought to life by a childhood wish. Like most comedy sequels, this movie is steeped in nothing resembling realism while simultaneously addressing issues that should have been addressed in the first film. And like most sequels, it goes on forever.

The film opens at Ted's wedding to a beautiful dumb blonde (Jessica Barth) and a year later, while planning to adopt a child, Ted learns that he is about to be stripped of all of his rights, his job, and his marriage because, in the eyes of the law, he is not a person, he is property so Ted and John hire a first year attorney (Amanda Seyfried) to prove that Ted is a person and not property.

This whole premise for the sequel is beyond silly because all of this should have been addressed in the first film. In the first film, we learned that Ted's fame had elevated to the point that he actually made an appearance on The Tonight Show and in this film we watch Ted get married, move into an apartment, work at a grocery store for almost three years and NOW people are questioning whether or not he is a person or property? Why wasn't anyone questioning any of this when he was on The Tonight Show or when he was driving John to work under the influence of marijuana? More importantly, why should we care? A question that is effectively addressed when our heroes decide to bring their case to a high-powered New York attorney (Morgan Freeman in a classy cameo), who initially turns down the case and his reasoning also addresses the legitimacy of this sequel, or the lack thereof.

The film opens with a stunning Busby Berkely-styled musical number during the opening credits, beautifully choreographed by Rob Ashford; however, it has little or nothing to do with the silliness that follows. There was one very funny scene with Ted and John watching a rerun of Law & Order while Ted put lyrics to the theme song and another scene where John and Ted go to an improv club and yell inappropriate suggestions to the players onstage. Both of these scenes had me on the floor but really had nothing to do with the rest of the movie and could have been inserted into just about any movie or, even more appropriately, any episode of Family Guy. The paper-thin premise of the first film is stretched even thinner here and a little over halfway through the film, I started looking at my watch and checking how much running time remained.

A pair of strong performances from two of the best actresses in the business make the 1995 drama Georgia worth checking out.

Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Sadie Flood, a woman who wants more than anything to be a music star like her sister, Georgia (Mare Winningham). Sadie not only wants to be a music star but also wants her sister's approval more than anything, even if she might be in denial about it. Unfortunately, Sadie has a problem with drugs and alcohol that have been a barrier in pursuit of the career that she wants as well as the relationship with her sister that she so desperately craves. Sadly, the people who care the most about Sadie, including Georgia, enable her and do nothing to help her face her problem. There is also another kind of enabling going on here because there's something else that no one seems to be able to say to Sadie: she has no talent.

I think this is where the basis of a lot of Sadie's pain lies. She continues to pursue a career that she will never be successful at but no one in her life has the guts to tell her this. While watching, I got the feeling that if someone would have just told Sadie she can't sing, dealing with the reality of that might also force her to deal with her addiction issues, but no one tells Sadie this until the final act and by that time, Sadie is in such denial that she doesn't believe it. Sadie does eventually face her addiction, but refuses to believe she has no talent and even though she gets clean, the character doesn't really change and the payoff this story should provide never comes.

It is sad watching the conflict between these two sisters and how there just seems to be no salvaging this relationship because neither of them seem to be able to be honest with each other. Georgia really seems to want what's best for her sister but is incapable of giving her sister what she really needs...honesty. And because of Georgia's inability to be honest with her sister, she finds herself constantly embarrassed by Sadie and suffering in silence.

The screenplay, which was written by Leigh's mother, Barbara Turner, seems to have been designed with one thing in mind: to win Jennifer Jason Leigh an Oscar...this is a showy, Oscar-bait kind of role and Leigh gives a brave and bold performance that rivets the viewer to the screen. Nobody plays doped up and burnt out better than Jennifer Jason Leigh. Ironically, it is Mare Winningham's beautifully controlled inner torment as Georgia that earned her an Oscar nomination. Mention should also be made of Ted Levine as Georgia's husband, Max Perlich as Sadie's husband, and John C. Reilly as the drugged out drummer.

This movie is a powerful look at family bonding, the power of addiction, the danger of enabling, but I couldn't help but feel a little let down when after everything she goes through, we see Sadie get back in front of that microphone because you just know it's a mistake, but the performances of Leigh and Winningham make it worth your time.

I hated Ted 2. I thought the first movie was pretty funny, but the sequel sucked.

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Five years after the disastrous The Other Guys, Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg reunited for Daddy's Home, a somewhat entertaining family comedy that delivers sporadic laughs despite some troubling messages the story sends.

Ferrell plays Brad Whitaker, a radio station executive whose primary mission in life is to get his two stepchildren to stop treating him like dirt. Just when Brad begins to make headway with the kids, their biological father, Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) shows up on their doorstep, determined to win his kids and ex-wife (Linda Cardellini) back.

The stepdad vs bio dad story is nothing new and the movie pretty much plays like an extended episode of a sitcom but the situation gets a little out of hand here, when Dusty actually gets a job at Brad's office making more money than Brad and becomes BFF's with Brad's boss (Thomas Haden Church). Meanwhile, at home, Brad and Dusty begin badmouthing each other to the kids, via bedtime stories they tell the kids and, for some reason, Mom just sits idly by and watches it all happen.

The movie establishes its comic credentials by having Ferrell play straight man, allowing Wahlberg to play one of the most oily characters he has ever created, you can practically see the grease sliding off of this guy, but the story allows him to get away with way too much and the story sends some very disturbing messages, the primary one being that it is OK to try and buy your children's love. I also found it troubling that Mom wasn't more supportive of Brad...there is a scene where Brad comes home to find Dusty and the family snuggled on the sofa looking at home movies that was alternately heartbreaking and maddening because the Mom shouldn't have let it go this far.

The film has its problems, but the screenplay by Sean Anders and Brian Burns has flashes of intelligence; I just wish it had been a little more behind the central character played by Ferrell, who is so likable and doesn't deserve anything that happens to him here. There is a payoff at the end that makes the rest of this worth sitting through, but it's a long wait to get there.

The Way Way Back is a new millenium variation on the teen angst comedies that John Hughes and Chris Columbus popularized during the 1980's but not nearly as effective due to some uneven writing and a really unappealing central character.

The 2013 film centers around a 14 year old boy named Duncan who travels to the Hamptons for the summer with his mother, her new boyfriend, and his daughter, where the only connection the kid seems to be able to make is with a funny and charming employee at a local water park.

The movie is a nice idea; however, we are saddled with a really unappealing central character here...Duncan is moody and sullen and never smiles. A pretty young neighbor gives him all kinds of attention that he ignores and why this water park employee becomes enamored with him is a mystery as well. It doesn't help that , with the exception of the water park employee, all the adults in the film are written as evil monsters or complete morons, I guess in an attempt to elicit sympathy for Duncan, but it just doesn't work.

Director and co-writer Nax Faxon (who also has a small role in the film) does manage to populate the film with some good actors including Steve Carell as the boyfriend and the always watchable Toni Collette as Duncan's mother, but it is Sam Rockwell whose slick and charismatic turn as Owen, the water park employee that is actually the only thing in this movie that really works and is worth your time.

The Wolf Pack returns for a third and, hopefully, final installment of their ridiculous adventures in 2013's The Hangover Part III, a contrived and ridiculous adventure that reunites our gang in a story that defies logic and is centered around one of the most annoying characters in the franchise.

Phil, Doug, and Stu are taking Alan to a mental facility, who has flipped out since the death of his dad (Jeffrey Tambor) and are assaulted by a crime lord (John Goodman) who enlists their help in locating the bisexual, cocaine-sniffing moron from the second film, Mr. Chow, who has apparently stolen a large cache of gold from said crime lord, who has taken Doug as a hostage until he gets his gold back.

Needless to say, this film is definitely a case of going to the well once too often and writer-director Todd Phillips has the sense to let this hot mess of a film be the death of this franchise because nothing here really worked for me. The primary problem with this story is that it is centered around Mr. Chow, one of the most annoying characters in the history of cinema, played by one of the worst actors in the business (Ken Jeong). A little of this guy goes a long way and we have to accept a lot here...the film opens with this guy actually escaping from a prison in Bangkok and being set-up as this criminal mastermind who not only somehow took this guy's gold, but tricked our heroes into helping him steal more gold from the guy. There's just no way that this ridiculous character could control and manipulate as many lives as he does in this movie.

Even the actors look embarrassed to be involved in this debacle. Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifiankis, and Justin Bartha are basically phoning it in here, taking a backseat to the ridiculous Ken Jeong and justifiably pissed off about it. Goodman is wasted and so is a lot of expensive on-location filming, including a return to the scene of the original bachelor party, Las Vegas, which I guess was intended to bring the franchise full circle, but by the time we get there, we just don't care.

An effectively controlled but still deliciously entertaining performance from the always watchable Sam Rockwell is the centerpiece of a surprising little black comedy called Better Living Through Chemistry an on-target skewering of a lot of the insanity that is going on behind the white picket fences and manicured lawns of suburbia, that displays flashes of brilliance.

Rockwell plays Doug Varney, a small town pharmacist married to an emasculating wife and father to a son who hates him, who discovers his inner happy and inner sexy when he begins an affair with a wealthy trophy wife (Olivia Wilde), whose reckless disregard about Doug's work, his marriage, and her marriage, find Doug putting his business at risk and contemplating murder.

Co-screenwriters and co-directors Geoff Moore and David Posamentier have a mounted a bizarre story on a rather standard canvas that takes a lot of delightful and unexpected twists and turns and characters who aren't what are expected at all. I've seen several films recently where I felt the central character(s) gets away with a lot more than he should before the credits roll. This film is no exception to that, except that with this film, we forgive because we fall in love with Doug Varney the second he appears onscreen and immediately sense how unhappy this guy is and we want to see him happy. We do see a positive change in the character in Doug that also manifests some ugly behavior that gets Doug in a lot of hot water, but the screenplay allows him to escape from close call to another.

With the aid of solid screenplay and direction, Sam Rockwell creates a warm and vulnerable character who evokes immediate sympathy and keeps us smiling until the closing credits. Olivia Wilde is a scorching femme fatale and Michelle Monaghan also has her moments as Doug's wife. There's also a charming cameo from Ray Liotta as Wilde's husband, one of those characters I mentioned who turns out to be nothing like we expect.

I don't know why exactly, but I did find Oscar winner Jane Fonda a troubling choice as the offscreen narrator, maybe because I've never heard her narrate a film before. As she spoke, I kept hearing Robert Downey Jr.'s voice in my head instead, but it's a minor quibble in an offbeat black comedy that entertains, confuses, surprises, and manipulates the viewer from frame to frame. And I LOVE the title.

ELMER GANTRY

An Oscar nominee for Best Picture of 1960, Elmer Gantry is a riveting character study wrapped inside a sprawling and dramatic epic that tackles some very prickly subject matter like the validity of organized religion, religion for profit and how the lines can so quickly blur, the concept of religion as circus side show, and watching crowd sensibility turn to mob sensibility and back again.

Burt Lancaster plays the title role, a fast-talking, hard-drinking, womanizing traveling salesman whose skeletal acquaintance with the bible allows him to attract the attention of Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons) a traveling Evangelist whose outer conviction regarding spreading the word doesn't always have the pure intentions that she implies. Gantry uses his abilities as a salesman to hypnotize Sister Sharon and become part of her travelling sideshow, to the point where Gantry starts to believe his own press, constantly monitored by a cynical reporter (Arthur Kennedy). Gantry and Sharon find their profitable venture crashing down around them when his past catches up with them in the form of a prostitute from Gantry's past named Lulu Bains (Shirley Jones).

Director Richard Brooks adapted this sometimes uncompromising drama from a novel by Sinclair Lewis, producing a screenplay that asks a lot of uncomfortable question and provides no easy answers , especially regarding the often blurred lines between religion and finance and the validity of evangelism as opposed to true theology through ordination from an accredited university. I love the fact that this film addresses all of these questions, providing both sides without really taking sides. Though the story is a little on the melodramatic side, it features some three dimensional characters who are all revealed to be flawed and not what they appear on the surface.

Lancaster got the role of a lifetime here and won the Oscar for Outstanding Lead Actor (though, personally, I think he has done better work) and works well with Simmons, who is basically playing a non-musical version of the role she played five years earlier in Guys and Dolls. Shirley Jones surprised a lot of people with her eye-opening turn as prostitute Lulu Bains, a performance that won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. I'm not sure if the performance was Oscar worthy or that people were just so shocked to see Jones playing a prostitute that they gave her an Oscar for being cast against type and not being blown off the screen. Also loved Kennedy as the cynical reporter and Dean Jagger as Sister Sharon's guiding force. It's a bit on the melodramatic side but for 1960, this was some powerful stuff that still holds up surprisingly well.

The offbeat directorial style of Gus Van Sant is perfectly suited for My Own Private Idaho, a somber but riveting story centered around a not-so user friendly topic in movies: male prostitution.

This 1991 indie drama focuses on the friendship between a pair of street hustlers. Mike (the late River Phoenix) is a quiet gay hustler who suffers from narcolepsy and is secretly in love with Scott (Keanu Reeves). Scott is the spoiled and pampered son of a millionaire convinced that he will get the keys to the kingdom when his father dies. Scott is allegedly heterosexual but makes money and pisses off his father by having sex with men. Mike and Scott's story is framed around an entire group of male prostitutes who inhabit a deserted hotel and are led by an aging and overweight Fagin-like character named Bob Pigeon, who is also looking forward to Scott's future windfall.

Van Sant establishes his dramatic credentials here immediately by setting this story somewhere other than Manhattan, where one would assume the setting would be, making it a little more difficult to pretend that male prostitution is a "New York thing." Several myths regarding male prostitution are blown here, primarily the one that men who have sex with other men for money are not all gay and that male prostitution involves sex with both sexes, established in Scott's relationship with a wealthy lady (Grace Zabriskie). The film also features little vignettes where young men share tales of their paid sexual exploits almost in the form of a documentary that are frightening in their frankness and believabilty.

The story is also made squirm worthy by making Mike narcoleptic...the thought of the kind of danger he could get in not being able to control sudden fits of deep sleep and waking up unable to remember when he passed out and what happened to him when he passed out was really unsettling to watch and his calm demeanor about it. Van Sant also makes his accustomed trips into offbeat fantasy and symbolism, beautifully realized by a scene in a gay bookstore where the models on the magazine covers come to life.

River Phoenix is solid as Mike, but in my opinion, Keanu Reeves walks off with this movie as Scott, the spoiled neglected diva who is as confused about his sexuality as he is about the neglect of his father and the hero worship of Mike. It is the imaginative direction of Gus Van Sant, the two star-making performances by the stars, and the indie budget that make this work because I've always found that lower budget films allow the story to take center stage and it definitely works here.

CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND

Stylish direction by George Clooney and a charismatic lead performance are the primary selling points for 2002's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, black comedy, disguised as biopic, wrapped around a docudrama that completely defies logic but never fails to entertain.

This is the story of producer Chuck Barris, the producer responsible for the 60's game shows The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game, and actually stepped in front of the camera as host of The Gong Show, who, according to this, walked out of the TV studio one day and was approached by an operative from the CIA to be a trained assassin for them.

Charlie Kaufman's screenplay, adapted from a book by Barris follows Barris from his days as a horny teenager who becomes a page at NBC through his approach by the CIA, his assassin training and the eventual double life that Barris was allegedly leading, but herein is where the problem lies...stories about people who lead double lives are nothing new, but the problem here is that there is always someone in the person's life who is aware of the double life...Jonathan and Martha Kent knew that their adopted son was Superman, Alfred Pennyworth knew that Bruce Wayne was Batman, but according to this film, absolutely NO one knew what Barris was doing.

The film features interviews with people from Barris' TV life, including Dick Clark, Jaye P. Morgan, Dating Game host Jim Lange, and Gong Show regular The Unknown Comic that offer little insight into this so-called double life that Barris was leading. Lange reveals that they were told sometimes that he was out of town for a week or two, but were never offered any other information. Now if what this film is perpetrating is true, then these interviews are pretty much pointless and these people would not have agreed to appear onscreen. I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that there's no way Chuck Barris could have done what he is shown doing in this movie without anyone knowing about it. I also believe in order to sell this, we would have needed an interview from the other side of Barris' life...someone from the CIA, but of course, they aren't talking, which leads me to believe that everything presented in this film is a product of the demented mind of Barris and if this is true, then I seriously hope this man is seeking the mental health assistance that he clearly needs.

With all this said, I also can't remember the last time I was so completely entertained by such an outrageous story that made no sense but was absolutely fascinating to watch. Clooney employs some imaginative camerawork and also plays the CIA operative who approached Barris. Sam Rockwell lights up the screen in an Oscar-worthy turn in the starring role, a performance that commands the screen and viewer attention. Julia Roberts also seems to be enjoying herself as a contemporary Mata Hari and there are cameos from by Clooney's pals Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. The film features solid attention to period detail and beautiful cinematography, but it loses points for trying to make us think that what is going on here actually happened without any solid documentation of such. There is a scene near the end of the movie where Barris confesses what he's doing to his dim-witted girlfriend played by Drew Barrymore and her reaction pretty much sums up my feelings about this movie. As fictional entertainment, it's a helluva ride.

I love this film because it is just unadulterated fun. And Drew. Obviously. That's the reason I knew it was being made in the first place... And the reason I saw it.... And one of the reasons it's on my 100. But, mostly, it's just a damn good time.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Never heard of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and it wouldn't be on my radar either. But...the photos of the Gong Show set that you used caught my attention. So I just added this to my watch list. It looks kinda of fun