Saturday, October 08, 2005

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Finally saw this on DVD. If you've seen it or not, you probably know there are a lot of twists, some of which I saw coming--and was glad to see they weren't presented as great big "gotchas" saved for the end.

One of the things I liked about it is that I think it is, in a way what they call "pure cinema." That is to say: It uses the fact that it's being told as a film as a way of telling its story. If you get where I'm coming from. I don't do that; not so far anyway.

All my stories can be told on stage, on screen, or in a book. I don't think that makes them lesser than; so can a lot of peoples. I hope not anyway. I hope so anyway.

It is, in the end, moving. I probably would have ended it a beat or two before they did, but that's due to glitches of my own that need not necessarily concern you or anyone else. Speaking of glitch, I know Charlie Kaufman is generally considered to the bees knees of screenwriters right now...and this is the point where I admit that I haven't seen anything else he's written.

Nope, nada, nothing. Not Malkovich, not Adaptation, not Confessions of A Dangerous Mind. And certainly not Human Nature. Another one of my little glitches is that sometimes I resist whatever the "hip & cool" thing of the day is.

Anyway, that's more or less everything I want to say, except that I continue to like Jim Carrey more in movies like this or The Truman Show than the comedies like Liar, Liar and The Mask that made him a star.

Kate Winslet is, as always, scrumptious. And Kirsten Dunst has a very pretty face (for those of you who haven't heard). They're both also very good in this, he added, so no one would accuse him of misogynism.

2 comments:

Melissa McEwan said...

See Malkovich and Confessions. Skip the rest. ;-)

Ben Varkentine said...

TG: I don't know about Adaptation, but another thing I tend to resist is the idea of "accidental" art. I think art is done purposefully--though the artist may not understand the full purpose at the time. The trick, I suppose, is to do something purposefully that *appears* accidental.

Shakes: Maybe.

Amee: Yeah, you told me that story.