Just Saw Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze's new film Adaptation. Starring Nicolas Cage, who plays two roles as twin brothers.
A story focused on a screenwriter's attempt to write a film (true to life and integritous to the original work) from New Yorker writer Susan Orlean's book, The Orchid Thief. This is just one of many meanings Adaptation takes throughout the picture. The film is a reckless and puzzling joyride — and clearly another example of why I think Kaufman (wrote Being John Malkovich and upcoming Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) is one of the most original screenwriters working Hollywood today.
You'll have fun figuring this one out. And working Hollywood is perhaps a bit of an overstatement as the film is respite in its tongue in cheek jabs and ticklish innuendos aimed at the Hollywood movie making machine — only did Tolkin and Altman's The Player have more fun with Hollywood cliche and insanity. Cage's performance is punctuated by Jonze's whimsical directing which intentionally builds overblown characters for the sake of playful fun. Cage's Charlie Kaufman character is so pathetically neurotic it at times is painful to see him blunder through one situation after another. Have fun this week. Go see Adaptation.
