Wednesday Movie – Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Why does this film qualify? You might have observed that it’s a little bit different than the others. But the goal was to watch the movies I’d always meant to see, and we’ve owned this movie for about a year, and there were at least eight instances where I asked, “Hey honey, do you wanna watch George Clooney moustache-o-rama tonight?”, and strangely, got shot down. So in the end it was just me, the Cloons, and a few tall shots of rum.

This is probably not a movie in need of recapping. While most people I know haven’t seen the movie, they’re aware of what it’s about. It’s based upon the autobiography of Chuck Barris, the television producer best known as the awkward, strangely charming host of The Gong Show. Beyond his life in television (he also produced The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game), Barris led a secret, second life as a contact assassin for the CIA, or so he claims. But we’ll get to that.

It’s George Clooney’s first (to date, only) directorial effort. When the movie was released, I remember the reviews giving his work, at best, backhanded compliments. “A mish-mash of styles,” “a good first attempt;” that kind of thing. And I thought they were being especially hard on the movie because it was directed by an actor, and to a degree, they were. I think scene-to-scene, it’s a brilliant movie, but as a whole it’s not quite at the same level. In the bonus material, Clooney himself admits that you can pick out which particular scenes were pulled straight from some of his favourite movies. I’m not such a cineaste that I can figure out his sources on the fly, but I can see that the whole thing don’t come together into a single cohesive style. That’s all the criticism I’ll give him.

The movie employs a lot of long takes, which I love. More effective still, a few of the set changes are done in-camera (the camera pans while actors run off screen to change costume, or the camera pulls in tight to an actor’s face as the set rotates behind him). Colour is used well—weird tints are cast to give certain scenes a romantic glow or to create an older sense of time and place. I can see why the movie didn’t appeal to a mass market audience, but it actually looks more artsy than it really is. And I mean that as a compliment.

Sam Rockwell: amazing. He strikes me as an actor who’s good without the baggage; he doesn’t have to dredge up his dark places. George Clooney: moustachetastic. Drew Barrymore: sorta okay. She’s effective as the heartbroken want-to-be wife, but as the free-loving hippie, some of the early dialogue just doesn’t want to come out of her mouth. “I just got fucked by this drummer cat, a real righteous negro hipster.” Like Tara Reid as a scientist in Along in the Dark, she’s not fooling anyone.

As far as the mystery of Chuck Barris’s involvement in the CIA goes, there’s not much of a mystery at all. I think if you delve into it any (I did for about eight minutes), you’ll decide that you don’t believe him. Outside of this book, he’s never really spoken about it. He also released a second autobiography that doesn’t even mention the CIA nonsense. But why reiterate something that’s argued better elsewhere? Check out this article from Salon.com, and that should allay your fears that Chuck Barris might start popping caps if you pass him in the street.