Ownzored.
“That must mean it’s time for Gene Gene the Dancing Machine!!!”
So is that a good thing?
It’s a really great movie. I’ve been singing it’s praises for a while now.
SPOILERS
I beg to differ.
The first half of the film is pretty good. It’s funny and sufficiently off-kilter in its presentation. The second half, though, spiraled into a love story I didn’t care much about and a bunch of blatant horseshit about working for the CIA. The CIA stuff, to me, looked exactly like it was being told by someone who had an idea of what the CIA might be like, using only what he’d seen in films or read in fictional novels.
I mean, come on: a chumpy little fruit game show producer fits “the profile” perfectly for a CIA operative? So, part of the profile includes being small of build, short of wit, and involved in television, one of the most demanding and high-profile (in terms of geographic and time commitment) fields around? Because hopefully he can book trips for his Dating Game winners to wherever, like Berlin (although I’d love to see proof of whether or not Barris actually took a couple there)? Oh yeah, and he had no prior military or police training (beyond that half-assed account he provided, dudes shooting targets in the snow and a weird martial arts instructor).
Beyond that, how about his missions? I suppose if he really did work for the CIA, most of the work would have been stunningly boring, thus only the more exciting bits would be distilled for the film. However, those bits were unbelievably cliche: sexy female spy who craves him (Him! This is Chuck Barris we’re talking about), all that coded “The crow flies at midnight” message nonsense, all-too-convenient counteragents, a mole to make him seem more heroic (that whole subplot was contrived), that ridiculous “switching the poisoned drinks” maneuver.
And he did it all because he felt guilty about his game shows? Please. More like he was a compulsive womanizer (and who knows what else) and dreamed up some bizarre excuse so Drew Barrymore’s character would marry him. I don’t know. I didn’t dislike the film as I watched it, but like Signs, the more I thought about the film the more I’m sure that it wasn’t very good and that I’d never want to see it again.
Bill Dungsroman
Good nick!
See, that’s what I found so wonderful about the movie. It seems that it would be complete and utter bullshit. I loved the thought of dorky assed Chucky murdering for the CIA
Yeah, taken in that way it is a funny film. My biggest problem is that the first half of the film comes through with the preposterous notion of that goofball - and we all know what he looks like - working for the CIA. It’s funny, and fun. But as the film progresses, it seems to try to become serious, when its putting in these supposedly more dramatic CIA bits interspersed between his breakdown moments (with his girfriend and his producer/host job). It loses its humor just enough, for just long enough, to make me give up on it.
However, I would still like to know if anyone has been able to confirm that Barris took winners of The Dating Game to Berlin and so forth, and did anyone actually witness that near flipout he pulled during a taping of The Gong Show. Links?
Bill
Are you trolling, or did you just completely miss the point of this movie?
Hey, look. Clearly large portions of the movie are about illustrating Barris’ mental state by projecting internal conflicts into the outside world. I think the scene at the Playboy Mansion is among the best of these.
I know it’s stupid to resurrect this thread, but I just watched A Beautiful Mind on cable, and now Confessions makes a whole hell of a lot of sense.