Another Awesome ESOTSM Review!

[Belbee]

Thanks again to <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.admiringkatewinslet.com/" target="top">Admiring Kate</a><!--EZCODE LINK END-->!<br><br>Review by Glenn Kenny, Premiere Magazine - March 2004 <br><br>**** out of **** ('the stuff dreams are made of') <br><br>In the '70s, David Cronenberg spent the better part of a year working on a movie that was destined to be made as Total Recall, directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cronenberg’s version would have had a very non-Schwarzeneggerish guy (I've heard that Richard Dreyfuss was being discussed for the part) as the hero, and it concentrated on the human element of the mind-messing story, rather than the John Carter-on-Mars-with-Heavy Ammo aspect. The project fell through, badly, and talking about the experience gives Cronenberg a "terrible headache," he says in the book Cronenberg on Cronenberg. ("It's pulsing through my eye, like a big hatpin.") I wonder if his pain will be ameliorated or exacerbated by a viewing of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry's masterpiece Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Save for its very basic inversion of the memory-implant premise of Recall, this picture seems in many respects to match what Cronenberg had in mind. <br><br>The Philip K. Dick story that Recall took said premise from was called We Can Remember It For You Wholesale; Sunshine could be titled We Can Forget It For You Cut-Rate. (But that would ruin a nice Alexander Pope lift.) Jim Carrey plays Joel Barish, a shlub with slightly boho tendencies who is enraged to learn that his superflake love, Clementine (Kate Winslet), has had Joel and their entire tumultuous affair erased from her memory via the services of a company called Lacuna Inc. So enraged, in fact, that in a fit of I'll-show-her-even-though-she'll-never-know illogic, he decides to enlist Lacuna and have the same procedure done to him – a decision he regrets almost as soon as the process begins. The movie's biggest laughs, scares, and questions happen during this journey to the center of Joel's mind, during which he tries to spirit Clementine into a portion of his consciousness/memory bank that the Lacuna technicians – a trio of young goofballs who toss back Rolling Rocks while they work – don't have the map to. <br><br>All this sounds very sci-fi, but just as Cronenberg wanted to take the high-tech out of Recall, Gondry situates Sunshine in a world of extremely unpolished surfaces; the ugly architecture here is all too recognizable. The door sign of Lacuna's office is missing a letter, a nice visual pun for sure but one that also grounds this vision in a drab everyday world. That makes things all the more beguiling once Sunshine goes into Joel's head, and his world starts mutating. Gondry scours the twin terrains of memory and desire almost as fervently as Tarkovsky did in Nostalghia, but since our hero here is a pretty ordinary American semi-urbanite coming out of a bad love affair rather than a Russian poet coming to grips with dying in a foreign land, we don't get grand visions of a dacha dwarfed by a Roman aqueduct; instead, we get baby Barish (actual-size Carrey, shot in forced perspective in an oversized set) under a '60s kitchen table looking at the legs of his new baby-sitter – Clementine, who he's trying to substitute for his memory of the real baby-sitter. The vision is entirely apt, and resonates on so many levels. And Sunshine is stuffed full of such things. Its structure is so ingenious that it would be a sin to parse it here; the way the story unfolds is central to its substantial emotional impact. Suffice it to say, Tarkovsky aside, Gondry and Kaufman were also clearly influenced by the time-bending anti-linearity honed by the likes of Chris Marker (in La Jetee) and Alan Resnais (in Je t'aime, je t'aime, La Guerre est Finie, and other films). Am I making this sound like an art movie? Well, it is – a wildly imaginative, hugely entertaining tour de force that asks big questions about life and love and fate while never ceasing to fully engage the viewer. <br><br>Jim Carrey is so convincingly nondescript in the early sections of this picture that one starts wondering why he was needed for this part at all – a question that is readily answered once his brain erasure begins, and he has to act out in different states of maturity and mental composure. It's easily his most fully realized performance. Kate Winslet is truly remarkable as the girl with the perpetual bad hair color, fully fleshing out a frayed, wounded woman without every lapsing into overstatement. The supporting cast is brilliant, but except for some very key moments, what they do is in fact support. And when their turns to dazzle come, Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, Tom Wilkinson, and an unnervingly creepy Elijah Wood hit home. <p></p><i></i>

[review]

And here's another one this time from Harry at <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=17154" target="top">AICN</a><!--EZCODE LINK END-->. I'm shaking at how good everything has been today!<br><br>THE Eternal Sunshine OF THE SPOTLESS MIND review!<br><br>Some days it is such a blessing to be a movie critic. Wednesday was such a day, a week ago, I woke up bright and early – not usually the way I like it, but this was a special day… I was getting up early to go see THE Eternal Sunshine OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, the latest from the curly noodles of Charlie Kaufman. I read the script for this film about two weeks after an incredibly tense and bitter break up. I was distraught, depressed and feeling like a complete and total mound of steaming dung. Kaufman’s script had the exact right message that I needed to hear at the time. <br><br>You see, Eternal Sunshine OF THE SPOTLESS MIND is about the need to remember, or the need to forget. The script was very much a cautionary tale about those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it, that message has changed in the actual film. I’d heard that it had changed, and I was terrified to see the results. <br><br>I was also terrified, because Michael Gondry made a pretty huge mess out of HUMAN NATURE, the only Kaufman scripted film that hasn’t sailed over the centerfield wall for me. Of all the Kaufman scripts, this was my favorite, and I didn’t want Gondry to drop the ball. Since the directing announcements though, I’d seen Gondry’s DVD with all his fantastic Bjork videos brought together and I had a degree of confidence in him that HUMAN NATURE hadn’t given me. <br><br>However, I was about to see the film. Arriving at the theater about 30 minutes early, I see that Rav was there. He’d put his car in the shop the day before, and the night before I gave him instructions on how to use the public buses for transportation from his home to the Dobie Theater. Really simple, but because he was Rav, I was expecting him to arrive with shredded clothes and walking bow-legged. He appeared to be fine. <br><br>After about 20 minutes we were told which theater to go to, settled in and waited for the magic to start. As the lights dimmed, I uttered under my breath, “Don’t Suck!” <br><br>WOW! ABSOLUTELY PERFECT! <br><br>I have utterly no concept of how commercial the film will be, though I can’t imagine anyone that sees it not falling in complete love with the film. I suppose this will mainly depend on the trailers and word of mouth to succeed. I so want it to do spectacular business, if for no better reason than to perhaps fuel my desire for more incredibly smart science fiction films that are fueled by soul, intellect, powerful performances and supported by a visionary use of visual effects work that never overshadows the story… exactly how Gondry and Kaufman do in this masterful film. <br><br>The science fiction aspect of the film has been wonderfully unveiled in the trailers for the film. Lacuna is a company that has opened up to provide for its clients the focused erasure of troubling memories. You’ll see a lady sitting in the waiting room with box filled with doggie items, obviously her dog died and she wants to forget the little mutt ever existed so she can get over the loss in a nice fast disposable manner. The concept of a society that could just toss memories aside and move on to the future in a painless manner… well, it isn’t too hard to believe in. The other night I was working in the living room when a commercial came on for a pill that will make you more social, less afraid to be interactive with your fellow workers, keep you out of being alone in the corner. The ad said you should consult a doctor before quitting and that the pill will let you be the real you. Uh huh. SO… Shy people aren’t really themselves, eh? Interesting. <br><br>As pharmacology gets better and as we get a “Brain Pacemakers” and “Electronic Knees” well how far away in a world of mapping the human brain are we till we can selectively damage our brains to “Be The Best Version of Ourselves!” <br><br>Kaufman has nailed his premise and Gondry perfectly captures it. On another level, his work with Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey, as well as the rest of the cast, is nothing short of a revelation. It is easily Jim, Kate and Kirsten Dunst’s best performances. They are so real, so vulnerable, so likable and so easy to empathize with. Kirsten’s character is amazing for how great it is, for how little she is on screen. As the admitting desk lady at Lacuna Inc, she’s personable and warm. She comes across as someone trying desperately to be the best she can to impress someone whom she deeply respects and loves. <br><br>Jim Carrey is invisible in the movie. With a scruffy look, that clean cut Jim is out the window. Watching how distraught he gets over being erased by the woman he loves… then having the same process done to her through his own memory. The device of staying with his consciousness within his memories and dreams as he becomes aware of what exactly is happening… and realizing that it isn’t just the “Bad Memories” that are going, but those precious moments you could never imagine forgetting. The glances you love, those moments of magic being torn… Then his desperate attempts to hold on to her memory… BEAUTIFUL. Easily one of the great romance tales… It is literally all about the memory of love. <br><br>Kate Winslet’s character in the script always seemed to come across as being a bit on the “bitchy” side, but as Kate played it in the film… My god you so can understand loving her. She’s sarcastic and surprising. She’s impulsive and emotional, but as Gondry shoots her – she’s everything crazy and overwhelming about someone you love. That cyclone that sweeps into your life and changes the world as you know it. She’ll drive you insane, but she’s worth every second of it. <br><br>The conflicts that come to cause the split up are brutal and real. The sort of vicious phrasing that couples use to stab deep into each other’s hearts. The stuff that the second you hear, you wish you could wipe the memory away… and in this story, you can, but the price is all those other happy thoughts as well. <br><br>I’m so happy this film came together perfectly. Michel Gondry’s cinematic devices will take your breath away. The scene in the book store as the peripheral things in Jim’s memory get wiped first… stuff like the words and art of book covers and spines… the other shoppers.. all subtly fading away, not all at once, but in pieces… a little here and a little there, but what your eyes are focused on is the love between two people that won’t have it for long. It is breathtakingly beautiful and tragic all at once. <br><br>What a fantastic movie. I can’t wait for the rest of you to have a chance to see this thing. What bliss. In my opinion, this is the very best film adapted from a Charlie Kaufman screenplay… and that my friends is saying quite a bit. I love this movie! <p></p><i></i>

[cotton]

Awesome! <p></p><i></i>