Newsletter ... January 2000

THE MALKOVICH EFFECT

When the reviews alone read like literary masterpieces, it's a pretty safe bet that the movie is going to be great. The QFA's first film of the new century -- Being John Malkovich (AA, Wednesday, January 5th, 7 pm) has inspired North American critics to spill some impressive ink.

Straining to capture the smartly-weird, weirdly clever, cleverly bizarre nature of the film, Peter Kobel of The New York Times called it "a surreal and dizzying farrago of brilliant nonsense ... Kafka on ecstasy, or Ionesco on a caffeine overdose." Rick Groen of the Globe and Mail tells us that "it harkens back to a Monty Python sketch gone totally berserk ... intent on examining the head-up-the-derriere posture of a culture saturated with celebs and besotted with itself ... this picture is sui generis, a weird one of a kind."

The movie tells the story of Craig, an unkempt, unemployed puppeteer (John Cusack), whose relationship with his absent-minded wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz, sans glamour) and whose unappreciated talent estrange him from the world and from himself. Following his wife's plea, he seeks employment and finds it on floor 7-1/2 ("the overhead is so low") of a dreary corporate office building. Here, in a surpremely surreal world -- shot with deceiving documentary-style naturalism -- dwells a cast of unimaginably absurd characters: the sex-obsessed 105-year-old Dr. Lester (Orson Bean), the secretary who has a speech impediment and doesn't know it, and the seductive Maxine, who toys with Craig's pathetic vulnerability.

Then, as Groen says, "it gets stranger." Craig makes an accidental discovery behind a dusty filing cabinet: a tiny door which opens on to a long tunnel, which leads straight into the mind of real-life actor and so-so celebrity John Malkovich. Through the looking glass Craig goes, but only for 15 minutes. Returning to Maxine ("Who's John Malkovich?") the two eventually twig to the cash possibilities, and the queue to visit the sort-of-famous mind begins to form. Craig's mousy wife makes the trip and experiences a sexual reawakening through Malkovich's masculine eyes. Then, stranger still, Craig figures out how to take up permanent residence in his host, the puppeteer pulling the actor's strings. Malkovich -- playing himself -- must make the transition into an entirely different personality.

We'll leave the last words on Malkovich to king of critics Roger Ebert, who has opted for plain language rather than pretty prose: "Every once in a long, long while a movie comes along that is like no other ... either Being John Malkovich gets nominated for Best Picture, or the members of the Academy need portals into their brains."

-- Liz Mayer

DONATION MADE TO THE CHRISTMAS SHARING PROGRAM

On the last QFA movie night of 1999, our goal was to raise $100 toward a donation to the Christmas Sharing Program. Our patrons' donations totalled $99.90. The QFA matched it and topped it up for a total donation of $200. Thanks to all for making our goal a reality!

PAST NEWSLETTERS ON-LINE

November 1999 -- Coming to Earth: Director Deepa Mehta Survives an Indian Fire-Storm
September 1999 -- Welcome to our Fifth Season
May 1999 -- It's Your Turn, Laura / C'est à ton tour, Laura Cadieux
March 1999 -- The Cinematic Tourist: Lessons of Foreign Films