Brilliant film. Excellent, excellent script and Nicholas Cage who never seemed to impresse me is amazing in this, fantastic performance. Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper are great too. The ending parts (When Streep/Cooper's character trying to kill Kaufman) are pretty weird but that's the main point/brilliance of the film.

- A

My favorite film written by Charlie Kauffman. I've yet to see Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Nicolas Cage returns to those weird roles that he's best at. Chris Cooper deserved his Oscar and Meryl Streep was wonderful. I rate it an A-.

Watched it for the third time yesterday and loved it. It get's better and better every time I see it. Awesome movie. A/A+

Spike Jonez, Chris Cooper and Nicholas Cage at their best. Charlie Kaufman at his second best. In the words of Charlie Kaufman...the film was very taugt.

Great film, should have been nominated for Best Picture in 2002.

One of my all time favorites. I don't think that any film has ever impacted me as much on a personal level. One of the few films I can say is nearly perfect. A+

Pretty good...Chris Cooper, Meryl Streep and Nicholas Cage give great performances. (Chris absoultely deserved his Oscar)

B+/A-

Best movie of 2003! Awesome screenplay and direction - flawless!

5 out of 5.

A spectacular movie, and to this point the best Kaufman, Jonze pairing. Typically touching and odd. I liked that the characters, even the nuerotic ones, actually have a very endearing side to them. I think Streep's turn to the dark side is hilarious, but only because we follow her as she slowly becomes mezmorized by the Orchid Thief. Cooper shines, Streep shines, Cage shines. This has great directing, acting, dialogue, and a nice layering of story that one doesn't usually find in film. Excellent.

BTW, I liked this movie so much I went and purchased the Orchid Thief to read. Though clearly nothing like the movie, the book is great. I happened to read it when I was in Florida and visiting the everglades too, which made it even better since the book dwells on bromeliads like Moby Dick dwells on whale blubber.

A

I thought it was quite good. I owned the film of dvd for over seven months before I actually sat down and watched it. The acting was great and I think it's much better than the overrated ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND.

8/10 (B+)

It was amazingly written and acted. I sort of felt like something was missing from the movie, though, and it left me a tad cold at the end. That still doesn't change what I said in my first sentence, though. B+/B

I agree, except for your grade - this was a brilliant movie - the best of 2003!

5 out of 5 (A+).

2002 :wink:

Oops - my time flies when you're having fun...

(Yow - it really hurts to admit you're finally right about something! :wink: )

This filmmakers had the ambitious idea of setting out to make the most worthless and awful shit movie conceivable and then openly laugh at the audience during the movie for being duped into thinking it's a great movie. They succeeded on all levels, so I reward them with an F.

Its a good film - but it left me a little underwhelmed for some reason. Perhaps I was expecting more (just like Eternal Sunshine actually).

Grade : B+

Another over rated Kaufman film. Cooper was great no doubt, but these kinds of films get praised for the ingenuity and their brilliance while no one sees them because they are pretentious and boring.....yet films like Armageddon get slagged for their " unoriginality" and " unrealism" and yet they get oodles of people go to see it.

I thought it was pretty ingenious, and very original, but it just didn't hook me like it should have. Everything involving the Kaufman brothers I loved; Cage gives probably his best performance here (probably because he's at his most un-Cage like) and the self-loathing that writer's block brings about was captured perfectly. I just wasn't involved at all in the story of Orlean and the orchids. I thought Streep was fairly unremarkable and Cooper was amusing, but definitely not Oscar-worthy. Once Donald takes over writing the story and all the Hollywood stuff comes pouring out it goes off the rails, as was the point, but I found it more silly than witty. The ending is kinda lame, too. Definitely my least favourite Kaufman film so far.

B

Has become one of my all-time favorites by now. A+

B+


Of all people in this thread I pretty much agree with most with trixster and Libs.

I've seen Being John Malkovich during its initial theatrical release and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind right after it hit DVD. It took me, however, several years until I finally got to see Adaptation, a movie that some people say is the best Kaufman screenplay to date...

Personally, I beg to differ.

The plot of the movie seems on the first look not any more out there than the plots of Eternal Sunshine and Malkovich. For some reason, it feels far more weird, however. The screenplay, in my opinion, is the worst of Kaufman's major three. That is not to say that it is a bad one, it is actually pretty good, it's just that the other two had that little something extra that made them pretty ingenious. I have a hard time explaining this, but the thing is that despite completely ridiculous plots, Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine felt pretty natural when I was seeing them. Adaptation was almost trying a bit too hard. The whole abrupt genre change at the end of the movie took me a bit out of the film. I understand that it was, in a way fitting, especially considering the comment on the genre change within a movie made earlier in the film. It still just didn't work for me.

Another point was that I felt that Meryl Streep's performance in this one was hugely overrated and her character just didn't work well for me.

But enough criticizing this otherwise really solid film. Nicholas Cage definitely deserved his Oscar nom as he delivered his best performance since Leaving Las Vegas, by far. He was simply great. Cooper delivers a stand-out performance as well, but I must admit that Cage impressed me the most out of the cast, playing totally against the type. Having to play two very different characters helped as well.

The movie had its ups, its downs, but on the whole it's a clever, original and sometimes very funny movie. It didn't have as many laughs as Being John Malkovich and wasn't as brilliantly toiuching and wildly imaginative as Eternal Sunshine, but it can stand its own, especially thanks to the great cast (good short turns by Brian Cox, Judy Greer and Tilda Swinton!).

Havent seen it since it came out. But it was quirky and interesting, not as funny as I thought it would be. I'll need to check it again, but it was a movie that I liked, but would never go out of my way to catch it again.

B+

Weird. Even compared to Being John Malkovich. And then it's just plain bizarre once they head down to Miami at the end.
Yes, it's pretentious, but when it's not taking itself so seriously, it works.

B+

Yeah, I watched this for the first time yesterday. It's unique, no doubt. Nic Cage is great. There are some genuinely great moments throughout.

Yet... it's not as good as I thought it was going to be. It just isn't. And the third act is less genius and more damaging to the movie, for me. It just doesn't work for me. I know what they were going for, and it's fine. Just didn't work for me.

Still, I'd give it a B. It's good. Just not great.

It's my favorite of Kaufman's.

It definitely becomes more gripping as the story moves on. I definitely preferred though when the story centered on Cage as the Cooper/Streep storyline had some rough patches at first. The last act is kind of brilliant and this ends up being a pretty great film in the end.