It’s kind of hard to imagine just how many scripts that Charlie Kaufman and other screenwriters have produced and seen tossed aside or never used in their lifetimes, but it’s also hard to think that when looking him up that only so many movies come up that have used his work. Obviously they’ve made him wealthy enough that it doesn’t really matter since his net worth is around $10 million. It’s enough to make a person think that they’re in the wrong line of work when it’s seen just how much money a screenplay can bring. Of course there’s always the reality that the number of scripts that get rejected over those that are accepted is simply massive. Those that can get their name out there, attached to a script, and get paid for it are those that are considered lucky and in many cases very good at what they do. That’s what a lot of people figure anyway, but with Charlie they’re right at least.
Here are the five best movies he’s written.
5. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
This is a movie about madness on a level that you have to watch to believe since Chuck Barriss is a guy that is just trying to get by and make things work in his life when he’s recruited by the CIA to kill people. That’s quite a stretch obviously, from game show host to hired killer, but it’s one that the movie pushes in a big way since it seems to work considering that Sam Rockwell is the perfect actor to go from sane and calm and reasonable to cold and aloof and ready to kill in a heartbeat. Acting as George Clooney’s directorial debut, this movie didn’t get a whole lot of attention but it’s definitely one that you should watch at least once.
4. Chaos Walking
This movie didn’t seem to get a fair shake really when really looking at it from a different angle. It did seem to suffer from the over-saturation of movies that had to deal with sensory themes that had come out recently and it could be that people were growing tired of such things. But Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley are such hot commodities in the acting world right now that calling it ‘unreleasable’ is kind of silly, not to mention downright foolish when you think of the cast that was lined up for this movie. As a story it did need some further development but overall it seems to work just fine.
3. Adaptation
Surreal is the word for this movie since it features Nicolas Cage as Charlie and Donald Kaufman and shows the struggle of going through the process of creating a screenplay and getting it nailed down to the point that it’s ready to sell and become a hit movie. Of course along the way there’s plenty of thrill and the idea to have the brothers reconcile their differences after struggling with one another throughout the movie. The whole thing feels like a writer’s attempt to glorify their life in some way, yet it comes off as a rather quirky and kind of interesting ride through a person’s psyche if you’re paying close enough attention.
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
It’s funny how we always want the good stuff in life and want to let loose of the bad things. The trick there is that the good and the bad conspire to make us who we are and also work together to remind us just why the relationships we form, be they good or bad, are important as anything else in life since they teach us lessons about ourselves, about each other, and about the world we live in. Getting rid of them is tantamount to saying that they never happened, that those parts of our lives are blank, meaningless, and don’t matter. All of it matters however, no matter how hurtful it might be, and that’s a lesson that a lot of people still have to learn.
1. Being John Malkovich
It’s kind of a disturbing thought to think of what might happen if there were random holes in the world, in the fabric of reality no less, that could lead into a person’s head. That would certainly make people look at random hole a lot differently wouldn’t it? Who knows just whose head you’d be jumping into whenever you went spelunking, thinking nothing of it. That’s enough to give many people the chills when they think about it, and in this case it’s also enough to make some people realize that they could do a number of things that they might not otherwise do in their normal lives, like inhabiting a body just to experience a life that’s different from their own.
Charlie is a talented writer without a doubt, but some of his screenplays are just kind of odd.
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