as an aspiring screenwriter and filmmaker I was wow by charlie kauffman and spike jonze's film adaptation.

it should be a must see for ANYONE who has attempted at writing a screenplay.

But how? Kaufman completely went back on his principles. He wanted to write a movie about the beauty of flowers, to make it less Hollywood, to not have conflict, drama, all the other crap that one other screenwriter was saying he needed. The ending was a huge cop-out, instead of ending with the big finale it did, it should've ended with the professional screenwriter telling him that a movie with no purpose, et al is a waste. Not say I wasn't inspired at times by Kaufman in the first two acts. Anyway, as much as I liked BJM, this movie just didn't do it for me.

But don't you see? That was the joke! He was struggling and struggling to stay on task and not go back on his principles, and then he finally gives up during the scene in New York. You know, when he asks Donald how he'd finish the screenplay. Afterwards, the movie takes crazy predictable Hollywood twists and turns and ends up being no different from anything else.

The hackneyed ending was a result of Charlie giving in to the studio's standards and compromising his beliefs for the ever-popular pay check. Our hapless hero struggled, failed, and ultimately ADAPTED as a screenwriter.

It's a wonderful film. Go see it.

--Alan


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http://www.alandenton.com
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the self-reference crap was not brilliant or funny. Any pretentious indie a$$hole could've written it. And what an obnoxious main character!
Waste of perfectly good actors......

Adapted, ugh, you're absolutely right. Still kind of a let down. He should've at least written that his charcter got laid for real at least once, that would've been Hollywood friendly. And as for self-pretentious and all that, yeah, that's exactly what Charlie's character said in the movie. The thing is, how real was it? I mean, nearly everyone writes about themselves, they may turn themselves into a charcter with slight changes to make it interesting, slightly different, whatever, the point is Kaufman had the balls and the bills to just upright make himself the main character. It's funny, this is the first film that has actually struck a worthy conversation with anyone. Aside from the usual good/suck conversations I can't seem to escape.