Taking a job as a filing clerk on the seventh-and-a-half floor (don’t ask), John Cusack happens across a portal into the head of John Malkovich, the actor. Chivvied along by maneater Catherine Keener, he starts selling tickets to interested parties, but not before his wife (an unrecognisably frumpy Cameron Diaz) has decided she likes being a man so much she needs a sex change operation…
This was the feature debut for director Spike Jonze, after making his name with inspired music videos for the likes of Fatboy Slim and the Beastie Boys, and the first produced screenplay for writer Charlie Kaufman. (They would collaborate again on Adaptation.) There’s real yearning in this darkly bizarre, mind-bending comedy about voyeurism, sex, and the human desire to play God. You can’t get much further out of the box than this.
Staff Pick: Eirinn & Emma
Devilishly inventive and so far out there it’s almost off the scale.
David Rooney, Variety
An incredibly rich and entertaining (not to say, laudably malevolent) film that far transcends its already way-out title premise.
Jonathan Romney, Sight & Sound
Media Partner
Spike Jonze
John Cusack, Catherine Keener, Cameron Diaz, John Malkovich
USA
1999
English
Indigenous & Community Access
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Credits
Producer
Michael Stipe, Sandy Stern, Steve Golin, Vincent Landay
Screenwriter
Charlie Kaufman
Cinematography
Lance Acord
Editor
Eric Zumbrunnen
Original Music
Carter Burwell
Production Design
K. K. Barrett
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
Casino
Revisiting the wise guy milieu for the third (but not the final) time, Scorsese tells the story of Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro (Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci), two New York hoodlums who become major players in the history of Las Vegas.
Ghost in the Shell
This seminal anime which inspired James Cameron and the Wachowskis, anticipates how AI technology encroaches on the human domain in ways we can scarcely comprehend. "A work of profound and melancholic beauty." Daily Telegraph
La Haine
This angry French thriller about alienated kids (a skinhead, an Arab, and an African) in the working class outskirts of Paris plays like a cross between Do the Right Thing and Mean Streets. French cops turned their backs on the red carpet at Cannes.
Crash
Sex drive, David Cronenberg-style. The car-crash fetishists who orbit Cronenberg's metrosexual Toronto (they include James Spader, Holly Hunter, and Deborah Unger) obsessively seek a fusion of metal and flesh... Fender bender as the ultimate orgasm.
Trainspotting
Danny Boyle's blistering movie was a sensation in 1996: a kick in the teeth of old school British kitchen sink realism, it fearlessly transformed the dire circumstances of Edinburgh heroin addicts into an experience by turns exhilarating and devastating.
Fargo
Have the Coen brothers ever made a more satisfying movie than Fargo? This grisly comedy pits one of cinema's most pure-hearted cops (Frances McDormand's pregnant cop, Marge Gunderson) against the machinations of weak and mercenary men.
Lone Star
John Sayles's modern day Western is a murder mystery which draws sheriff Chris Cooper to investigate two of his predecessors, the notoriously corrupt Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson), and his own father, Buddy (Matthew McConaughey).
90s Mystery Movie + Trivia Night
And now for a shot in the dark... We're not announcing the Mystery Movie in advance, so you'll have to take a leap of faith. We can say it was released between January 1990 and January 2000, and it's not already showing elsewhere in this series. As an added enticement we're going to throw in a 90s movie trivia night with your ticket — plus prizes!
Princess Mononoke
A mystical fight between humans and the Animal Gods of the forest. Ashitaka, the last prince of a dying race, struggles to find a way for both sides to co-exist. But the fighting only becomes more and more bloody and all hope seems to be lost…
Gummo
Harmony Korine was just 24 when he made Gummo. It's become a cult favourite as much for its singularity as anything else: it's a strange, misshapen beast, a slice of beat poetry translated into experimental film.
Jackie Brown
Take half a dozen characters who know they're in a fix, and give them half a million dollars to fight over. Tarantino's crime movie (his best) transcends genre in large part because in Pam Grier and Robert Forster it gives us people we truly care about.
The Big Lebowski
The Coens' whacky, warped slacker generation riff on Raymond Chandler, a shaggy dog story which delights in going sideways at every turn. Jeff Bridges is the Dude, and what he really wants is to get his rug back...