Word: kaufmanã
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Dates: during 2004-2004
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Although a formulaic thriller at heart, director Philip Kaufman??s Twisted still manages to entertain, effectively playing on its setting in the San Francisco Harbor area to create a dark and seedy atmosphere. Combined with dank sexual undertones, the ambience gives Twisted the key components of a suspense film to hold the attention of a thrill-seeking audience. The mystery begins when homicide inspector Jessica Shepard (Ashley Judd) finds herself deeply intertwined in the new series of murders she is investigating. It turns out the victims are all past lovers, and soon Jessica is the primary suspect...
...SOSKIN: On Kaufman??s alleged greatness: the very same year that Adaptation came out, there was a wonderful Scandinavian film called Songs from the Second Floor that managed to be audacious, innovative, accessible and convoluted all at once. But the ease or difficulty of such a feat shouldn’t be the issue here: Kaufman, along with “creative” filmmakers like Wes Anderson and Darren Aronofsky, have proven that audacity and innovation don’t automatically beget relatable characters, untiresome plotting, or, as I alluded to with the “sadness?...
Kaufman is sitting next to director Michel Gondry to promote their soon-to-be-released collaboration, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which Jim Carrey joins the growing list of actors who have played some version of Kaufman??s harried hero. The writer’s sense of humor, it becomes clear, is no more Carrey-esque in real life than it is on celluloid—at least, not in that mid-90s sense, when the world knew Sunshine’s star as the spastic man behind The Mask. Kaufman will at no point shout...
...many ways, though, the most important character in Kaufman??s newest screenplay remains the same one who has emerged in one quirky script after another: himself. In one of Adaptation’s more transcendently bizarre moments, the fictional Charlie Kaufman (played by Cage) haunts the edges of the painstakingly-recreated studio set of Malkovich, his first produced film script, awkwardly interacting with that movie’s suddenly irritable cast and crew. Just the same, if Carrey’s Joel Barish is easily distinguishable from Cage’s Kaufman or the writer doodling...
...serious, or sending himself up yet again? It can be hard to tell. One thing Kaufman??s frenetic characters do not share with their creator is his nearly-constant deadpan...