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Aka: Confession
Television made him famous, but his biggest hits happened off screen. "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" is the story of a legendary showman's double life - television producer by day, CIA assassin by night. At the height of his TV career, Chuck Barris was recruited by the CIA and trained to become a covert operative. Or so Barris said.
Chuck Barris is best known to most Americans as the guy who used to host The Gong Show. He was also the creator and producer of The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and a handful of other successful game shows in the 1960s and 1970s. But was he also a hired killer working with the CIA? That's the take-it-or-leave-it premise of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, based on the memoir of the same name by Chuck Barris. Barris (Sam Rockwell) grows up dreaming of success in show biz and winning the hearts of beautiful women, but early on, he meets with plenty of resistance from both women and the television industry, despi...
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te writing the hit tune "Palisades Park" and scoring a job with Dick Clark on American Bandstand. The 1960s proves more fortunate for Barris; he meets the love of his life, Penny (Drew Barrymore), and sells ABC on the idea of The Dating Game. However, after the show has made him wealthy and successful, Barris is approached by the mysterious Jim Byrd (George Clooney), a CIA agent who wants to recruit Barris as a covert operative. Barris finds the notion of playing spy games intriguing and agrees, but soon discovers what Byrd and his partners really want is for Barris to assassinate uncooperative figures around the world. Soon, Barris finds that his life has been all but taken over by Byrd and another CIA agent, the mysterious and sexy Patricia (Julia Roberts). As he hops the globe, killing people in the name of American security (using his status as a Dating Game chaperone as a cover), Barris learns that the KGB has discovered his not-so-little secret and that his own life is in great danger. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind marked the directorial debut of actor George Clooney, working from a screenplay adapted by Charlie Kaufman from Barris' book. Dick Clark, Dating Game host Jim Lange, frequent Gong Show panelist Jaye P. Morgan, and Gene Gene Patton appear as themselves.
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George Clooney makes his directorial debut with this frenetic, visually dazzling black comedy. Based on notorious television producer Chuck Barris' "unauthorized autobiography," Clooney's film reinforces Barris' outlandish claim that he lived a secret life as a hitman for the CIA. Sam Rockwell stars as Barris, a fresh-faced dreamer who moves to New York to find success in television. Pretty soon, he's written a hit song ("Palisades Park"), has shacked up with the ultra-peppy Penny (Drew Barrymore), and has his first successful game show, THE DATING GAME. But as if that weren't enough excitement, he is soon recrui...
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ted by CIA Special Agent Jim Byrd (Clooney) to become a hired killer for the federal government. As Barris' subsequent shows (THE NEWLYWED GAME, THE GONG SHOW) take off, the conflicted producer uses them as a front for his undercover job, chaperoning winning couples all over the world while performing his deadly duties after hours. Along the way, he meets a shady cast of characters--including a sultry assassin (Julia Roberts)--who threatens to blow his cover and ruin his television career forever. Adapted by the daring and mischievous Charlie Kaufman, Clooney's film features yet another electrifying performance from Rockwell (LAWN DOGS, SAFE MEN).
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Confessions of a Dangerous Mind News Articles
When a screenwriter is admired, it is often based on how well he or she can construct a story ( Robert Towne , William Goldman ) or write dialogue ( Aaron Sorkin , David Mamet ), but Charlie Kaufman is the rare screenwriter who is revered for the strength of his ideas. He certainly feels like the first writing auteur, and it’s appropriate that he began directing his own scripts with 2008’s "Synecdoche, New York" (That’s not to disparage the great films Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry made out of Kaufman scripts, although as far as “ Confessions of a Dangerous Mind ” goes, the less said, the better. Director George Clooney and Kaufman infamously butted heads over that film.) Kaufman is gearing up for his second directorial effort, “Frank or Francis,” a movie which the Oscar-winning screenwriter has described as being about “online film criticism” in the “broadest possible sense.” We also knew that Steve.
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