Bizarre, beautiful, fun.

Rating: 10/10 (29 October 1999)

For those who want their reviews as "thumbs up/thumbs down", see it. This movie is stranger than you think, funnier than you might imagine, and actually somewhat troubling. It's a bizarre fairy tale, a twisted fantasy, and a warped love story. It's directed by a former skateboard cameraman, who went mainstream, first with music videos (Beastie Boy's "Sabotage") and commercials (the one I recall involves doctors, the song "Tainted Love", and an EKG).
I should warn you that I walked into this movie tremendously excited and enthusiastic. It's set in New York City and prominently features a bit of the New Jersey Turnpike that I know well. Better, I got free passes. Yet USA Films has in no obvious other way bought me out, and any ebulence I show is strictly coincidental. Heck, they didn't even give me a movie poster or a John Malkovitch mask. So I'm sort of resentful.
The movie has two trailers. In one, we hear the soundtrack to "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control" while Steven Hawking's voice explains that humans are vessels for something else. In the other, John Cusack asks for the seven and a halfth floor, and the lady with him jams down the "STOP" button and crowbars open the elevator. Clearly, she's done this before, and the elevator shows the damage. That trailer is set to the song "Brazil" (from the movie "Brazil").
Those, alone, sold me on the film.
See John Cusack out of a suit for the first time in his life. Watch "Abelard and Heloise," the puppet show, with incredible marionettes. Watch John Malkovitch play John Cusack playing a geek. See deep into John Malkovitch's subconsious.