Heartbeeps

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 2000)

The movie plays much like its R.E.M theme song - mushy, catchy, disposable, and not wholly indicative of the greater talent of its creators. This ain't no gem like Ed Wood; and you have to begin to wonder if Forman and his glossy paint-by-numbers 'vision' should have been trusted to handle material that Carey/Kaufman himself called "kinda like punk rock."

Giamatti as Kaufman's co-conspiring big league prankster is a boost to every scene; Courtney Hole is sorely out of place and wasted with like 20 lines(although she wears well one of the best '70s period-piece blue jeans I've seen recently); and Carey does a better, seedier Clifton than Kaufman or any of the assorted fill-ins.
Coulda:Shoulda: I was hoping for Carey/Kaufman's Foreign Man reenactment as the hopeless and hilarious 'bachelor number three' on the Dating Game...and in chronicling the performer's career 'missteps' towards the end of the film, how could they deny the very ugly duckling Heartbeeps? (check out the comments on that one!)
Even without a nod to Heartbeeps, there was a guy several rows behind me in the suburban Detroit megaplex snoring up a storm by the time the credits got to rolling, a reaction perhaps Andy woulda got a kick outta.
A truly inspired studio would have gotten the distribution houses to serve us milk n' cookies as we left the theatre!!