Robbed of Best Original  Screenplay #3: BEING JOHN MALKOVICH

As we head into Oscar season, a series of iconic or underrated scripts that should’ve won.

Maybe it’s too obvious a choice for a movie bro of my generation, but 100% yes Charlie Kaufman should’ve won for Being John Malkovich. Launching one of the most iconic screenwriting careers of all time, this script apparently circulated for years in Hollywood circles as an “un-produceable” oddity — the classic Black List script before The Black List existed.  Logline: An unsuccessful, sexually frustrated puppeteer stumbles into a portal leading inside actor John Malkovich’s head, where you can enjoy “Being John Malkovich” for a few minutes —  before being ejected onto the side of the NJ Turnpike.

There was never another actor besides Malkovich written into the script, and when Spike Jonze took it on as his directorial debut, they got Malkovich to play ball as himself. In 1999, the stars aligned so that indie film was at its absolute peak and something this singular, weird, and perfect miraculously made it through the system. There are few films I’ve personally watched more in my life and this sensibility permanently imprinted on my young brain — I’m sure everything I write has some of this in its DNA. If I haven’t been able to describe why it’s great, well, I’m not a critic and maybe I’m just “lonely in my isolated tower of indecipherable speech.” Just go watch it!

What makes this choice even more of a no-brainer is what actually won: American Beauty. The year many believe was the best ever in cinema, few winners have been more thoroughly downgraded in our collective consciousness over time. Now considered phoney, self-important, “problematic,” and bogus.In film history and in Kaufman’s own career, Malkovich towers. Yes, Kaufman did win a few years later for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, many people’s preferred film and an early 00s indie classic.  But have you watched it lately? With age and wisdom does anyone else find those characters totally insufferable?  Next, Kaufman dropped Jonze and started directing his own work and — I’m sorry — his misanthropy took over. He went from a hilarious sadsack to an unrelentingly depressing sadsack. To me, Malkovich will always be his masterpiece.