Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Plenty of Hollywood types lead secret lives, but nobody beats the tale spun by Chuck Barris in his 1982 autobiography: He claims that when he wasn’t goofing with Jaye P. Morgan as host of The Gong Show, he was jetting around the world for the CIA, using his cover as a TV producer to mask his real job: contract hit man. It’s Jerry Springer crossed with The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. Frankly, we think Barris made it all up (he penned another memoir in 1993 that mentions nothing about it), but you have to admire any story told with such a straight face and so compellingly bizarre. Too bizarre, probably, to be more than a cult success as a film, but the prospects for Confessions are improved by the presence of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, the wunderkind of weird who dreamed up Being John Malkovich. Advance word is that Kaufman’s script is one of his strongest, which ought to help shore up any stumbles from first-time director George Clooney, who co-stars as Barris’ menacing CIA handler. This could be a breakthrough role for Sam Rockwell, who stars as Barris, if he can manage to muscle past Clooney, Julia Roberts and Drew Barrymore for that coveted face time on E.T.