Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Goofy opportunist Chuck Barris (played with kooky but credible sociopathic tunnel vision by Sam Rockwell) created network television’s The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game. In the 1970s, he also created and hosted The Gong Show. Years later, as a washed-up icon of boob-tube schlock, Barris hunkered down, apparently naked and emotionally shredded, in a Manhattan hotel room and penned an “unauthorized autobiography” in which he claimed to be a CIA assassin, also. Rookie director George Clooney (who also co-stars as Barris’ shady government recruiter) and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation) flash back to the bizarre Barris saga with a deadpan spin in which fact and possible fiction amble to a photo finish as one of pop culture’s nuttiest milestones. Drew Barrymore and Julia Roberts appear respectively as Barris’ hippie lover and fellow covert operative. M.H.