(rated R, 105 mins.) If you grew up in the seventies you can’t help but remember the cult hits “The Dating Game”, “The Newlywed Game” and its creator Chuck Barris who starred in his also zany created – “The Gong Show.” This is the story of “Chuckie Baby” Barris (Sam Rockwell) and his possibly fictitious life as a CIA agent. It’s 1940 and Barris is a kid with one thing on his mind: Girls. Having no luck with them he turns his focus to TV, an ‘industry with a future’, by packing up his bags and moving to NYC. Beginning as a NBC tour guide, he quickly rises up the ladder when Dick Clark mentors him and his scheming ideas for kooky shows. When Penny (Drew Barrymore) enters his life he finally finds love and also a CIA recruiter (George Clooney) sitting on his doorstep. Before long, Barris is debating between a life of killing people and a television career. Clooney also debut directs this film, transferring his real life prankster humor into energy behind the camera success, with a style is so convincing, he should quit his day job as an actor. We are never sure if Barris is paranoid and slightly schizophrenic (making the CIA another one of his lifestyle scams to gain attention as an assassin enthusiast), or if he really had a CIA woman (Julia Roberts) in his life. Rockwell is so convincing as Barris (especially in “The Gong Show” scene), he’s more Chuck Barris then well, Barris. Amusing cameos include everybody from Jaye P. Morgan to the “Unknown Comic” to “Gene, Gene, The Dancin’ Machine”.
