A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III

I have to agree with much of what (but not all) critics said about this film. Yes, many of the things they say are true. However, I also agree with what Hoop posted here about this film. There is a 70s kind of scattered filmmaking feel to it that has appeal in the format of this type of film.

It's one of those films I rate lower than how much I kind of liked it. It's not a brilliant work flawlessly executed, but it has a glisten to it in places, that kind of odd appeal that makes it worth having done it. You see, some projects I feel just had to be done so then we can move on. It's not that it shouldn't ever have been done, but that it allows for an entertaining time and it is merely what it was perhaps meant to be (which I'll leave to the viewer's POV).

I just kept thinking, wondering, while watching it (knowing it was probably slammed by the critics which I know now, it was) that it is going to be one of those films someday, slammed at release and yet rediscovered and rethought later, and more appreciated then perhaps in historical ignorance as happens. But through that objective hindsight kind of way that allows us to, at some point many years later, appreciate the currently appreciable. Cheers!

I'll give a star for Jason Schwartzman, a star for Bill Murray, a star for Aubrey Plaza and a star for the movie as a whole.

I'm entertained by Charlie Sheen and his antics. While I can't hate the guy because I don't know him personally, I don't want to watch a movie that seems to basically reflect his poor decision making, meltdown and turn around. Too much "nothing" happened. Plenty of fantasy sequences and flashbacks seemed to just emphasize Sheen's boisterous and lady killing ways. In the end it seems like an exaggerated and far fetched Charlie Sheen Documentary. Roman Coppola works much better with Wes Anderson.

The last time I was baffled by a film to this degree I had just sat through Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou, a film to this day I can not extract anything from. Ironically, Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, the director of A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III have worked on a few projects together and, possibly as a result, the film feels half-baked, incomplete, and inherently maddening, doing one of things that Wes Anderson did as well but at least in a somewhat bearable manner; draw its events brighter and more noticeable than the characters involved in them.

Our title character is played by Charlie Sheen, who presumably filmed this around that time where he wasn't a media figure for his outspoken drug use any longer and he was pretty much disregarded by all the public too as yesterday's news. I assume that because I'm sure it this film would've been swarmed with publicity at the time of its production, because anything Sheen seemed to do, rather it was create a Twitter account or make a disposable statement made headlines.

Sheen embodies without a doubt, the weirdest character of his career; an inconsistent graphic designer who has just been left by the love of his moment Ivana (Katheryn Winnick), and is feeling mixed emotions, frequenting suffering from terrors and surrealist fever dreams. His reality becomes twisted and indistinct, as things do not seem to have a time-frame and characters pop in and out with no rhyme or reason.

This is one of the least consistent films I've seen in a long time. A subplot, if you can call it that because the story's main plot isn't even worthy of the description of a plot, involved Jason Schwartzman's Kirby, an aspiring musician, who wants Charles to make him an album cover, but both men lack inspiration in their clearly eclectic lives.

I can't help but feel that this was the movie that Wes Anderson dreamed up but quickly abandoned when he discovered the plot didn't go anywhere quickly. Anderson is known for concocting whimsical setups, an immensely quirky environment, and framing and articulating his films' settings with impenetrable beauty and artistry. What he often neglects, although this hasn't been seen recently with his newest films The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom, is his characterization and situations, which are often underdeveloped or simply archetypes we have a difficult time feeling for. Writer/director/producer Coppola continues to persistently throw set pieces, situations, and stunt casting at the story, none of it generating any true excitement or nourishment for his audience members. The whole film plays as one long, tedious, incoherent stage show that goes nowhere quickly and doesn't seem to care.

Yet through all the mundane setups and unworthy payoffs, I found enjoyment in this film, mainly coming from Sheen, who is a charming screen presence here, playing a womanizing character, with a bit more of a heart and attitude than the usual snobs. But his character is still an undeveloped archetype we feel almost nothing for. And when the film gives us a maddening ending that breaks the fourth wall, we feel that either Coppola couldn't fittingly end the story or he simply got tired of the material.

A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III is, to put it simply, a mess of sizable proportions. If the film had turned its quirkiness meter about six notches down, and put as much heavy focus on its story continuity and characters as it does with detail and look, there would be a film here with some trajectory and formation rather than just scene after scene of disposable weirdness. I read that Roman Coppola hopes that those who have suffered through a bad breakup in the past or have been through rough relationships could sympathize with Charles Swan III. I'd believe that after they see this film, they'll feel that relationships are a waste of time and should get back to work.

Starring: Charlie Sheen, Jason Schwartzman, Katheryn Winnick, Bill Murray, Aubrey Plaza, Patricia Arquette, Dermot Mulroney, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Directed by: Roman Coppola.

A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III (2012)

1/2 (out of 4)

Writer-director Roman Coppola quickly made this thing during the time that Charlie Sheen was going through his mental breakdown. In the film Sheen plays Charles Swan, a man who gets dumped by his girlfriend and begins to act in a variety of strange ways so us lucky viewers get the chance to look inside his mind to see what makes him tick. Okay, who in the hell really cares what makes Charles Swan III tick? I'm going to steal from Roger Ebert's review of this movie and he's right when he said a movie is a sad thing to waste. Not only is Coppola's talents wasted but so are Sheen's and Bill Murray's. Mr. Murray doesn't make too many movies these days and it's rather sad to see him wasted his talents in this film. I'm really not sure what Coppola was going for, although I'm quite certain somewhere down the road this here will be a cult movie with fans dropping acid and smoking joints to it. What we've basically got are a lot of small scenes where Sheen gets to act out a wide range of things. He would be dancing, flirting, find himself in a dangerous situation or he might just be looking at the ladies. The problem is that none of these "visions" are funny and after about ten-minutes it becomes clear that you don't care about Swan or anything in his head. He's a rather boring character who I'm guessing is loosely based on Sheen but I think the film would have perhaps worked better had they really gone after Sheen and the mental state he was in when all of this stuff was going on. I think that would have been a lot more interesting than what we get here. The only reason I don't give this thing a BOMB is that I'm going to at least give the filmmakers, actors and producers some credit for at least trying something different. However, just trying something different doesn't mean you're going to end up with anything good.

It's hard to tell whether "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III" is a good-natured bit of self-parody on the part of Charlie Sheen, poking fun at his reputation as a compulsive womanizer, or a vanity project designed to showcase the actor's now-legendary sexual prowess and playboy image. I suspect it's the former, but even if it's the latter, it still doesn't make for a very entertaining movie.

In plot, the movie feels an awful lot like a full-length version of "Californication," as a middle-aged, sunglass-wearing Angeleno laments how he's screwed up with the love of his life (Ivana played by Ketheryn Winnick) because he's never grown up enough to stay committed to a monogamous relationship.

Writer/director Roman Coppola's eclectic, scattershot approach alternates between scenes set in reality - or a close proximity thereof - and wild, but surprisingly flatfooted fantasy sequences heavy on op and pop visuals and graphics (Charlie is himself a successful graphics designer) and light on originality and cleverness. Apparently, there's not really all that much worth taking a glimpse of in ole Charlie's mind after all. Indeed, despite a big name cast that includes Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman and Patricia Arquette, the movie feels an awful lot like a third-rate film school project that somehow got green-lighted by an actual studio.