This imaginative, hysterical comedy-fantasy is the latest addition to my "favorite film" list. It is a travesty that screenwriter Charlie Kaufman didn't win an Oscar for this script (he was nominated) It came out in 1999, directed by Spike Jonze.

John Cusack plays a puppeteer who takes a job as a file clerk and discovers, behind a file cabinet, a portal that takes him into the mind of John Malkovich. His wife Lotte is played by the almost unrecognizable Cameron Diaz. Catherine Keener is Maxine, their mutual love interest.

But the best part is John Malkovich playing a fictional version of himself. He was reportedly "half intrigued and half horrified" when he first read the script. Scenes include such bizarre incidences as the Cusack and Diaz characters separately entering the Malkovich body to be there when he makes love with the Keener character.

In a scene where Malkovich himself enters the portal into his mind, I laughed so hard I almost choked on my own spittle.

In a film full of surprises, they save the best for last. This is a wonderful, thoughtful, superbly funny flick, and John Malkovich had some self-deprecating nerve to do the role.