State and Main
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Movie Reviews of State and Main
Movie Review: A good comedy that could have been great
Summary: 3 Stars
Movies about movie-making is one o my favorite Hollywood categories, because the writers and directors are doing a subject that they are intimately familiar with. SUNSET BOULEVARD and THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL are two examples that "ring true." On the light side, SINGING IN THE RAIN is a classic example. Recently, THE PLAYER had delightful moments of great authenticity, especially the beginning where script writers try to peddle their ideas.I just saw STATE AND MAIN, available as a rental. It was written and directed by our era's most overrated dramatist, David Mamet. It's about making a movie in a small town in Vermont. I think it's Mamet's best script so far (that isn't saying very much) because it's obviously a subject that he has first-hand knowledge about.
I wondered as I saw it what was wrong with this picture, and it finally dawned on me: the casting of William H. Macy as the harried director was a huge mistake. Macy is a very fine
actor, of course, and he acted his role to the hilt--alternatively bossy, cajoling, violently exasperated, super obsequious. He swept from one mood to its opposite as called for in the script. But something was missing: a humorous edge, a commentary-on-the-commentary. The role really should have had someone who can act on the meta-level as well as on the script level, someone like Michael Caine. With Caine in the role, STATE AND MAIN would have been a well-known title by now.
The second flaw in the movie, in my opinion, is that Mamet remained too true-to-life. He had a great idea: a bunch of cynical Hollywood producers and directors and actors invade a small innocent town, only it turns out that some of the "innocent" townies are more cynical and rapacious than the Hollywooders. But Mamet failed to hone this distinction to a fine edge. Some of the townies are good decent people, which is true to life of course but gets somewhat in the way of comedic values. Imagine how funny the movie could have turned out if Neil Simon had written the script! Mamet's idea is a better one than most of Simon's plots, but Mamet doesn't have the comic inventiveness to see it through.
There are some good situations and good laughs in STATE AND MAIN, and if you like this kind of flick, you'll probably find it worth viewing.
Movie Review: David Mamet makes pretty good film - relief all round
Summary: 3 Stars
While I admire many of David Mamet's plays, I've yet to be convinced that he knows more than my 4-year-old nephew about how to direct films. Film buffs and theatre folk tend to revere his work, and I am a bit of both, but you only have to watch them with normal people to see how robotic and cold his films can be - "Homicide", "House of Games", "Oleanna", all are spoiled by the strangely disassociated behaviour of his actors, and his version of Terence Rattigan's "The Winslow Boy", while competent, wasn't a patch on a BBC TV version starring Jeremy Brett and Emma Thompson. All the more surprise, then, that this is a cool, funny, relatively relaxed (for him) movie. Even his wife Rebecca Pidgeon, usually the worst offender in terms of patented Mametian woodenness, loosens up a bit. Films about film-making tend to be a bit of a busman's holiday, and this is no exception, but there is a generally unbuttoned and charming feel to the whole thing that makes you forgive a lot.
The message, cause despite what Mamet would like to think, there is one, is unsurprisingly unoriginal - small-town folk are More Real than those Hollywood Weirdos. But it's lovely to see Philip Seymour Hoffman, usually cast as a sweaty, giggling deviant, as the romantic lead. William H. Macy, an old Mamet crony, is his usual excellent self, and Alec Baldwin does a lovely line in planetarily self-absorbed comedy. Even Sarah-Jessica Parker, who normally I can't stand, is a scream as the starlet who won't get her kit off for the camera but is perfectly happy to do it for the screenwriter.
The plot is given far too much attention. With a movie like this, we care more about incidental moments, or at any rate moments that _seem_ to be incidental - and Mamet is such a control freak, he can't stand it if our eyes are distracted from anything but the Development of the Story and the Revelation of Character, etc. etc. I'll never believe he's a real director. But he has, at last, delivered a fun film, even if I don't know how he did it. So fair play to him, as we say in my town.
Three stars, because good as this is, there a lot of other films out there, by people less respected and famous, which are a lot better. But if you've already seen them, try this.
Movie Review: interesting
Summary: 3 Stars
This was an interesting movie. I saw it after reading a part in the New Psycho-Cybernetics mentioned it. It seemed to be playing with the idea of truth. One scene had a lawyer guy asking another guy to rehearse a lie out loud just to make sure he could say it. The dialogue didn't feel real to me, but like they were forced to say things in a certain way. There was one part where Alec Baldwin's character is signing a baseball and says something like, 'Baseball... that's America's favorite past time'. It's like some people are walking around stating obvious things and others are lying. If you held up a piece of paper and said, "This is a piece of paper," you would fit into this movie nicely. Near the end, the main character was asking "What is truth?" It reminded me of Pontious Pilate asking Christ the same thing. There was one scene where a person is wearing a jacket that says "Assembly of Death" Maybe that was to symbolize the lying nature of the film crew people. I dunno. The ending where he gets a second chance reminded me a little of Abraham bringing his son to the altar to sacrifice him, but is stopped by God at the last second. And then there's the newspaper that says on it not to bear false witness.
All in all, this movie was strange and I'm not sure what it was trying to say.
Movie Review: Not Mamet at his best
Summary: 3 Stars
Having seen just about every film Mamet has to offer, one goes into this with fairly high expectations. The three stars might be as much a symptom of that as any flaws the film has. There are plenty of bright spots here - David Paymer shows his evil side (remember him as the "Hello" guy in Crazy People?) perfectly, while Hoffman as usual seems to get to the essence of the person he is portraying. Maybe not as convincingly as in Boogie Nights, but close. Rebecca Pidgeon is always well-used in Mamet's films and I am always amazed that he can handle putting her into intimate situations. But I digress.The biggest problems with Baldwin and Sarah Jessica Parker are not their performances but the fact that they are not well-developed and stay in a 2-dimensional periphery throughout the film. This is surprising, considering the impact Baldwin made in Glengarry despite such little screen-time. Macy unfortunately is the most inadequately drawn character despite possibly having the most screentime. He resembles a chicken with his head cut off (ala Billy Crystal in his terrible new movie) and never makes himself the sympathetic rogue he could have been.
All in all, there are some very funny moments and it is worth seeing, but you won't be in any hurry to watch it again.
Movie Review: Stumbles around a bit, and then...
Summary: 3 Stars
...finally turns out to be just a piece of fluff after all.David Mamet makes a business of (really) supertalky
head games. He somehow gets his movies made
despite the fact that Hollywood probably can't stand
his scripts, and he's been lucky to stay indy-in-spirit long
enough to gather a following to his hardnosed brand
of gab. Here again, the same only different.
Instead of his usual deadpan rapid fire talk-feature,
Mamet gives the facade of an actual Hollywood film. Only
of course it isn't. It's the anti-Hollywood film that is a movie
inside a movie, and it's all so dripping with irony that
ya wanna drown yerself.
Yeah, well, it turns out that his great ensemble cast is
largely lost amid a lackluster script and a hackneyed
concept to begin with. Too bad.