State and Main
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Movie Reviews of State and Main
Movie Review: Hollywood Filmmaking Up Close With Acerbic Twist
Summary: 3 Stars
The fictitious town of Waterford, Vermont is the backdrop for "State and Main," David Mamet's witty, acerbic look at Hollywood filmmaking. Or as one character puts it "showbiz hell." It's all here: contractually obligated starlets forced to pose nude because of script obligations; the obsessed screenwriter; the oversexed male lead with an eye for pretty tennaged girls; the frazzled director forced to suck up to everyone just to have the movie made; the starstuck locals angling for a 10-second cameo; and all those endless rewrites that pop up just minutes before the camera rolls. Thoughout the film, it's obvious Mamet knows the lingo, the genre, the attitude, the inside scoop. But unless the viewer is up on Hollywood (and I mean up), he or she may be lost. I, in turn, had a ball.Movie Review: Irritating, Yet Funny
Summary: 3 Stars
Perhaps I watched this movie at the wrong time in my life. I may never know. But I have oddly mixed feelings about 'State and Main'. The first bits of the movie are hilarious, pure gold, but now I'm thinking that it's only because of the fresh and unique way in which the story is written and directed. Plus the great acting. After the initial "Wow, this is something different!", however, the movie gets predictable and tedious. And almost irritating. All I can in it's defense is this: the acting is superb. Julia Stiles is a gem, William H. Macy makes this movie, and Alec Baldwin and Sarah Jessica Parker are very good as the spoiled, immature movie stars. Besides that, the movie is an odd combination of "Good, Unique, and Refreshing" and "Bad, Predictable, and Irritating".Movie Review: More to it Than You Think
Summary: 3 Stars
People might think that there is nothing more than this film than a movie crew invading the quiet little town of Waterford, Vermont. Suprisingly, it does. Mamet leaves the suspense of his last movie, The Spanish Prisoner, and ops for a more comedic script. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and William H. Macy head this all-star cast. Hoffman plays a somewhat confused writer of a movie called "The Old Mill". Macy is the director, now a little angered that they once again have to move to another sleepy little town because of their lead actor played by William Baldwin. Amongst the romance and the brilliant dialouge that seem to just never stop is the quest for purity. Take a glance at this film, there's more to it than you'd think.Movie Review: not very funny comedy
Summary: 2 Stars
**1/2 David Mamet’s “State and Main” is what “Our Town” might have been had it been conceived by a clear-eyed, modern day cynic. In this tale, a Hollywood film crew invades the idyllic hamlet of Waterford, Vermont, determined to capture on celluloid the simple bucolic virtues of a bygone era. The only problem is that those involved with the making of this film-within-a-film lack the requisite innocence themselves to do justice to the theme they purport to be exploring. They are all typical products of the crass Hollywood culture – boorish, self-obsessed and thoroughly amoral. All except the writer of the piece that is, Joseph Turner White (played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman), the one character who is not only in touch with his cravings for a return to innocence, but who passes the moral test laid out for him along those lines at the end.“State and Main” is a clever film, a cute film, a likable film – it just isn’t a very FUNNY film. The Mamet specialty – flat, monotone, emotionless line readings – becomes grating and irritating after awhile. Both the small town rubes and the big city elitists come across as little more than tired stereotypes who really don’t have anything particularly funny to say. As a result, most of the attempts at humor simply fall flat. We’ve seen these characters and situations countless times before – the temperamental star making exorbitant financial demands, the lecherous leading man endangering the production with his reckless sexual dalliances, the harried producers and directors fighting a constant transcontinental phone battle with demanding studio heads “back on the coast.” And it just isn’t all that interesting. Part of the problem, I think, is that Mamet never really exploits or explores the setting he’s chosen. Most of the townsfolk emerge as minor, background characters at best, with the possible exception of Rebecca Pidgeon as Annie, Joe’s eventual love interest. Pidgeon, who looks uncannily like Marlo Thomas in her “That Girl” days, seems sweet as all get out, but the atonal delivery of most of her lines hampers the interest we might otherwise find in her character.
Actually, none of these characters are very interesting – or very funny. In fact, most of them seem rather [boring] when you get right down to it, and Mamet fails to provide the satirical wit and bite that would mitigate some of their unpleasantness. He doesn’t generate the kind of out-and-out, hearty laughter that Christopher Guest derived from his examinations of rural America in movies like “Waiting For Guffman” and “Best of Show.” Mamet’s take is, in many ways, so cynical that he seems to have forgotten to engender the kind of affection for his people that helps keep condescension at bay. Or, perhaps, it is really so much simpler than that – maybe he merely neglected to write any truly funny material.
Movie Review: Can you say "Over-rated"?
Summary: 2 Stars
Lots of snappy dialog. Lots of recognizable actors. Lots of... blah blah blah.I wanted to like it, but just like the Hollywood it parodies, it's pretentious. It has its humourous moments but ultimately... I just don't get the hype. Maybe the actors read Mamet's scripts and get all excited about doing his films because the staccato dialog seems so good to them on paper. To me, watching his films is like watching a stage play where the actors have to exaggerate to better get the meaning accross to the audience. I see a film to watch the story like a fly on the wall. Like a real event with an invisible watcher. Oh well, maybe it's just me.