The Player (Special Edition) (New Line Platinum Series)
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Movie Reviews of The Player (Special Edition) (New Line Platinum Series)
Movie Review: Excellent Hollywood satire
Summary: 5 Stars
Tim Robbins stars as Griffin Mill, a hot-shot movie studio executive who has the power to make or break people and careers. Griffin is the man who hears story pitches and approves them to be made or passes on them. One of the writers he turned down starts stalking him and then threatens to kill him, turning Griffin's life upside-down. One night he meets the writer in a dark parking lot and things get way out of hand. Griffin then has to stay one step ahead of a police detective (Whoppi Goldberg) while romancing the writer's girlfriend.
This dramady movie-within-a-movie exposes the cold side of the movie business with a scathing, nudge-nudge-wink-wink story and such obvious delight you can almost hear director Robert Altman giggling. Altman loves overlapping-dialogue and the film has an intimate, eaves-dropping feel to it. To make it even more in-crowd and hip, there are sixty-five celebrity cameos - everyone from Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis to Harry Belafonte and Cher. Tim Robbins carries the film with his cocky confidence, and Greta Scacchi is cool and mysterious as his love interest. The clever ending will make you smile and want to see it all again. The VHS version has some nice extras - a revealing interview with Altman and deleted scenes. Highly recommended, especially if you'd like to know what really goes on behind-the-scenes in Tinsel Town.
Movie Review: For Viewers Who Like to Be Challenged
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Player" could be considered Altman's "Big Lebowski" in that it withholds much of its pleasure from the first viewing and then begins to grow on you after you have seen it a couple times. This is because it is basically a huge inside joke on mainstream Hollywood film-making, with too many obscure references for a Hollywood outsider to effectively process the first time around.
Also like "The Big Lebowski, the satire and sardonic wit is packaged around what appears to be a crime drama, with the straight drama itself engaging enough to entertain most viewers the first time around.
Tim Robbins plays Griffin Mill, a high level studio executive whose job is listening to the countless pitches that come his way from aspiring writers wanting to get their screen play into production. The studio only produces a dozen features a year so Griffin mostly hands out rejections. He has made at least one major enemy during the process, an unknown writer who begins sending him threatening postcards.
Griffin thinks he has a line on the identity of his enemy, an unpublished writer named David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio-Private Pyle in "Full Metal Jacket) who lives in the valley with his artist girlfriend (Greta Scacchi). But their confrontation goes bad and Griffin accidentally kills him. Things get worse for Griffin; he becomes the main suspect for the murder, he gets a post-murder postcard revealing that he murdered the wrong guy, and he is in danger of being replaced by a newly hired hotshot Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher).
"The Player" is most famous for an eight-minute tracking shot at the very beginning of the film, self-reflexively compared to Hitchcock's "Rope" and to Welles' "Touch of Evil"; and full of Altman's trademark overlapping dialogue. Also notable are the 50 or so actors who make cameo appearances throughout the feature; most just play themselves (it is after all set in Hollywood) and it is entertaining just trying to identify everyone.
The DVD has a commentary by Altman and writer Michael Tolkin. Unfortunately Altman's film-making style does not lend itself to organized reflection so he mostly just rambles on about everything but the film; and Tolkin has major issues with the whole Hollywood scene so his commentary is just a continuous rant and whine about the system.
It is important to remember that Altman is essentially a Hollywood black sheep who has been at war with Hollywood his whole career. The Hollywood establishment is uncomfortable with him because he won't make their standard pre-sold product and yet he manages to crank out enough commercial successes on his own terms to keep them off balance.
"The Player" is kind of his revenge picture, he knew that its production would cause a wave of paranoia to sweep the industry and he made paranoia the defining characteristic of the film. He views Hollywood as a marketing machine that both drives and is driven by the lowest common denominator of audience demographics.
During the opening tracking shot look for Griffin's meeting with Buck Henry, who pitches a sequel to "The Graduate" (Elaine and Benjamin have a daughter and he suggests "The Postgraduate" for the sequel's title). Henry improvised this pitch which is funnier with each viewing, and appropriately also had a cameo in "The Graduate".
These film allusions are everywhere as Hollywood's past seems to be passing judgment on its pathetic present. Watch for the bungled meeting at the hotel, the scene ends with the camera centered on a picture of Hitchcock on the hotel wall-a shot of about the same duration as a typical Hitchcock cameo (in his own films).
For sheer comedy watch for Griffin's visit to police headquarters where the Pasadena detective (Whoopi Goldberg), interviews him in the busy squad room. Another detective (Lyle Lovett) is a movie buff who keeps chanting "One of us! One of us!" from "Freaks".
Griffin plots to derail the threat inside the studio by setting up Levy with a script pitched by self-styled auteur Tom Oakley (Richard E. Grant). It's a Susan Hayward vehicle with the heroine going to the gas chamber because "it's reality, and that's what happens." Oakley wants real which means no stars and a non-Hollywood ending. Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis are mentioned as exactly type of casting Oakley does not want; which foreshadows his pending commercial corruption and artistic compromise.
This is a film that is meant to be watched closely (the beginning tracking shot is Altman's way of getting our attention and warning us that we will need to pay attention). Audience involvement is very important to him and he is counting on a motivated audience who brings considerable prior knowledge to the viewing.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
Movie Review: Hollywood, get over yourselves!
Summary: 1 Stars
There was some great lines and the ending was funny. Still, it was a movie spoofing about itself. It really wasn't all that good. Yes, plenty of celebrities. Still so what? Movie Review: Scathing Hollywood satire
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a wonderful inside-Hollywood thriller/comedy directed by Robert Altman. Tim Robbins stars as a big shot producer who begins receiving hate mail from one of his rejected writers. He thinks he's figured out who it is (Vincent D'Onofrio), goes to meet him, and in a rage kills him. He then falls in love with D'Onofrio's weird girlfriend (Gretta Scacchi), an artist who can't ever finish anything. There is also a movie within the movie which has to do with the making of a melodrama in which an innocent woman is about to be executed - only to be rescued at the last minute by the D.A. Altman's theme has to do with the Hollywood version of reality, which is nothing more than what will earn big bucks; it has nothing to do with "truth." A long list of Hollywood stars make cameo appearances. It's really a well-done movie, very classy and hip. Altman also satirizes Hollywood power players extremely well - it's a whole other world out there in LaLa land.
Movie Review: In 25 words or less:
Summary: 5 Stars
"When was the last time you actually bought a ticket to see a movie, you actually paid your own money to see it?"
"Last night, Pasedena. The Bicycle Thief."
"It's an art movie. It doesn't count. We're talking about movie movies."
Robert Altman is one of my favorite directors, mainly for the way he finds insight in the most inane actions or phrases. This short exchange has many layers when taken out of context and many more when taken in context. With this dialog, The Player reveals exactly why Hollywood movies don't make the money they should. Not because they don't make quality films, but because when a good movie does make money, it doesn't count because it's not a "movie movie." If he stopped to really listen to what was being said, he would've seen that art films have a great drawing power and actually don't cost much to make. But people still wonder why the modern film industry is suffering.
Wait, there's more. The people in the room don't know it, but producer Griffin Mill, in a fit of paranoia, killed an unemployed screenwriter outside the theater that night. He was being stalked by a writer, but he blamed (and murdered) the wrong one. Now he's still being stalked, still in danger of losing his job, and the cops suspect him of murder. Not a good week for Mister Mill.
As the conversation presses on, Mill's potential replacement passes around a newspaper, telling people to read random headlines to be made into scripts. Mill spots the story on his murder which we're already watching play out in a movie.
Yes, it's that type of movie, the self-referential Hollywood movie about Hollywood movies that keeps teasing itself for the viewers' enjoyment. We've seen it about a thousand times before (or since): Get Shorty, Adaptation, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, even certain elements of 8 1/2. There's really nothing too special about it, but this one has much more subtlety and is much more believable. Pay close attention to the ending scene, and think about what words they're using opposed to what they're really saying.
There's really only one word for a film like this: "Clever!"