"IF THE PRICE IS RIGHT, GRIFF..."
Added 2/7/2009
This is one of my all-time favorite films, a scathing, paced look at inside Hollywood that deciphers the netherworld of studio execs, producers, directors, actors and, most importantly, those over-abused prostitutes of the industry, screenwriters. Tim Robbins is Griffin Mill - smarmy, corporate and slick as cat manure on a vinyl floor. Robert Altman brought in an array of big names to lend this film their aura. Everybody was in it. Buck Henry pitches the best film idea that never happened, "The Post-Graduate", which is the sequel to "The Graduate".
Grif is getting poison pen mail and he explores it a little too much, leading him to an art house in Pasadena where he accidentally kills a teed-off scribe, then into the man's ice queen girlfriend. Plot twists and studio politics intersect, and Whoopi Goldberg is insane as the cop who knows Grif got away with murder, which he does.
There is no morality, just cold-hearted realpolitik. Do not miss Altman's interview at the end. Like "Sunset Boulevard", this one captivated and irritated this closed industry which still believes its press releases. Robbins is as good as it gets. This is sex and power, the ultimate aphrodisiac.
The plot twist that ends it is one of the best ever devised, with Grif and his blackmailer suddenly co-producers "if the price is right..."
As Matthew says in the Bible, "what does a man profit if he has the world but loses his soul?"
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
3 stars out of 4
Added 2/1/2009
The Bottom Line:
Though it's much better at satire than it is at developing characters or keeping the plot interesting, The Player is such a sharp and wicked satire of Hollywood that it can be recommended despite its small lapses in storytelling.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
ALTMAN SKEWERS HOLLYWOOD
Added 1/9/2009
This is one of Robert Altman's best films, and quite possibly the greatest, and most venomous, satire about Hollywood ever. Tim Robbins is delectably acerbic as the charismatic, though morally-bankrupt lead. Greta Scacchi, and Whoopi Goldberg are also excellent in this film. THE PLAYER is by turns, acidulously humorous, outrageously funny, and sometimes just spot on. A must for Altman, or Robbins' fans.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Great Satire on Hollywood
Added 12/7/2008
This is one of the most underrated films in Hollywood about Hollywood. The main characters in the film give excellent performances and there are enough cameo appearances to make this one of the most star filled films of all time. The only performance that was lost on me was Whoopie Goldberg's which I felt was too arrogant and condescending to be convincing. Goldberg couldn't resist making a predictable jab about the Rodney King riot, the only instance in which I felt the film unsuccessfully attempted to mix real life politics and entertainment. Aside from this, the film delivers on all counts, taking us through the forbidden, seldom seen world of film making, in which everyone seems to be expendable and no one seems to maintain control. If there is a lesson to be learned here, it's that life presents all of us with luck, circumstance and opportunity. And no one understands this better than Hollywood.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Gaping and yawning on the deserted sound stage
Added 8/6/2008
A parody of Hollywood, once more, Gosh. Nothing new will ever be done on that subject. It is a rattlesnake nest and nothing else. Only the details may change but the wider and the finer pictures are always the same. This particular film what's more is showing that everyone hates everyone and that everything is crooked and that all the every's you may think of are all berserk and warped. So what! What's the point? Is there a point? A no star film that ends up with stars. A bad ending that becomes good , they say happy, I know. An author who sells his skin for a million dollars. An exec that sells his soul for ten times more. Each million of those ten millions are extracted from the bones of one body turned into corpse. Morbid, morbid, morbid ! You kill someone and then within a week you make his girlfriend pregnant to compensate for the death and then you drop your own girlfriend because she is becoming too much of an inside job whereas the new one is outlandish and in a completely different job. A witness in a line-up who goes for the cop in the line-up who is one foot shorter than the murderer - and we know who he is - and meager and dark-skinned, in one word just the absolute opposite of the murderer she has in front of her own eyes and with a cop who is definitely leading her. What a witness. She saw nothing. Such a film can only get a prize in Cannes, France, because that's the kind of melodramatic satire the French can swallow and yet pretend it is fresh milk. And what's more it takes the audience for retarded baboons. Who is still afraid of the big bad Hollywood rattlesnake? Who is indeed? A big yawning deception.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
One of Altman's best!
Added 7/8/2009
This has to be one of the best films to come out of the nineties. I've waited several years to watch it, and now that I have seen it, I honestly don't knwo what kept me waiting so long! I loved it! It's funny, bittersweet, and heartbreaking. The acting from the entire ensemble is amazing, and the direction is flawless. I love Altman's style. He's not so concerned with flashy camera tricks and techniques. He simply sets the camera up, and lets his actors act. The editing is seamless. You'd think that this film would be an editor's nightmare - and it probably was - but lots of effort obviously went into the film. You can most definitely call it a labor of love from everyone that was involved. It just inspires and amazes me to know that Robert Altman had this much ambition when he put together this project. With some directors, after they reach a certain age, they slow down and take on smaller projects. Not Altman. This film was a landmark, and inspired another great film of the nineties, MAGNOLIA. The films couldn't be more different, however there are a few notable similarities. Some have called MAGNOLIA a rip off of SHORT CUTS, and I'd have to disagree. Aside from that, I think that it is a wonderful film that every film buff should see. I am glad that I finally got to view it in it's entirety.
I highly recommend this film!
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
pioneering film that is deep with insight into modern life
Added 4/20/2009
I saw this when it came out and absolutely loved it. Though I hadn't seen it since then, certain images remained stuck in my mind: the angry betrayed spouse, the phallocratic policeman, the promiscuous divorcee, the parents in tragedy at the baker. Extremely vivid personalities, all subtly linked by chance, who reveal the drama of their lives as the viewpoint flits from one to the other. Now, seeing it for the first time since then, the film totally satisfied yet again - indeed, it is so intricate that I know I can watch it many many times for nuance.
The performances are universally stunning, vignettes by truly great actors, who can summarize an entire life, even an entire environment and time, in a few gestures. Every single group faces some sort of fundamental upheaval over a weekend, in LA of the 1990s. It is mostly about terrible loss, though some survive and simply go on. I empathized with every single person and imagined where they went from there, like they entered my imagination, as they did the first time I saw it.
Warmly recommended. I am a big Altman fan and this is certainly one of his very best.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Not a New Edition
Added 10/15/2008
This is the same edition that came out in 2004; it does not contain any new features. I looked on Criterion's website, and apparently the only thing "new" about this edition is the lower retail price. Still a great movie, so if you don't own it yet, now you can get it for less money. Very cool feature-length making-of documentary included.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
