Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

arfdawg-1 The Plot.Having left New Hampshire over excessive demands by the locals, the cast and crew of "The Old Mill" moves their movie shoot to a small town in Vermont. However, they soon discover that The Old Mill burned down in 1960, the star can't keep his pants zipped, the starlet won't take her top off, and the locals aren't quite as easily conned as they appear.Well I LOVE Mamet.This is not one of his best efforts.Starts off good and once SJP comes in the scene things plummet.She cannot act her way out of a paper bag.

pontifikator This is a very funny movie written and directed by David Mamet. His script requires some close attention, though, as the jokes are subtle and come at you out of left field.The cast is excellent: Clark Gregg, Charles Durning, Christopher Kaldor, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, David Paymer, and Rebecca Pidgeon, to name too few. The plot is tight, the dialogue is fast-paced, and the actors deliver with great precision and aplomb.Macy plays the director of a movie that has had to leave its earlier location for a reason that leaks out of the dialogue without ever being stated. And we watch as history repeats itself with the inevitability of history itself. Macy's character, Walt Price, is a lying, conniving, manipulative, unfeeling jerk that Macy keeps from being unlikeable by showing us that Walt _needs_ to be all those things to get the film in the can.Walt Price and his crew are trying to shoot a film in a small town in Vermont, where the residents are wowed by the attention. Mamet's script is a silent riot, as we see the rubes go from reading the local paper to Variety, all in the background, so if you're not paying attention to the background, you're missing a substantial part of the humor and foreshadowing of what's going to happen. Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, so lawyers are brought in, cash is brought in, and love is brought in. Rebecca Pidgeon is great as the straight-faced, straight-talking love interest for Hoffman, and Hoffman delivers a great performance as Mamet -- the writer of art who gets the full Hollywood treatment and who must decide between love/art and seduction/corruption. As Hoffman's character keeps saying, it's all about purity.This is a very funny movie, and I wouldn't want to be an associate producer. (Oh, and be sure to watch through the credits and read them. Only 2 animals were harmed during the production of this movie!)

laura-827 I usually find movies about the film industry to be somewhat tedious and self-indulgent; "Adaptation" comes to mind as an example. "State and Main" breaks the mold as it light-heartedly pokes fun at the film industry, small town life, and a half-dozen other sacred cows. It also has a sweet side, with charmingly bumbling script-writer Joseph Turner White (Philip Seymour Hoffman) finding both romance and a second lease on innocence. It's great to see the talented Mr. Hoffman cast as a romantic lead, even if his character is simultaneously made an object of sport. Spot-on (if necessarily caricatured) performances by William H. Macy, David Paymer, Alec Baldwin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Julia Stiles, Clark Gregg, and Michael Higgins multiply the laughs. It looks like the cast had fun making this film; I hope they did!

Doug Westberg State and Main never fails to reward repeated viewings no matter how many times I watch it, and I've watched it at least a dozen times. I could watch it a dozen more times. It's not typical Mamet, although I wish it was. The only other Mamet comedies that come to mind are "We're No Angels" and "Wag The Dog" and maybe "About Last Night." He seems to greatly prefer darker characters and darker themes ("Glengarry Glen Ross," "American Buffalo," "The Verdict," "Oleanna," "Edmond," etc. etc.) and, most notably, crackling, labyrinthine mysteries ("The Spanish Prisoner," "Heist," "House of Games," "Homicide," "Spartan").If you listen to the delightful cast commentary on the DVD, you will learn that Mamet is trying his hand at madcap comedy in the style of Preston Sturges ("Unfaithfully Yours (1948)"). There is never a dull moment. The movie is laced with running gags and brimming with razor-sharp wit. Mamet frequently delights us with complex, busy tracking shots choreographed to a fare-thee-well, moving from character to character and room to room with supporting characters moving in and out. Mamet is in top form as director and writer, which given his prodigious gifts-he won the Pulitzer Prize for "Glengarry Glen Ross"-means he is working at a level even Woody Allen at the height of his powers would be hard pressed to match.Read the lengthy quotes section if you need proof of this. Every exchange tickles the funnybone. Among the running gags are references to the World Court ("Of course he's on the coast, where's he gonna be, The Hague?"), the "spate of suspicious fires" that became the inspiration for the Waterford Huskies (huh?), and the burning question, "Does it have to be an Old Mill?" The pothole in the center of town is another subtle but brilliant comic leitmotiv. Every time you turn around, somebody's running through the darn thing. Then one night Alec Baldwin hits the pothole-and the consequences send State and Main to a whole new level of hysteria.Some of the best gags are pure through-the-looking-glass nonsense. Joe White tells director Walt Price, "I can only write on manual," to which the director replies, "I know the feeling." Marty Rossen asks Walt, "How are you getting on with these fine people?" and Walt answers cheerfully, "Like dykes and dogs." Walt tells Claire Wellesey a rambling yarn about Eleanor Duse, trying to inspire Claire to stay with the movie, but when he gets to the moral of the story… "And did she do the seven shows?" Claire asks. "No, Claire," Walt replies, "but I think you should do this movie." The cast of State and Main is a dream cast, and everyone delivers winning, spot-on performances. Philip Seymour Hoffman is a standout as the first-time screenwriter sheepishly trying to hang on to his moral compass, and William H. Macy is absolutely superb as the ringmaster who has an attitude to match every situation. But the centerpiece is Rebecca Pidgeon, whose placid warmth and wise charm provide the emotional eye-of-the-storm, the moral center, and the Greek chorus for the movie, anchoring the whirlwind of personal agendas and flawed characters swirling around her. (I will say that I find Mamet's casting of non-actors as bit players more than a bit distracting. He likes to cast his poker buddies, the commentary informs us.) That Pidgeon's Annie dumps her local politician boyfriend and ends up winning the heart of the idealistic Hollywood screenwriter should confound any attempt to simplistically reduce the film to "cynical Hollywood venality invades innocent small-town America". The movie is much more ambiguous and complex than that. Despite giving in to their worst impulses and coming within a hair's breadth of disaster for the second time, the film crew finally does get to make their movie. In the end, the moral of the story is, "The only second chance in life is the chance to make the same mistake twice."