Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

damian-fuller At times it feels like a period piece or is it that we're so used to the horror. A world populated by the shallowest, opportunistic bunch of ignoramuses the world has ever know. How can art come out of that? I think that when it does it's just an accident of Casablanca proportions. Robert Altman who knows a thing or two about it tells us the horror story with the most everyday approach. Tim Robbins is perfect as that empty designer clothed excecutive with a tinge of self awareness. I had to take a shower after the film was over and remove myself from that world.

Pjtaylor-96-138044 'The Player (1992)' is a meta and witty inside-joke, jabbing at the ribs of tinsel-town in a cynical yet comedic way, and it manages to sardonically satirise the entire studio system, with a only little bit of self-aggrandising and perhaps an equal measure of self-deprecating. The picture isn't particularly funny, though it can cause some chuckles, but is instead the kind of sly smile inducing mockery that takes its time to dawn on you and isn't immediately obvious. It's this undercurrent that carries the flick much more than the main plot itself, so much so that the actual narrative becomes a part of the running gag as opposed to a vehicle for the individual jokes to spawn from. It's a unique, and somewhat acquired taste of a, film that's usually enjoyable and equally intelligent. 7/10

thor-teague The Player is a 1992 satire on the indifference and uncaring attitude of Hollywood Bigwigs, and a blackmail mystery, or something--nobody knows for sure. This movie's plot is like Bigfoot. Vague, sketchy information of possible plot sightings have been reported by fringe groups and kooks.The story goes something like this: Anyway, all I can say about this movie is that I want my two hours and four minutes back. I think I'd rather be sitting in an ancient art history class looking at slides of overweight stone cave goddess sculptures with giant mammaries.The producers' mission statement on this movie was an obvious formula for an enduring, ingenious, classic film: Under no circumstances will the cinematographer point their camera at a person who is acting! Eye contact? Overrated! Why build sets when we can just make the movie hanging around the office! Tension? Story? Why bother! My Hollywood friends are here! There was, what, about eight or nine minutes, tops, of movie here. The remaining hour and fifty four minutes were just camera people running around Hollywood flailing about madly screaming in high-pitched voices, "look at me! Look at me! I've got a camera and I'm shooting celebs!" And yes, they were definitely flailing about madly and screaming in high-pitched voices. It's the only logical explanation.This movie wasn't a "who's who" so much as a "so what." Among the diarrhea of cameos: Whoopi Goldberg plays a tampon-flinging cop on the loose, with Lyle Lovett as her canny but streetwise poster child for hairstyles gone bad. Cher showed up--I figure they must have paid her in drugs and plastic surgery. And what parade of Hollywood garbage is complete without Burt Reynolds slamming his fat ugly face onto the screen? Even the nudity managed to suck. Every nude woman on the screen was no bigger than a couple half-aspirins on a cutting board. Worst of all, this movie casts Tim Robbins, an actor I used to like, in a whole new light for me.And here's what I'm told is so delightful about this movie: it's chock-full of Hollywood insider references and jokes. I caught the ones that I caught, and then this movie's advocates tried plaintively to convince me that I was being let in on some really privileged information when I was told the rest. It almost goes without saying, but it just comes off as grossly pretentious.And, as a sure sign that the apocalypse draws nigh, as this movie points out, there were about 4,166 other story ideas that got thrown out so that this movie could be made.I personally would rather have watched Habeus Corpus.

seymourblack-1 The highly impressive opening sequence of this movie launches its audience straight into a Hollywood environment in which people talk about pitches, tracking shots and editing styles as well as indulging in gossip. This is visually interesting because of its long tracking shot and the ways in which various groups of people move around each other. More significantly though, it provides an immediate taste of what the movie's about, as it depicts people whose preoccupations are entirely industry-based. Their focus is on making deals and pitches that are promoted on the basis of how similar they are to other movies that have previously been successful or how suitable certain roles in the script could be for already-established top stars. This is an insular business that pays lip-service to artistic aspirations but is, in reality, only concerned about commercial success.Director Robert Altman uses satire and humour extensively to highlight the superficiality and absurdity of certain aspects of Hollywood life but also by using a plot that features murder, romance and plenty of laughs, makes "The Player" extremely enjoyable. Predictably, a number of Altman trademarks such as a large cast, interesting use of zoom lenses and overlapping dialogue are all featured as well as a staggering number of well-known stars who appear in cameo roles.Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) is a Hollywood studio executive who spends his days listening to screenwriters' pitches for new movies. He's well paid, smartly dressed and involved in a relationship with his talented assistant Bonnie (Cynthia Stevenson). Things start to become uncomfortable for him when he starts to receive postcards containing death threats and hears rumours that his job could be under threat because the studio have recently hired Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher), who's a younger, extremely ambitious executive with previous experience of the same kind of work at Fox.Mill presumes that the postcards must be the work of a screenwriter whose ideas he's rejected and after carrying out some checks of his records, comes to the conclusion that a man called David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio) is probably responsible. After locating Kahane in Pasadena, he tries to convince him that he's interested in one of his screenplays. Kahane is sceptical, unpleasant and argumentative and starts a fight with Mill which ends with Kahane lying dead in a car park. Mill tries to make it appear that Kahane had been the victim of a robbery and promptly makes his getaway.Disturbingly, after Kahane's death, the threatening postcards keep arriving, Mill becomes the prime suspect for his murder and Bonnie gets dumped after Mill starts an affair with Kahane's girlfriend June (Greta Scacchi). Mill then starts to recover from his problems when he seizes an opportunity to nullify the threat that Levy poses and also gets himself off-the-hook for the murder charge in the most unpredictable circumstances that pave the way for a conclusion that's outrageously funny.One of the many movies referenced in "The Player" is "Bicycle Thieves" (aka "The Bicycle Thief") and just as Vittorio De Sica had used non-professionals as extras to enhance the authenticity of his 1948 Italian neorealist masterpiece, so Altman uses top-class professionals in his movie for exactly the same purpose.With its terrific cast, wonderful performances and brilliant script, "The Player" is a great movie that's inherently cynical but never heavy-handed and thanks to its marvellous humour, remains extremely entertaining throughout.