OVP: Picture (2001)

 OVP: Best Picture (2001)

The Nominees Were...

Brian Grazer & Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind

Robert Altman, Bob Balaban, & David Levy, Gosford Park

Graham Leader, Ross Katz, & Todd Field, In the Bedroom

Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, & Barrie M. Osborne, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Martin Brown, Baz Luhrmann, & Fred Baron, Moulin Rouge

My Thoughts: And we have come to the end of our 22nd season of the Oscar Viewing Project.  We will have our My Ballot (where I pick my personal choices for all categories, regardless of Oscar nominations) tomorrow, but we are done today with Oscar's choices.  I initially wanted to start going out-of-order (we will be doing that relatively soon), but some things got in the way of doing that next, and so we will be starting 2000 (and finishing up all of the 2000's in the process) next week.  But for now, we have one last round with the five films we've been discussing for the past couple of months (links at the bottom of the page), so sit back, relax, and let's start the show!

Much of these write-ups, I've been ending with The Fellowship of the Ring, so we're going to switch it up and start with that.  Peter Jackson's beautiful beginning to JRR Tolkien's story technically has some issues if you want to judge it by inches.  It is an incomplete story, with maybe the least emotionally impactful of the endings of the original trilogy.  But that's splitting hairs.  The movie is iconic in every single second, rarely with any spare time (everything feels needed), and gives us a dozen characters we believe in & fall in love with.  It was made at the exact right time, and is one of my favorites-I can't pretend otherwise.

Moulin Rouge! I distinctly remember watching at a sleepover for the first time.  I was 17, and everyone else there had seen it (I had been told I couldn't, though I just looked and it's PG-13 so I'm not entirely sure what my parents were forbidding on this one).  I was smitten.  The film is gaudy, romantic, and beautifully-acted with a career-best performance from Ewan McGregor, and a lightning-in-a-bottle turn from Nicole Kidman.  Throw in the rare (only?) jukebox musical score that feels authentic to the songs and not just like a greatest hits album, and you've got the best musical of the 21st Century.

A Beautiful Mind is, in my opinion, one of those Best Picture winners that gets a bad rap.  It's a good movie-the way it plays, with thriller elements and a strong performance from Russell Crowe in the lead, it's really enjoyable & I like the film.  But the problem is that it's not good enough for a Best Picture winner.  If you're going to strive for that title, especially against four excellent films, you need to be distinctive, you need to bring new chapters, & you need to go beyond what Ron Howard is doing here.  Good is fine for a Thursday night movie, but if you're giving out an Oscar...you gotta stand out more than this.

Gosford Park definitely has that distinction.  Robert Altman doesn't naturally seem like someone who could feel at-home in an English manor (the man most famous for his insights into country music & the film industry).  But he brings that sensibility, that vision of seeing through just existing to Gosford Park.  The mystery, difficult-to-solve but all of the clues are there, stands apart, as do the performers.  Like all Altman films, you gravitate toward a different performance each time, but with strong work from Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, & Emily Watson (among others), this is an embarrassment of riches.

In the Bedroom was one of the best "what's hiding in the suburbs?" movies that came out at the turn of the century, and what keeps it strong is the central performances.  I love the ways that Tom Wilkinson, Sissy Spacek, & Marisa Tomei all have secret agendas behind each scene.  Watching the film again, I was struck by how those are there fro the beginning, clearly, when you know how it's going to end (Spacek's adjusting mother, Wilkinson's nostalgic father, Tomei's aware girlfriend), but Field's films always leave you with more questions than answers, and this is no exception.  But it still leaves you fulfilled, wanting more rather than filling short-changed.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their categories into Drama and Musical/Comedy so we have ten films to discuss, while Oscar was still only nominating five.  For Drama A Beautiful Mind beat In the Bedroom, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Man Who Wasn't There, & Mulholland Drive, while Comedy/Musical went to Moulin Rouge! atop Bridget Jones's Diary, Gosford Park, Legally Blonde, & Shrek (this was before the Globes had a separate category for animation).  BAFTA favored The Fellowship of the Ring against Amelie, A Beautiful Mind, Moulin Rouge!, & Shrek while the PGA went with Moulin Rouge! as the victor against A Beautiful Mind, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, The Fellowship of the Ring, & Shrek.  In sixth place, I think it's anyone's guess.  Black Hawk Down & Mulholland Drive got Best Director citations, Shrek & Harry Potter were populist hits with a lot of heat at the time, and even something like Memento, Iris, or Ali was probably closer than the precursors might indicate.  I'll let you debate in the comments if you want over sixth place.

Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out tomorrow!

Oscar’s Choice: A Beautiful Mind is one of those films that's so up Oscar's alley, and against flashy musicals and fantasy epics...there was no beating it.  It won by more than the precursors suggest.

My Choice: For sure The Fellowship of the Ring.  I love Moulin Rouge! (silver), but of the three Peter Jackson OVP Best Picture wins, this is the the one that gets the easiest victory (even if The Two Towers is my favorite).  It's just so distinctive, and such a titanic achievement.  Behind them will be Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, and then A Beautiful Mind.

And there you have it-another OVP in the books.  Do you want to solve math problems with John Nash & Oscar or cast spells with Gandalf & I?  With a lot of options, who do you think was the just miss for this lineup?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2001?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2001: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2001

Past Best Picture Contests: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Director (2001)

OVP: Best Director (2001)

The Nominees Were...

Robert Altman, Gosford Park

David Lynch, Mulholland Drive

Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind

Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Ridley Scott, Black Hawk Down

My Thoughts: We are nearing the end of our 2001 races, and we're now getting to maybe the most maligned Oscar race of my lifetime, certainly the most-maligned Best Director race of my lifetime.  The Oscars have a very specific type of brand, and also a grand history of rejecting major names in directing.  Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, & Ingmar Bergman-all icons of cinema, all nominated for Best Director...all never won it.  In 2001, Oscar decided in a field of no previous winners that Ron Howard was the most overdue for a victory, and to Howard's detriment, only one of the four directors competing against him has won since, making this look like he took the statue from three legends making better films.

I wish I could stand here and say that Howard is being misrepresented or defend the guy, but I can't.  Howard is capable of directing good movies, and A Beautiful Mind is a good movie, but the direction is the weakest aspect of the film.  The additions of the queer narrative at the edges, the way that Connelly's character feels like just a vessel for Crowe to pass through, and the schmaltzy ending all are choices by the director to lean into the sentimental, rather than the compelling or charming aspects of Crowe's leading work.  It feels like a paint-by-numbers approach from a director who had been doing job-for-hire work for nearly two decades come 2001.

While the other three have the chance still to win a competitive Oscar (and Jackson, of course, already took one for this category two years later), the ship has sailed for Robert Altman.  While Gosford Park is not his best movie, it is a very strong film, and one that encapsulates what he does well.  I love the way that the camera feels like a spectator, passing between rooms & catching little conversations in real time.  This is a staple of Altman's style, but it also works particularly well between the upstairs/downstairs angles, where you are catching things that the wealthy crowd missed because they're the ones talking.

Mulholland Drive is not showing up again from Oscar (I'll be talking through it a bit more in the My Ballot), so I want to profess my love of it on record since this was its only nomination.  I think what Lynch does here is genius, giving us the world of a young woman, desperate for fame, and what happens to that young woman when it doesn't materialize.  The way that it's structured is meant to be ambiguous, but it works well.  The movies are about us projecting our insecurities, our desires, our revenges...all of it onto a beautiful pixilated figure coming out of the darkness.  Lynch captures that essence while also showing the dangers of living your life as if it's destined for the stars.

Ridley Scott, a year after coming within centimeters of winning this trophy outright, got something of an afterglow nomination for Black Hawk Down.  I think this is good-the attack scenes are tight, and the balance with what we learn from the other actors when they aren't in action is also good.  I would've liked a bit more perspective, or maybe some sort of mix on the "war is hell" trope that I didn't already see from him, particularly given it's Scott (who we know is capable of such intellectual exercises).  It's a good, solidly-constructed war film, but I want more when we're talking Oscar.

Peter Jackson would win an Oscar two years later for Return of the King, but this is a friendly reminder that with the OVP, you only judge what's in front of you (and not if they'll win a different year), and with Fellowship of the Ring, you get something pretty remarkable.  The preamble is perfectly done, giving us exposition without it feeling that way, and the ending works pretty well too; yes, it's not a complete film like the other four, but it does stand alone too.  In the middle, we get a dozen brilliant characters introduced, a long movie that never feels like it's serving up dishes to spare, and several miraculous performances.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Robert Altman (I didn't remember that either), besting Howard, Jackson, Lynch, Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!), and Steven Spielberg (AI: Artificial Intelligence).  The DGA went to Howard against Jackson, Luhrmann, Scott, & Christopher Nolan (Memento), while BAFTA went to Jackson against Howard, Altman, Luhrmann, & Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie).  Of the crew...it's gotta be Luhrmann, right?  I mean, he also got in with Best Picture and his leading lady was nominated-it screams sixth place.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: Luhrmann's miss here is so bizarre not just because he hit every checkmark headed into the night, but also because he deserved to be there.  Totally robbed, and should've gotten his first (and for my money, only) directing nomination for Moulin Rouge!.
Oscar's Choice: I'm guessing there was at least some movement toward Jackson, but the acolytes for Altman & Scott also deserving trophies probably took some of his support, and Howard nabbed the statue.

My Choice: Jackson, for sure...this birthed an entire new chapter in cinema, he deserves credit for that.  Lynch, Altman, Scott, and then Howard follow.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Do you want to join me over in the Shire, or do I dare to ask if Ron Howard has his supporters?  We know Altman's time has passed, but will Lynch or Scott get their trophy (or at least an Honorary) before their time is up?  And why did Baz get skipped here?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2001: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2001

Past Best Director Contests: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

The Late Show (1977)

Film: The Late Show (1977)

Stars: Art Carney, Lily Tomlin, Bill Macy, Eugene Roche, Joanna Cassidy

Director: Robert Benton

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Screenplay)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

In the 1970's, as I've mentioned in some of our recent reviews, neo-noir came into popularity, but very briefly.  I think because there are a trio of major classics of the era that came out at about the same time (The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, and Night Moves...reviews listed below), it makes it seem like there were more films in this time frame that were part of the neo-noir movement than there actually were (i.e. it was not like the 1940's and 50's where it seems like we got a new movie every weekend).  But we did get a few deep cut titles, and some got critical acclaim.  Our movie today was actually cited for an Academy Award, for Best Original Screenplay, but it stars a pair that feels so unlikely in the noir setting you'd be forgiven for assuming it's a spoof.  Lily Tomlin & Art Carney, both fresh off of major Oscar success themselves, are not, in fact, playing The Late Show for laughs.  Though the film has comic elements, it ends up being largely a straight-film...somewhat to its downfall.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie centers on Ira Wells (Carney), an aging, unwell private detective who meets a kooky actress named Margo Sperling (Tomlin) at the funeral of his recently deceased friend Harry Regan (Howard Duff, a staple in 1940's noir, plays the part in a cameo and in a nod to the films of which it's based).  The two are like oil-and-water, or in this case patchouli & musk, as Margo is a free-thinking hippie to Harry's rough-and-tumble PI, but the two click, and are drawn together after they witness a murder (and nearly die in the process).  This opens up a seedy underbelly to the death of both Harry and the man they saw die (who kidnapped Margo's cat, who despite some close calls makes it through the film unscathed), leading up to a giant showdown late in the movie that will leave them both in each other's lives, likely forever.

The film is an odd juxtaposition because of the actors.  Tomlin, Carney, and Bill Macy (best known as Bea Arthur's husband on Maude) are all the leads, but they are all largely-known today for their comic work, principally in television.  I obviously am watching this in retrospect, and so wasn't subjected to the trailers at the time or the marketing for the movie (or the fact that, at least for Carney, this was during a rare period where Hollywood turned him into a leading man, though this was one of the few dramas that he made), but it feels off-putting to me to watch them, as you're kind of begging for a laugh.  This wouldn't be a problem if they were good, but the movie itself is too formulaic to be of that much interest.  The script presents a very generic story that could easily have been left on a desk in an RKO producer's office in the 1940's were it not for the modern touches Tomlin brings.

As a result, the novelty is watching comedic actors playing drama, and it doesn't work.  They try to foist a love story between the two, but they have nothing in common, and have far more chemistry as friends than as a romantic entanglement (it doesn't help that it's almost entirely Tomlin flirting, more so trying to convince the audience of the romance than anything else).  That this film involved Robert Altman (who produced it), one of the most organic screenwriters of the era, and is so formulaic (and not in a fun way), just feels off.  The film isn't bad, but it's decidedly a missed opportunity.

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Brighton Rock, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Long Goodbye, Le Samourai, Night Moves, Nightcrawler

The Long Goodbye (1973)

Film: The Long Goodbye (1973)
Stars: Elliott Gould, Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell, Henry Gibson, Jim Bouton
Director: Robert Altman
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Throughout the Month of June, as a birthday present to myself, we'll be profiling 15 famous film noir movies I've never seen (my favorite film genre).  Look at the bottom of this review for some of the other movies we've profiled.

We're now going to be moving away from the classical era of Film Noir, which ended in the late 1950's when movies like Touch of Evil (possibly the last great "classic" film noir movie ever made, and just one of the greatest films ever made in general), and move into the neo-noir style that would emerge in the 1960's with films like The Manchurian Candidate.  Noir as a genre became less of a mainstay and more of a throwback, a way to capitalize on a Hollywood glamour long-lost, and would pop up occasionally in the decades that followed, but with none of the consistency of the 1940's & 50's.  For the last two entries in this series, we're going to take a look at two of the most well-known examples of neo-noir, ending our run in the early 1980's, though of course the genre would continue (we still see examples like Shutter Island, Inherent Vice, and the John Wick trilogy today).  First up is The Long Goodbye.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film, one of Robert Altman's many celebrated films of the 1970's focuses on Philip Marlowe, a character we saw earlier this month played by Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep but is here portrayed by Elliott Gould, in a comeback role of sorts after being blackballed by Hollywood for his diva histrionics during the filming of What's Up Doc.  Marlowe, in the film's opening scenes (including an hilarious sequence with his cat, who runs away and never returns about ten minutes into the picture), helps his friend Terry (Bouton, who was far better known as a pitcher for the Yankees than an actor) run to Mexico after a dust-up with his wife.  It turns out Terry may have killed his wife, though Marlowe doesn't believe it of his friend, but he doesn't have time to look into this too fully after he's brought in for questioning by the police, as he's hired by Eileen Wade (van Pallandt) to find her husband Roger (Hayden), who seems to be in some sort of cult run by an evil Dr. Verringer (Gibson).  Marlowe is also being blackmailed by a violent hood Marty (Rydell, in one of his occasional acting roles, though he's best known for directing movies like Cinderella Liberty and On Golden Pond) for money that Terry supposedly ran off with.

The movie runs the line pretty thinly between a proper noir and a parody of the genre.  Casting Gould, who is so good at comedy, in the lead makes this line blurrier, as does the weird juxtaposition between Marlowe's behavior and those of the people around him.  Marlowe smokes in literally every scene of the movie, something none of the rest of the health-conscious beach bodies (there's literally a sea of women who are in various states of undress next door to Marlowe who do yoga & run a candle-dipping store) will indulge.  Marlowe feels of a different time, and you can see that in the ways that Altman uses proper violence in the picture.  There's a scene where Marty is trying to show Marlowe that he's serious about getting his money (the money Terry apparently took) and to prove it, he horribly mutilates his beautiful girlfriend Jo Ann (Jo Ann Brady).  This recalls in a lot of ways The Big Heat where Lee Marvin scars Gloria Grahame as punishment for helping his enemy, but here it's done completely at random, and you actually see Brady's face as it bleeds, Marty not seeming to care what he's done to his "love."  Combined with a musical motif that riffs on classic noir (both by using "Hooray for Hollywood" with a healthy level of irony at the beginning & end of the picture, as well as having a running joke where John Williams-composed song "The Long Goodbye" is rearranged in every musical genre imaginable), it's clear that Altman didn't want to make a more traditional film, instead skewering the genre.

(Weird side story-in true "let's cast a bunch of non-professional actors" fashion that seems employed here with Bouton, Rydell, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in only his second screen role as a mute hitman, Brady was actually the waitress for Altman & Gould at a restaurant when they were shooting, and they cast her in the movie because they thought she was beautiful.  She assumed it was a joke because they didn't have money to pay for their bill at the time since they'd just come from the beach.  This is her only film appearance.)

The problem is that the spoof isn't that funny, and meanders too much if this is supposed to be a proper parody.  It's Altman, so there's still moments of genius-Gibson's great as the creepy doctor, and Rydell is fun & manic in a way that Joe Pesci would perfect years later in GoodFellas, but the movie doesn't quite work, and feels lax, particularly as we catch the twists toward the end of the picture.  It turns out that Terry was alive the whole time, actually tricking Marlowe, and was having an affair with Eileen whom he is going to run off with now that her husband had committed suicide and she's inherited his massive estate.  The film ends with Marlowe killing Terry, but it feels out-of-the-blue.  Gould has played him like a carefree slacker for so much of the film, it's hard to understand why he cares that much that Terry screwed up his life for a while.  The clever, interesting touches make the film passable for sequences, but it's lesser Altman and it's not wink-y enough to feel like it's taking the piss out of the noirs of the 1950's.

Previous Films in the Series: Sweet Smell of Success, The Killing, The Big Heat, Pickup on South Street, Gun Crazy, Night and the City, In a Lonely Place, They Live By Night, Nightmare Alley, Ride the Pink Horse, The Killers, The Woman in the Window, The Big Sleep

OVP: MASH (1970)

Film: MASH (1970)
Stars: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, Roger Bowen
Director: Robert Altman
Oscar History: 5 nominations/1 win (Picture, Director, Supporting Actress-Sally Kellerman, Editing, Adapted Screenplay*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Seeing a classic for the first time is something that is a sight to behold, and quite frankly something I don't get to do very often anymore, particularly if I know in advance it's already a classic.  Most of the classics I've actually had a chance to catch by now in my movie-watching.  In fact, looking at the famed AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list, I only have four movies left to see (all of which we'll have reviewed here before the year is up).  So I went into MASH (or M*A*S*H, if you so choose) with a bit of nervous anticipation.  Would I love it?  Would my expectations be too high?  Would it be one of those movies that I gush on and on about or would it be a film that I simply relegate to the "it was okay" pile of the cinematic conversation?  Let's find out, shall we?

(Spoilers Ahead) The thing I think that first threw me about the film, after tangential relationships with the hit show starring Alan Alda (I've seen a couple of episodes, but not enough to know anything other than Hawkeye, Radar, and Hot Lips' character names), was that the film felt grimier than I was expecting.  Perhaps forgetting that it was the 1970's and was filmed by Robert Altman, I was expecting something a bit glossier, a bit more in line with TV Land and not with an independent film channel.  The film gains from this, though.  Unlike other major war films of the era (The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now), we don't necessarily get a look at the realism of the war, but MASH is hardly supposed to be realistic-it's a farce of sorts, a comedy that isn't mocking previous films (like, say, Spy) but is simply going for straight laughs in its own Altman-esque world.

The film is by Altman and has to be called classic for at least a reason, so I am not going to sit here and tell you there aren't a few redeeming qualities to the movie.  The Altman-flow of the script, with actors talking over each other and in different directions is always jarring at first, and blissful when you see it working so well (Nashville is forever my favorite example of this, but none of his films have that much trouble achieving it).  The film is filled with characters, most of them memorable.  If a film is going to have a long shelf-list of actors, it's nice to know that they managed to create interesting side avenues with people like Robert Duvall's Frank Burns having tons of depth and interesting nuance.  The film rarely stops having a sterling script, even if some of the subplots border onto the offensive.

That's probably where my biggest issue with the movie lies.  It's finely written and directed, this is true, but the movie itself celebrates the jackassery of Hawkeye (Sutherland) and Trapper John (Gould) a little too much for my liking, particularly at the expense of the main female character Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Kellerman).  The film constantly wants to take Hot Lips down a peg for no real reason other than her gender, not only by giving her the nickname after a romantic dalliance with Duvall's Frank Burns is broadcast over the camp, but by consistently objectifying her, eventually watching her reduced to a faux shower stunt (where she is exposed naked for the entire camp to see) and to being a bouncy, idiotic cheerleader at a football game.  Honestly, the performance isn't helped by Kellerman, who plays Hot Lips as shrill and both uptight and randomly horny without any explanation for either, but she didn't get much to go by.  It's weird that this performance was cited for an Oscar nomination over anyone else in the film-perhaps it was the nudity (which was a pervy reason for the Academy, but not the first time they had done such a thing).

The sexism and the complete lack of empathy toward the main characters causes a disinterest as the film progresses, something that no amount of fine direction and writing is going to fix.  You need to care about the main characters, and I found nothing to like or really even hate in the main protagonists, so in the end it becomes something like a series of stunts, and the gravity of Hawkeye leaving loses all of its meaning in the final scene.

So while I see why this is regarded as a good film, a classic is a big stretch.  The film has aged miserably, and the writing/directing has been on display in far better pictures that Altman has made like Nashville and McCabe and Mrs. Miller.  These were my thoughts at least-I suspect a number of you have seen this iconic movie-what were yours?

OVP: The Player (1992)

Film: The Player (1992)
Stars: Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher, Lyle Lovett, Vincent D'Onofrio (and more cameos than you can count)
Director: Robert Altman
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Robert Altman's movies rarely are what they seem.  Better than anyone else, he manages to find things for every actor, big and small, to do in his films and regularly uses his platform as a great auteur to shape a more meaningful conversation out of his film.  In the early 1990's, Altman enjoyed a major career renaissance that resulted in back-to-back Best Director nominations at the Oscars.  This was the first of those two.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film from the very beginning is vintage Altman.  The movie starts with a terrific extended shot, one not unlike Touch of Evil's classic opening (which, as will become the film's raison d'etre, is referenced during the opening moments).  We are introduced to a host of different pitch meetings and studio executives all hearing potential scripts and movie ideas.  At the center of this is a man named Griffin Mill (Robbins).  Mill is a jaded man, one who has clearly worked his way to the top but can't quite figure out why yet, and has been taken over by the business end of Hollywood.  Mill is getting death threats in the form of vintage Hollywood postcards, however, from a writer who pitched him a script that he never called back about and has clearly forgotten.

The film follows Griffin as he finds a writer he suspects of being the culprit named David Kahane (D'Onofrio) and tries to woo him into stopping the postcards and that he'll give him a shot at a career (Griffin cannot go to the police for fear of it hurting his career, which is in a precarious position due to another man gunning to take him on at the studio).  Kahane rejects the idea and says instead he's going to go out to ruin Griffin's career, so in a fit of rage, Griffin drowns Kahane in a shallow pool of water in an alley.

The film's darkly comic tone doesn't let up here, though, as Griffin soon finds himself in love with Kahane's girlfriend June (Scacchi), and is being tracked by both a detective (Goldberg) and a mysterious man (Lovett).  The movie continues on a rapid pace, with the postcard-writer not letting up (and beginning to blackmail Griffin about the murder) and Griffin's career slowly going on the skids just as he dangerously falls for June.

In the end, though, because this is Altman and not some hackneyed script (like the ones being portrayed in the film), we get a better ending than Griffin confessing and getting caught.  In the end, thanks to a botched eyewitness, Griffin not only gets away with murder, he becomes the head of the studio and marries his victim's girlfriend.  The final scene of the movie is Griffin on the phone with the man who has been writing the postcards (who is never identified throughout the entire movie), cutting a deal for the plot of what has just happened, and then titling the film The Player.  It's wickedly tongue-in-cheek, and tres smart, and works well within the sharply-structured film.

The movie occasionally runs a tad long, but it's never without a plethora of ideas.  The way that everyone in Hollywood acts seems roughly how we as lay people assume they do.  A recurring theme through the movie is an idealistic young writer and a desperate-for-a-hit schmoozer trying to sell Griffin on a heart-wrenching tale about a young woman unjustly sentenced to death.  The writer wants no stars, wants an unhappy ending, and especially doesn't want Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis to star in the film.  In a great show of Altman's stature amongst actors, not only does the film (which we see a scene of during a screening) end up hackneyed and with a happy ending, Altman got the real life Roberts and Willis to star in the scene.

The movie, in fact, gets its best message from the galaxy of big-name actors who show up in the film.  The movie is packed to the brim with actors as diverse as Burt Reynolds, Cher, Andie MacDowell, and Joel Grey all showing up in random scenes playing themselves.  It's probably the neatest trick that Altman pulls in the movie-the way he makes these iconic, gargantuan stars seem so run-of-the-mill and constant.  You see pitch meetings where an actress like Julia Roberts is suggested for virtually every single young female role as a selling point (you could substitute a name like Jennifer Lawrence in today and see this film hasn't remotely aged).  You see how worshipful people are to these celebrities and how catered their egos are.  The stars all seem in on the joke, but it's a great portrayal of how reliant the business and the art side of filmmaking can be on each other, and in particular, how they have melded so strongly.

The film's three Oscar nominations all seem about right, particularly the editing, which takes a lot of great leaps (not just the spectacular opening shot but a number of other extended takes), and though it could have chopped a couple of middle scenes, is aces when it comes to splicing together actors in every scene.

Those are my thoughts on this well-done movie-what are yours?  Where does The Player rank in your personal Altman pantheon?  Did you have a favorite supporting role in the film?  And who was your fave cameo?  Share in the comments!