Wolff rating: GOOD
Plot summary: Indie filmmaker is trying to put together a film, and his cast and crew are conspiring through incompentence to torpedo it.
Biased, pithy comments: Buscemi and Keener are wonderful in this manic, panicked film about filmmaking. I normally don't like stories about grubby, underpublished writers, and indeed this film smacks of being a film made by a grubby independent director about grubby independent directors. Despite that, there are some howler lines as three separate times things go gradually and excrutiatingly to pieces. The story doesn't quite launch itself, but it's a fun look at bitter, stifled creativity in the name of cinema. There is some rumor that the airhead male lead in the movie-within-a-movie is modelled on real-life director DiCillo's experience with Brad Pitt in ``Johnny Suede'', but no one is saying for sure that this is the case.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Steve Buscemi, Catherine Keener, Dermot Mulroney (``Wolf!''), James LeGros
Directed by: Tom DiCillo