Robert Altman's 1992 The Player has only gained in pertinence over the last 10 years. This inside-Hollywood comedy derides the decision-making process that turns most American movies into funhouse rides. And in effect, this is Altman's lightly satirical version of a ride movie - an executive-suite branch of the Universal Tour. It kicks off with a virtuoso moving-camera shot that introduces the bustle of big-studio production and keeps rolling as the antihero, Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins), commits murder, endures a police investigation and takes us through the steps that can transform even a tough-minded flop into a potential smash hit.
It's a pleasurable spin, all right; here Altman directs like a canny engineer. He sets the movie on course with that opening ploy and never lets it jump the tracks. With only a few stark, daring exceptions, the movie holds to a tone of curdled geniality, epitomized in Mills' pitch meetings and benefit speeches and phone calls. It becomes a piece of existential trompe l'oeil, with real stars like Whoopi Goldberg and Dean Stockwell playing characters while myriad other stars, from Cher and Nick Nolte to Jack Lemmon and Burt Reynolds, appear (briefly) as themselves.
Michael Tolkin adapted his own 1988 novel for Altman; the movie, like the book, picks up Mill at a point when he's being squeezed from the top and bottom. Lanky Tim Robbins is perfect for the part: Watching him as Mill is like seeing toothpaste bunch up in the middle of the tube. Mill's boss has brought aboard a new hotshot (Peter Gallagher) to put some zing in the release schedule. At the same time, a screenwriter Mill slighted has been sending him threatening postcards. Fearing that this crazed scribbler will kill him, Mill tries to make belated amends. Searching his appointment book for the possible culprit, he fixes on a writer with an unfortunate attitude, David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio). Kahane treats Mill with such naked disdain that Mill murders him. The police know that Mill met with Kahane. But that doesn't stop Mill from dating Kahane's lover (Greta Scacchi).
Tolkin's idea is clever: He puts a morally tainted and psychologically vulnerable antihero, suitable for the suspense classics of Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train), in the middle of Hollywood - and it works. But the movie is determinedly minor. Henry James measured greatness in fiction by the amount of "felt life" it contained - and from M*A*S*H to Gosford Park, Altman's greatness has been his ability to put felt life on the screen. This time, on purpose, he fills a picture with fake life. Everything about it is designed to make audiences feel "It's only a movie." The Player is an enduring oddity: an amiable, enjoyable attack on Hollywood shallowness.
The Player screens Monday night at Towson University as part of its fall film series of Hollywood movies on Hollywood. Time: 7:30 p.m. Location: Van Bokkelen Auditorium. Free.
Wardell to AFI
Cinema Sundays at the Charles is on hiatus this week, but its man in the driver's seat, Gabe Wardell, just keeps on truckin'. He announced last week that he has accepted and is already occupying a new position at the American Film Institute's coming Silver Spring Theater in that city. Wardell has been named festival producer of Silverdocs, a documentary film festival scheduled for June.
Wardell will be leaving his job as a planner and promoter of cultural events and film series for Johns Hopkins (such as the Billy Wilder film series last summer). But he says he's "committed to host Cinema Sundays through the end of this season" and anticipates "staying on board in the future."
The Silverdocs festival, according to Wardell, will be "completely open-ended - as long as the film is a doc. Any and all documentary filmmakers are encouraged to submit their film." The festival Web site, www.silverdocs.com, offers guidelines for submissions and defines several categories ("Sports"; "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness"; "World View") developed before Wardell came on board.
Wardell promises "to keep Baltimore in this loop" and intends "to build on the experience of helping to plan and launch the inaugural Maryland Film Festival."
The dates for the fifth Maryland Film Festival have just been announced: May 1-4.
Bunuel at Charles
When Luis Bunuel's The Obscure Object of Desire opened at the Ridge in San Francisco on Oct. 16, 1977, a bomb exploded in the theater. No repeat detonation is expected when it plays the Charles tomorrow as part of its Saturday revival series.
Fernando Rey plays a rich sadomasochist. According to Bunuel, "many spectators never even noticed" that Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina take turns in the role of the maid who makes Rey happy. Screening: Noon. Admission: $5.