Courtesy Photo
"STATE & MAIN"
106 minutes | Rated: R
Opened: Friday, December 22, 2000
Written & directed by David Mamet
Starring William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, Sarah Jessica Parker, David Paymer, Rebecca Pidgeon, Julia Stiles, Charles Durning & Patti LuPone
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This film recieved an honorable mention in the Best of 2000 list.
COUCH CRITIQUE
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SMALL SCREEN SHRINKAGE: 10%
LETTERBOX: COULDN'T HURT
I've seen this three times on video (widescreen version) and it holds up great. One of the best Hollywood satires, "State & Main" is a keeper.
VIDEO RELEASE: 06.19.2001
DVD SPOTLIGHT
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Commentary track by Parker, Macy, Paymer, Gregg and LuPone is not a running commentary but audio drops from individual sessions. But in this case the audio is edited well enough that it's fairly entertaining all the same. The actors are reasonably fun to listen to.
OTHER NOTABLE BONUS MATERIAL
Very funny theatrical trailer that really captures the movie's weird spirit.
SPECS
1.85:1 ratio; Dolby 5.1 or 2.0
DUBS: none
SUBS: English
DIGITAL TRANSFER
Great
DVD RATING: ***
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Dysfunctional film crew invades Vermont hamlet in brilliantly biting showbiz satire 'State and Main'
Playwright, filmmaker and satirical dialogue savant David Mamet ruthlessly runs Hollywood through with a poison pen in "State and Main," a wickedly ironical and incisive industry lampoon about a film crew laying siege to a Vermont hamlet where they intend to shoot a pretentious period drama.
Leading the charge is a frenzied William H. Macy as the project's wry director, who can't even get a foot of film in the can until he schmoozes local officials, curbs his narcissistic star's (Alec Baldwin) predilection for underage girls, cajoles a nude scene out of his flaky starlet (Sarah Jessica Parker) and convinces his disenchanted purist of a rookie screenwriter (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to revamp pivotal scenes that were to take place in an old mill. This town doesn't have an old mill and Macy doesn't have the budget or the time to build one.
Did I mention the title of the movie they're making? It's called "The Old Mill."
Frustrated no end and seeking miracle inspiration, the neurotic, guileless writer finds solace in an peculiar flirtation with the proprietor of a local bookshop (Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet's wife). But that just stirs up more trouble for the Hollywood interlopers when her jealous finance, the litigious local D.A., avenges himself by prosecuting Baldwin for bedding a local teenager (Julia Stiles).
(Baldwin pooh-poohs his carnal proclivity by declaring, with total sincerity, that "everybody needs a hobby.")
Blooming with Mamet's keenly trenchant banter, bristling with roguish industry gibes and aided by pitch-perfect performances from Macy and Hoffman, the comedy in "State and Main" peels like an onion -- with funnier, more mischievous ironies taking several scenes (or even the whole movie) to fully unfold.
But never one to just kid around, the writer-director also makes a shrewd underlying observation about how eagerly actors, writers and directors compromise themselves to crank out celluloid crap if it might get their hands on that brass ring of boffo box office.
"State and Main" is the first brilliantly biting showbiz satire of Hollywood's second century, and one of the genre's most droll and original entries. But to pay my own mocking homage to the industry's disposition for the unoriginal, pop-referential two minute pitch, let me describe in 25 words or less: You could say it's "The Player" goes to Bedford Falls. But that wouldn't begin to do this movie justice.
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