In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

A movie director and his leading lady feel the pressure as their shoot teeters on the edge of disaster ...Witty and big-hearted satire of the process of making an independent movie. This comes in three parts, each act dealing with a particular scene and bringing a change of emphasis. The story is almost perfectly self-contained, with unity of action, place and time, and the writing and editing keeps it clipping along at a good pace. The writer/director uses the full potential of his set up by bringing in a host of characters and a range of technical aspects of the shoot, and yet wraps it up nicely through the romantic concerns of his creations.Performances are good all round, and some real insights are delivered - the objection to dwarfs in dream sequences, the most self-obsessed person in the room coming up with the best idea (the blocking for the "admired from afar" scene). It's not a laugh a minute, but there are plenty of good moments.The only time I noticed the music was when the director was giving a pep talk to one of the actors. Maybe there could have been more jokes on that "score" - or maybe I missed them.Overall: Not a classic, but thoroughly enjoyable.

When this came out it was marketed as a slacker or Indie comedy, so I was especially careful to avoid it. Big mistake. I just saw this now out of a misguided sense of completism, and it's a great movie. Tom DiCillo is like one of the guys who tells your favourite joke, the one you have told hundreds of times, but in a way that people actually laugh at it. It actually IS an indie comedy about the making of a low-budget movie, but don't let that throw you off.This movie also proves the great comedic value of repetition. When that dwar-- ... erm, vertically disadvantaged person walks around Catherine Keener with his apple for the twentieth time, this otherwise trivial scene just cracks you up. In a way I'd advise you to NOT watch this movie after you have inhaled, the same way I'd advise you against mixing acid with zombie movies.It's all in the magic mixture of an excellent script, excellent actors (the smaller roles (no pun intended, but Tito is also great) as well as Keener and Buscemi) and excellent direction. Hollywood please take note, more is not needed for an intelligent and entertaining movie.I'd give 8 points but as this movie really surprised me and needs to be seen by more people I'll gerrymander it up to a gleaming 9.

"Living in Oblivion" (1995) - is a 91 minutes long low-budget independent movie about trials and tribulations during making a low budget independent movie called.. "Living in Oblivion". Writer-director Tom DiCillo made in 1991 a film called "Johnny Suede" starring a young and unknown at the time actor named Brad Pitt. "Johnny Suede" was a failure with both critics and viewers but an artist can learn from any experience however disappointing or devastating it is. DiCillo wrote a short story from his frustration and turned his experience into a smart, funny, playful, and highly enjoyable second feature "Living in Oblivion" that takes place during one day of shooting a low budget film. Photographed with the color-to-black-and-white transitions, "Living in Oblivions" has surreal, strangely poetic and amusing quality to it.The cast is solid and consists of DiCillo's friends who are the regulars in his films. Steve Buscemi, the king of independent movies, in the rare starring role, plays Nick Reve, a long-haired, dedicated but frustrated director who in the moments of creative inspiration has to get back to earth and to deal with the tensions between his leading lady (Catherine Keener, before her star-making turn in "Being John Malkovich" but already a wonderfully talented beautiful and sexy actress) with whom he is silently in love and the male star, arrogant egotist Chad Palomino (James LeGros does an un-flattering but hilarious and quite accurate impersonation of the real life model for Chad). If these problems are not enough, there is eye-patch wearing sensitive leather-clad cameraman named Wolf (Dermot Mulroney) who went through a painful break-up right on the set. There is a great scene with an irritated dwarf Tito (Peter Dinklage) who was hired for a dream sequence and who hates dreams with the dwarfs in them: "Have you ever had a dream with a dwarf in it? Do you know anyone who's had a dream with a dwarf in it? No! I don't even have dreams with dwarfs in them. The only place I've seen dwarfs in dreams is in stupid movies like this!" There is also a smoke machine that explodes every time when turned on...And to top it all, Nick's senile mother surprisingly shows up during the shot and eventually saves the dream sequence and the movie. That's what the mothers are for, aren't they?

Its been years sense I've seen this movie but the fact that It sticks out in my memory tells me it was one of the best independents I've ever seen.One of those diamonds in the ruffs.Amovie you may watch,just because your board and if your like me,you hate a movie in black and white unless it was made before color.The movies so good that doesn't even matter.Hard to find.Looks like it was made on a shoestring budget but worth seeking out.A movie about making a movie.Sounds boring but to me at least it wasn't.