everything you have heard about this movie is true.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

State and Main is a comedy starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rebecca Pidgeon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Julia Stiles, William H. Macy and Alec Baldwin.The plot involves the on-location production in Waterford, Vermont of a film called The Old Mill.It was written and directed by David Mamet.Havoc is wrought on the inhabitants of a small New England town by a troubled film production. After the leading man's penchant for teenage girls gets them banished from their New Hampshire location, a film crew relocates to the small town of Waterford, Vermont, to finish shooting "The Old Mill."As its title suggests, the film depends on the presence of a genuine mill, something the town is reported to possess. Unfortunately, with only days before principal photography begins, it becomes apparent that the mill in fact burned down decades ago. Unfazed, the film's director, Walt Price, places his faith in the ability of first-time screenwriter Joseph Turner White to alter the script; what he doesn't count on is White's apparently bottomless reserve of angst-fueled writer's block.The film's leading lady refuses to do her contracted nude scene unless she's paid an additional $800,000, while a foreign cinematographer offends the locals by messing with a historic firehouse. Meanwhile, the leading man, Bob Barrenger, dallies with Carla, a crafty local teen. Everything comes to a head after Barrenger and Carla are injured in a car accident, which leads White to another emotional quandary and into the arms of local bookseller Annie Black. Meanwhile a powerful movie producer comes to town to help Price with the ensuing mess.State and Main offers plenty of wit and laughs in its lampoons of the movie industry.It is the funniest and most accessible film to date by David Mamet, propelled by the rocket fuel of his showbiz experience and driven by an ensemble cast that simply couldn't be better. Naturally, the writer's dilemma is the meatiest one and he arrives at a solution that's as hilarious as it is morally justified. Along the way, the rigors of film making are explored with farcical abandon, such as how to provide a high-tech product placement in a 19th-century story. His razor-sharp dialogue is gourmet popcorn here--each kernel yields a tasty surprise--and the whole scenario plays out with the breezy assurance of vintage screwball comedy. It's pure gold from start to finish, and even the closing credits offer another reason to laugh.Obviously,the nice thing about it is that it won't disappoint the viewer.

This is a very funny movie written and directed by David Mamet. His script requires some close attention, though, as the jokes are subtle and come at you out of left field.The cast is excellent: Clark Gregg, Charles Durning, Christopher Kaldor, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, David Paymer, and Rebecca Pidgeon, to name too few. The plot is tight, the dialogue is fast-paced, and the actors deliver with great precision and aplomb.Macy plays the director of a movie that has had to leave its earlier location for a reason that leaks out of the dialogue without ever being stated. And we watch as history repeats itself with the inevitability of history itself. Macy's character, Walt Price, is a lying, conniving, manipulative, unfeeling jerk that Macy keeps from being unlikeable by showing us that Walt _needs_ to be all those things to get the film in the can.Walt Price and his crew are trying to shoot a film in a small town in Vermont, where the residents are wowed by the attention. Mamet's script is a silent riot, as we see the rubes go from reading the local paper to Variety, all in the background, so if you're not paying attention to the background, you're missing a substantial part of the humor and foreshadowing of what's going to happen. Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, so lawyers are brought in, cash is brought in, and love is brought in. Rebecca Pidgeon is great as the straight-faced, straight-talking love interest for Hoffman, and Hoffman delivers a great performance as Mamet -- the writer of art who gets the full Hollywood treatment and who must decide between love/art and seduction/corruption. As Hoffman's character keeps saying, it's all about purity.This is a very funny movie, and I wouldn't want to be an associate producer. (Oh, and be sure to watch through the credits and read them. Only 2 animals were harmed during the production of this movie!)

This is a brief review of "State and Main" and "Oleander", two films by David Mamet.The better of the two, "State" takes Mamet's usual tale of con-men and hucksters and places it in the quiet town of Waterford, Vermont. Here the con-men are not gangsters or card players, but a group of Hollywood filmmakers who wish to spend several weeks filming in the sleepy town.For a Mamet flick, "State" is surprisingly cute. Much of the film watches as slick big-city filmmakers try to exploit cuddly small towners, only to find that the country folk aren't as simpleminded as they first seemed. By the film's end everyone is taking advantage of everyone else, money constantly shifting hands and deals hastily being made.Like Altman's "The Player", "State" also satirizes various Hollywood types and Tinseltown customs, poking fun at actors, lawyers, producers, cinematographers, writers, assistants, nudity clauses and amateur theatre productions. Unlike Altman's film, however, Mamet's going for charm and whimsy. It's a light-hearted comedy, though it does contain one dark subplot about clashing egos, the instability of values (see Mamet's "Redbelt), artistic integrity and the corrosive power of money. It also gives Mamet a chance to indulge in his love for miscommunication and misdirection - for Mamet, all language is a con - and allows Alec Baldwin to sink his teeth in one of his best roles since "Glengarry Glen Ross"."Oleanna", also directed by David Mamet, is a claustrophobic film which mostly takes place in a single room. The film's first half consists of a Professor having a long discussion with one of his female students. Later we learn that she is failing his class and that she blames this on his "inability to clearly communicate". She then accuses him of using his "power" as a Professor to engage in a sort of "word rape", stating that she dislikes the way that he constantly uses pretentious words and convoluted metaphors to belittle his students. The second half of the film then shows the balance of power shifting between the Professor and the Student. She now speaks with confidence, whilst he continually stammers. She is now dressed with authority, whilst he is dishevelled. As this stage of the film progresses, she accuses him of sexual assault and threatens to have him fired and arrested. He, meanwhile, accuses her of misinterpreting his words and actions.Though overly theatrical (the film was based on one of Mamet's stage plays), "Oleanna" is endlessly fascinating. Primarily a backlash against the American political correctness movement of the early 1990s, the film takes political correctness to absurd lengths, the point being that if taken to its logical extreme, social sensitivity could become so invasive, so overpowering, that every interpersonal act could be construed as being sexual or punishable in nature.The film also offers a clever critique of educational systems (and their hierarchies of power), and allows Mamet to indulge in his love for word games (syntax as violence). Indeed, the film is one big semantic argument, the characters constantly battling over the "meaning" of words, "Oleanna" highlighting both the power and absurdity of language (Mamet has his characters speak in such a fashion as to highlight the very artificiality, arbitrariness and vagueness of words and/or meaning) and the way language leaves us vulnerable to misdirection.In typical Mamet fashion, the film eventually reveals itself to be a giant con game. Here it is explained that the female student was part of a "Group" which is plotting to remove the Professor from the school's faculty. 8/10 - Worth one viewing.

It's not hilarious but it's consistent in its good-natured cynicism, from which most of its amusement quotient is derived. Mamet takes us to a small town in Vermont where Bill Macy is trying to set up locations for a film he is directing, (Some problems there with the old watermill, the centerpiece of the story, which doesn't exist anymore.)Alec Baldwin is a little careless about his attraction to young girls and this adds to the difficulties when he's put upon by the authorities. He has the best line though -- the last in the film -- when he shuffles off to the set and mutters, "It beats working." Philip Seymour Hoffman has a strange face, indeed a strange presence, and brings a good deal of talent to the role of a screenwriter with principle, probably the closest thing to a protagonist the movie offers us. He quits his job at one point before having an epiphany and returning to work. And he has a romance with the attractive, perceptive, flatly matter-of-fact Rebecca Pigeon, who projects an extraordinary intelligence and sexiness despite her ski boots and overgrown running shoes, which any normal viewer would love to pluck off and turn into soup. As their romance is nudged forward by events, she asks Hoffman, "How do you feel about children?" He stares back open mouthed, his mind whirling, before he replies, "I never could see the point." I just claimed his mind was whirling but he gives no evidence of it in his behavior. He simply stands there agog and hesitates for some seconds before speaking. But a viewer KNOWS his brain is clicking, even though it's moving in an unanticipated direction. That's acting talent, and pretty good writing too. Some clever lines are sprinkled over the script. Macy examines the wardrobe sketches and remarks, "Who designed these costumes? It looks like Edith Head puked and the puke designed the costumes." Well, I'm not sure that's "clever" but it's funny.It will probably leave you smiling, so go ahead and watch it if you can.