Save your money for something good and enjoyable

People are voting emotionally.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Robert Altman was a master filmmaker. Not everyone's cup of tea but if you like him I think you will enjoy The Player- a satirical take on the film industry. Starring Tim Robbins and a host of cameos (An Altman trait) the Player follows a studio executive's fight for survival after he accidently kills a screenwriter. Featuring some amazing sequences including an astonishing opening scene long take this film is one of the finest examples of Altman's wit and craftsmanship. The film wasn't a huge success upon release, but it is considered a great film now. I suggest you give this film a chance because this is auteur theory in tinsel town at its finest.

I just tried watching this on my DVR recording I got off of TCM a few months back. The soundtrack was so tinny I couldn't understand half of what was being said. I tried the closed captioning but it wasn't there. I suppose it would be funnier if I was actually working in the movie business or lived in LA, but there seemed to be too many "in jokes". And this mess is in the Criterion Collection??

At times it feels like a period piece or is it that we're so used to the horror. A world populated by the shallowest, opportunistic bunch of ignoramuses the world has ever know. How can art come out of that? I think that when it does it's just an accident of Casablanca proportions. Robert Altman who knows a thing or two about it tells us the horror story with the most everyday approach. Tim Robbins is perfect as that empty designer clothed excecutive with a tinge of self awareness. I had to take a shower after the film was over and remove myself from that world.

The highly impressive opening sequence of this movie launches its audience straight into a Hollywood environment in which people talk about pitches, tracking shots and editing styles as well as indulging in gossip. This is visually interesting because of its long tracking shot and the ways in which various groups of people move around each other. More significantly though, it provides an immediate taste of what the movie's about, as it depicts people whose preoccupations are entirely industry-based. Their focus is on making deals and pitches that are promoted on the basis of how similar they are to other movies that have previously been successful or how suitable certain roles in the script could be for already-established top stars. This is an insular business that pays lip-service to artistic aspirations but is, in reality, only concerned about commercial success.Director Robert Altman uses satire and humour extensively to highlight the superficiality and absurdity of certain aspects of Hollywood life but also by using a plot that features murder, romance and plenty of laughs, makes "The Player" extremely enjoyable. Predictably, a number of Altman trademarks such as a large cast, interesting use of zoom lenses and overlapping dialogue are all featured as well as a staggering number of well-known stars who appear in cameo roles.Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) is a Hollywood studio executive who spends his days listening to screenwriters' pitches for new movies. He's well paid, smartly dressed and involved in a relationship with his talented assistant Bonnie (Cynthia Stevenson). Things start to become uncomfortable for him when he starts to receive postcards containing death threats and hears rumours that his job could be under threat because the studio have recently hired Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher), who's a younger, extremely ambitious executive with previous experience of the same kind of work at Fox.Mill presumes that the postcards must be the work of a screenwriter whose ideas he's rejected and after carrying out some checks of his records, comes to the conclusion that a man called David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio) is probably responsible. After locating Kahane in Pasadena, he tries to convince him that he's interested in one of his screenplays. Kahane is sceptical, unpleasant and argumentative and starts a fight with Mill which ends with Kahane lying dead in a car park. Mill tries to make it appear that Kahane had been the victim of a robbery and promptly makes his getaway.Disturbingly, after Kahane's death, the threatening postcards keep arriving, Mill becomes the prime suspect for his murder and Bonnie gets dumped after Mill starts an affair with Kahane's girlfriend June (Greta Scacchi). Mill then starts to recover from his problems when he seizes an opportunity to nullify the threat that Levy poses and also gets himself off-the-hook for the murder charge in the most unpredictable circumstances that pave the way for a conclusion that's outrageously funny.One of the many movies referenced in "The Player" is "Bicycle Thieves" (aka "The Bicycle Thief") and just as Vittorio De Sica had used non-professionals as extras to enhance the authenticity of his 1948 Italian neorealist masterpiece, so Altman uses top-class professionals in his movie for exactly the same purpose.With its terrific cast, wonderful performances and brilliant script, "The Player" is a great movie that's inherently cynical but never heavy-handed and thanks to its marvellous humour, remains extremely entertaining throughout.