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One of the most fascinating movie themes, to me, is the story within a story. It seems so intricately woven, it always seems to impress me when it's pulled off just right. Also, since Hollywood is so loathe to criticize itself, I am equally fascinated when a movie is made in which Hollywood parodies itself, or flat-out calls it like it is.
So, here are my top six movies about Hollywood that all movie-making hopefuls should see:
6. Get Shorty - Not the greatest movie ever made, but John Travolta is great in it. It's a cute story about a "debt collector" who travels to Las Vegas to hunt a dead man and collect a debt. While in Vegas, he gets a second assignment from a casino head who wants the monies owed him by some self-important Hollywood producer. When he meets the producer, he pitches him the story of the living dead man, and gets sucked in to the movie world, which is way seedier than collecting debts for the mob.
Classic Scene: The parody of "let's do lunch" with Travolta, Rene Russo, Gene Hackman and Danny De Vito in which De Vito pulls a passive-aggressive star trip, orders food for everyone and then leaves. It's the meeting in which no one meets and nothing happens.
5. S.O.B. - Sometime between playing lunatic Burt Cambell on Soap and playing pediatrician Harry Weston on Empty Nest, Richard Mulligan played super producer Felix Farmer in Blake Edwards' best movie, S.O.B. (Standard Operational Bullshit). Dumping all his money into a movie nobody wanted to make, Felix comes up with a potential goldmine that everyone in Hollywood now wants to steal from him.
Classic Scene: Cutie pie Julie Andrews gets drunk and rips her shirt open.
4. L.A. Story - Steve Martin tries to have a real relationship in Los Angeles. Sarah Jessica Parker plays the flighty young lady who makes the common uncommon for no apparent reason.
Classic Scenes: Opening sequence is a complete parody of L.A. traffic in which Martin's morning commute involves driving through alleys and peoples' yards. The other high-point is when Martin and SJP finally get passionate and Martin becomes confused when he puts his hands on her chest.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
"Your breasts feel funny."
"They're real."
3. The Player - Tim Robbins is a heartless movie exec who is fighting for his job while trying to figure out which of the endless stream of writers he's crapped on is now sending him death threats. Proving to be a worse detective than he is a human being, Robbins confronts the writer he believes is stalking him and accidentally kills him.
Classic Scenes: The funeral full of angry writers railing against the system that they are depending on for success and prosperity, as well as the scene at the end in the screening room where the "artistic" writer sees the final cut of his dream film.
2. Swimming with Sharks - If you love Kevin Spacey, you'll love him as the world's meanest movie exec who might actually take sadistic delight in torturing his assistant if he thought of the man as a human being. The assistant snaps, and the story unravels as his sanitry comes undone.
Classic Scene: Spacey biting his assistant's head off because the young man brought him Equal with his coffee when he clearly asked for Sweet N Low.
1. The Hollywood Shuffle - Don't let Robert Townsend's watered down TV series steer you wrong - this is Townsend being real. Full of parody scenes of how the world really is, Townsend plays a struggling actor with no support from his family who believes he should just go get a job.
Classic Scene: Despite the hilarity of scenes depicting the Black Acting School (where black actors train to play various criminals) and the ghetto version of At the Movies (Sneakin' in the Movies), the best scene is when Townsend goes to visit his uncle. The uncle is sweeping up hair in a beauty salon, and instead of seeing him as a loser who failed as an actor, Townsend sees him as a man who gave up on a dream because other people convinced him to give up.
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