The Player

The Player turns 30 later this week and this satire hasn't lost very much of its punch. Hollywood is the land of phony (now more than ever!) and that atmosphere can be poison to artistic integrity, sure, but most other films of this type don't feature a guy getting away with literal murder. Yup, we wondered if Robert Altman's comeback film is even cleverer than it first appears. Could most of or even the entire film just be a sly suggestion that Tim Robbins & his co-stars are not in a real story? Is this movie actually...about them? Maybe Altman and writer Michael Tolkin were being even more meta than it appears. Of course, the tracking shot at the beginning and the dozens of cameos by A-list movie stars are what The Player is most famous for, but the character actors headlining the cast have fun playing the comedy straight. So give us your pitch while we constantly worry about losing our jobs as we hash out The Player in our 440th Ellises' Analysis. And, hey, what will be perfect at that pitch meeting at 9 am? Sparkplug Coffee, of course, and you can get a 20% discount if you write "top100project" into the promo code section. We're also tweetable (@moviefiend51 and @bevellisellis) and you can hear more of Ryan talking on his sports-movie podcast "Scoring At The Movies".