State and Main

Playwright, filmmaker and satirical dialogue savant David Mamet ruthlessly runs Hollywood through with a poison pen in this wickedly ironical and incisive industry lampoon about a film crew laying siege to a Vermont hamlet where they intend to shoot a pretentious period drama. A frenzied William H. Macy is the project's wry director, who can't even start filming until he schmoozes local officials, curbs his star's (Alec Baldwin) predilection for underage girls, cajoles a nude scene out of his flaky starlet (Sarah Jessica Parker) and convinces his purist screenwriter (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to lose scenes that take place in an old mill because the town doesn't have one. The title of their movie? The Old Mill. Blooming with Mamet's keenly trenchant banter, bristling with roguish industry gibes and aided by pitch-perfect performances from Macy and Hoffman, State and Main is the first brilliantly biting showbiz satire of Hollywood's second century, and one of the genre's most droll and original entries. Highly recommended. (R. Blackwelder)