What Just Happened? By Author’s Name

wHAT A GREAT CD.

Ich will meinem Vorgänger nicht ganz widersprechen, ich empfand die Handlung auch nicht als wahnsinnig mitreißend und weltbewegend. Aber würde ich nicht so weit gehen, dass der Film eine Enttäuschung ist – im Gegenteil. Ich fand es eine interessante Abwechslung, einmal diesen Teil von Hollywood präsentiert zu bekommen. Der Film ist durchaus unterhaltsam und lebt insbesondere von Hauptdarsteller Robert de Niro, der sehr überzeugend und unterhaltsam seine Rolle als überforderter Filmproduzent & Vater & Exmann & …. spielt. Der Film ist nett für einen gemütlichen Abend vorm Fernseher.

Das Zusatzmaterial zum Spielfilm ist wirklich sehr empfehlenswert, wenn man sich für die Vorgänge in Hollywood hinter der Kamera interessiert. Auf der DVD ist ein langes Interview mit “echten”, erfolgreichen Produzenten, die über ihre Erfahrungen in Hollywood berichten und interessante Einblicke in ihren Werdegang und ihre Überzeugungen und auch in die Geld-Maschinerie Hollywood geben.

Film: 4 Sterne
Zusatzmaterial 5. Stern!

Alles in allem würde ich durchaus zu dem Film raten!
Viel Spaß dabei!

“What Just Happened” (2008) is a good “behind the scenes” movie about Hollywood big shots.

I screened a used DVD of “What Just Happened” (2008) starring Robert DiNero last night alone in my living room in my Lancaster County PA apartment, and concluded it was a good, intelligent “insider” movie about “behind the scenes life” in Hollywood.

“What Just Happened” (2009) stars and was produced (and probably mostly owned) by Robert DeNiro, directed by Barry Levinson, originally from Baltimore MD USA…my home town…. (directed WAG THE DOG with DeNiro, who likely also owned that movie, too).

Curious movie about two weeks in the work and personal life of a major Hollywood studio movie producer, prima donna movie stars and directors he has to coddle and coax, his two ex-wives and children from each he still visits and misses (wives and children), politics with studio big shots, his trip to Cannes Festival to show a controversial movie he produced, etc. etc.

The movie was made cheap (33 days, reported cost was $25 Million) with cameo roles by Sean Penn and others, but comes in a DVD package with two discs….a second “bonus” disc I haven’t screened yet….what could be on that?

Story (WHAT JUST HAPPENED) is based on two movie producer memoir books written by a now aging (born in 1942) producer, Art Linson. who spent 30 years in Hollywood, was the producer of CARWASH (1970’s?) cult movie starring Richard Pryor and others.

In 1995, Linson published his first book, A Pound of Flesh: Perilous Tales of How to Produce Movies in Hollywood. His second book, What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales From the Front Line, was published in 2002.

Linson states in the “special features” interview part of the “What Just Happened” DVID that he originally wrote a book of anecdotes he thought would make interesting and scandalous reading, and Robert DeNiro (interview provided with DVD…”Special Features”) read the book, asked the author to write a screenplay with DeNiro playing the aging producer dragging around baggage of two ex-wives and children from each (all still housed in big mansions the producer paid for….the wives got when divorces happened), wierdo Hollywood personalities including movie stars, agents, writers, VIP major studio execs who ride around in chartered jet planes, etc. etc.

“What Just Happened” (2008) was one of many movies I screened recently about “how movies are made, what goes on behind the scenes”

Other movies of the “movie movies” type screened recently for the first time include “The Player” (1992) directed by Robert Altman (MASH, NASHVILLE, etc.), “The Stunt Man” (1978) starring Peter O’Toole, and “Wag The Dog” (1997) starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert DiNiro (about a Hollywood producer who goes to Washington DC to help the US President, and is murdered by the people who hired him for his trouble!….”Nice guys finish last,” eh?)

I also got “White Hunter, Black Heart” (1990) starring Clint Eastwood (about a John Huston type movie director making a movie in Africa and hunting big game on the side), and “The Last Stunt Player” (1993) starring ex-California Governor, Arnold Schwartzenegger before his Governor days.

Addional “movies about the movies” include: “Sullivan’s Travels” (1941), “Sunset Boulevard” (1949), “The Bad And The Beautiful” (1953), “Get Shorty” (1995), “Hollywoodland” (2008), and “Hollywood Hotel” (1937).

I’ve already seen (often) “The Last Command” (1928), The Life And Death Of 9413: A Hollywood Extra” (1927), “A Star Is Born” (both 1937 and 1954 versions), and “Singin’ In The Rain” (1952). Also “The Last Tycoon” (1970’s) starring young Robert DeNiro and Robert Mitchum.

There are many other similarly themed movies to see, no doubt.

So many movies, so little time!

I find these movies are very edgy and not a bit restful….just like Hollywood and just like the movie making biz I’ve been part of so long (BTW, I’m a SAG-AFTRA movie actor who started Hollywood paid actor work in 1970).

All very educational and cathartic….but not restful or edifying.

Back to better, classic movies for me after the current “festival” is over. (I’m like a retired sea captain or sailor who buys a cottage on a hillside overlooking the ocean, and stares out over it and remembers his days at sea.)

Many “movies about the movies have been made over movie history including “The Last Command” (1928) starringh Emil Jannings and also starring William Powell, directed by Josef Von Sternberg, set in silent movie big studio Hollywood.

Many “movie movies” followed “The Last Command” (1928) quickly, including “A Star Is Born” (1937 and the Judy Garland version in 1954), “Singin’ In The Rain” (1952), and many others, including important good movies never famous (e.g. “The Life And Death Of 9413: A Hollywood Extra” (1927) silent experimental movie by then young Greg Tolan, who went on to help film “Citizen Kane” (1941).

“The Life And Death Of 9413: A Hollywood Extra” (1927) is one of several “movies about the movies” included in the Library Of Congress National Film Registry List.

Four of the movies on the list were stories about “extras” (background actors) who rose to movie stardom or died at the end of the movies (the two silent era movies had tragic ends about the “extras” starring in them, and the two sound era movies had happy endings….the “extras” became movie stars!).

I started work as a paid Hollywood movie actor 43 years ago (1970) and am now sort of retired.

I still work on major Hollywood studio movies shot “on location” on the East Coast of the USA, also major TV drama projects, when I get called, but mostly I’m retired these days, thankfully.

Much more restful life than I used to have when I worked full time as a movie actor.

I’m “Threescore And Ten” as the Bible calls age 70 (Psalms 90:10), and naval gazing about “What’s it all about?” (or “What was it all about?”)

I met many “What Just Happened” (2008) type movie producers during my Hollywood years (I lived there twice), and this good movie supplied me a lot of “food for thought,” part of my present “Remembrance Of Things Past” retirement life.

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Tex Allen is an accredited SAG-AFTRA union Middle Atlantic States movie actor. (Visit http://WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for a detailed list of SAG movie credits since 2004….includes 15 major Hollywood studio feature movies and 8 major national TV drama projects).

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