Admirable film.

The movie is wildly uneven but lively and timely - in its own surreal way

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

If you are thinking about being a filmmaker, you need to see this. It has so many real world aspects that are Hollywood. Christopher Guest does a great job on his first feature. The funniest part is Martin Short as the goofy agent. I wish I'd seen this before I got involved in the business. I would have been prepared. It holds up well considering it is 28 yrs old. The script structure is very commercial in that everything moves as it should and we all live happily ever after. Terry Hatcher is quintessential as an actress out for herself and her next role. I think my favorite line is "I fought for you". Kevin says this to his DP when in fact he didn't fight for him. This has happened to me in real life.

*Few Spoilers *I really liked this movie, I find myself forgetting sometimes just how long Kevin Bacon has been famous but there's a good reason: the man's flat out talented. That enduring theme of success can go away as quickly as its' received will never go away, actually might be worse now with so many celebrities out there that barely have any talent to begin with. This movie wasn't uproariously funny, but that was perfect for me because I really enjoy movies that are a little chuckle inducing like this. I did crack up at Short's scenes He was Hilarious!! I also enjoyed the weaving of the differing scenes like the black/white bar scene, the scene when he goes to his girlfriends job, the scene when he comes home and his gf pulls a gun on him; those were really kool imaginative moments. I think my favorite scenes were: Bacon storms out of the house after an argument with this gf and he tries to storm off in his car but he's too close to the nearby cars and the quote from the scene where Bacon's working as a call center employee; he tells a customer "GEE MY PHONE SMELLS" I laughed sooo Hard! Teri Hatcher's and Fran Drescher's outfits were quintessentially 80s but they were awesome! This is a really swell interpretation of the Hollywood machine...

This is a strange movie about a young film student, Nick Chambers (Kevin Bacon), who wins an award and is picked up by a producer Alan Hale. Nick has some good friends and a loving girlfriend and a great idea for a simple movie. He is also very innocent and naive and basically is chewed up by the Hollywood machine and spat out.The movie reveals how the Hollywood dream is not that great, and it is only through luck that Nick actually makes it. In the film there is another guy who did not win a trophy but he seemed to have made it big. Nick believes that he has made it as well, and quickly leaves his old friends for his new ones. It also seems that Alan is prying Nick away from his friends and setting him up with Hollywood friends, such as the actress Gertrude.Suddenly Alan Hale is axed and all of his projects are canceled. Nick finds that he is now untouchable and left in the streets with not money and no friends. He slowly watches how everything is taken away from him and reminded out how big a dream he really had. His former landlord claims that he was a director that was spat out, as if making it harbringer of things to come, and then reminded when he is applying for a job as a waiter, that everybody wants to make it big in Hollywood.It is only fortune, and a bit of vision, that brings Nick back. He runs into an old school college that introduces him to a band that wants to make a video, and he does. At that time he is trying to rebuild his relationships. It is interesting to see how pessimistic Nick is because he is always expecting the worse and getting the best. His ex-girlfriend threw him out yet when he came to her again she welcomed him, and even visited him again. His old Camera-man friend whom he had let down, was still welcoming to him and said, "I was always your friend." This contrasted the people he had met at Hollywood, who were his friends when he was big, and dumped him when he had lost it all.This movie is good, and has a fantasy feel to it. The cinematography creates a more dreamlike world, but it is a dream where the good becomes bad and is only restored through some fortuitous move. What this movie shows me though is who one's friends really are. His true friends remained his friends while his Hollywood friends only spoke to him when they wanted something.

Los Angeles is a city where one can find, almost at every turn, a director, a starlet, a producer, or a cinematographer if one happen to be in the right places. Nick Chapman, a young man from Ohio, is trying his hand at directing. We meet him as he is going to an award ceremony at an event where the best new short film directors are competing for a prize and a chance to make it in the business. Nick is not prepared for what happens after his film becomes the talk of the town.Nick Chapman is in a relationship with Susan, an architect just starting her career. His good friend is Emmet Sumner, a cinematographer struggling to make it in the industry. Nick is being courted to sign in with different people so he can go to his next project. He has written a screenplay for a film that he wants to direct. Never, in his wildest dreams, he never imagined the strange world he is getting into, and the weird people he will have to deal with while getting his picture produced! For starters, Nick's agent, Neil Sussman, whom we meet during a luncheon at one of those trendy restaurants, is a creature from another planet.The next person Nick gets involved with is Allen Habel, a producer that sees potential in Chapman. As Nick pitches the film, Allen is already changing the way he feels will attract viewers, which has nothing to do with the original concept. Allen wants to set the picture on a beach, not in a cabin in the woods, while it is snowing, as Nick has conceived it. To make matters worse, Allen invites the young man to a party at his house that turns out to be a disaster as Nick gets to meet the film capital's fauna and flora, and ends up losing Susan.Nick gets dazzled at first, but when Allen Habel's business goes bad, he is left on his own. Added to all that, he doesn't have any money, so he has to look for any kind of job in order to survive. All his big shot friends drop him like a hot potato. No one will take his calls. Nick having broke with Susan and having betrayed Emmet, finds himself alone in the middle of all that phony world, until he meets a rock band and he makes a video of a song that becomes a hit. It is at this point Nick gets his creative powers back and as we leave him, he is directing his picture the way he wanted.Christopher Guest, a witty genius in his own right, directed this movie, his first full length film. "The Big Picture" shows a great talented director that knows well that strange world of glitter and heartaches that is Hollywood. Christopher Guest has been involved in the movie industry for most of his life and it shows.Kevin Bacon is an asset in any picture where he appears. His take on Nick Chapman is dead on. Mr. Bacon is an excellent actor, as he shows here. It is unfortunate Martin Short, who steals every scene he is in didn't get credit for being in the film. His agent must be a composite on the many characters the director, and him, must have met, at one time, or another.Christopher Guest has a group of actors that are featured in his films. Michael McKean and Mr. Guest have a long history of collaboration. The late J.T. Walsh gives one of his best performances as Allen Habel. The rest of the ensemble cast is also notable, Teri Hatcher, Fran Dresher, and a goofy Jennifer Jason Leigh, among others.Never having seen this film, we were lucky to catch it recently and it was worth the wait.