To me, this movie is perfection.

Such a frustrating disappointment

Instant Favorite.

Excellent but underrated film

William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, Sarah Jessica Parker, David Paymer, Charles Durning, Julia Stiles, and Rebecca Pidgeon star in "State and Main," a 2000 film written and directed b David Mamet.Macy is the director, Walt Price, of a film shooting on location. For reasons not disclosed, they've been run out of one small town and now are in another one in Vermont. With him are his writer, Joseph Turner White,(Hoffman), heretofore a playwright, his stars (Baldwin & Parker), and various other assistants, cameramen, etc.The name of the film is "The Old Mill" and the exciting thing about this town is that it actually has one. Well, it had one - they find out it burned down. This is actually the least of their problems. The female star refuses to bare her breasts, though someone comments that most of America can draw them from memory; then she holds them up for $800,000. The male lead likes underage girls and gets in a car accident with one in the car. Unfortunately, the writer is a witness, and due to the influence of a townswoman, Ann, he has fallen for (Pidgeon) he wants to maintain his integrity.The Mayor (Durning) is willing to turn over the whole town to them seemingly for free until someone finds out it would cost $6 million to build a set of the town, so all the playing up to the Mayor seems to be for nothing. And an attorney, ex-fiancé of Ann's, is ready to extract revenge on the company by legal means. Meanwhile, the wife of someone on the crew is having a baby, White can't type because he caught his finger in a fish hook, and the Price keeps asking for the scene where the horse dies. When White says, "You know you can't kill a horse," the director's angry answer is "f--- me." I'm sure some of this is very true to life, especially the director being hounded from all sides constantly and having to put out a million fires. Also the cover-up of the accident I'm sure has happened. The movie captures the awe that townspeople have when Hollywood types come in to make a film, as well as the self-indulgence of the actors.Most of the time, the film was pretty funny. It's not Mamet's best by any means. It's a light story with some very good performances, particularly by Macy, who plays a determined director who pretends to be nice to perfection, and Hoffman, who walks around in a dream world on his first film. Baldwin nonchalantly gives us the narcissistic essence of his character, and Parker is a riot acting as if she's being asked to commit murder instead of something she's done a million times.The end shouldn't come as any surprise. I would say this is atypical Mamet that, had it not been for the stars, could have been a TV movie.

State and Main is a comedy starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rebecca Pidgeon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Julia Stiles, William H. Macy and Alec Baldwin.The plot involves the on-location production in Waterford, Vermont of a film called The Old Mill.It was written and directed by David Mamet.Havoc is wrought on the inhabitants of a small New England town by a troubled film production. After the leading man's penchant for teenage girls gets them banished from their New Hampshire location, a film crew relocates to the small town of Waterford, Vermont, to finish shooting "The Old Mill."As its title suggests, the film depends on the presence of a genuine mill, something the town is reported to possess. Unfortunately, with only days before principal photography begins, it becomes apparent that the mill in fact burned down decades ago. Unfazed, the film's director, Walt Price, places his faith in the ability of first-time screenwriter Joseph Turner White to alter the script; what he doesn't count on is White's apparently bottomless reserve of angst-fueled writer's block.The film's leading lady refuses to do her contracted nude scene unless she's paid an additional $800,000, while a foreign cinematographer offends the locals by messing with a historic firehouse. Meanwhile, the leading man, Bob Barrenger, dallies with Carla, a crafty local teen. Everything comes to a head after Barrenger and Carla are injured in a car accident, which leads White to another emotional quandary and into the arms of local bookseller Annie Black. Meanwhile a powerful movie producer comes to town to help Price with the ensuing mess.State and Main offers plenty of wit and laughs in its lampoons of the movie industry.It is the funniest and most accessible film to date by David Mamet, propelled by the rocket fuel of his showbiz experience and driven by an ensemble cast that simply couldn't be better. Naturally, the writer's dilemma is the meatiest one and he arrives at a solution that's as hilarious as it is morally justified. Along the way, the rigors of film making are explored with farcical abandon, such as how to provide a high-tech product placement in a 19th-century story. His razor-sharp dialogue is gourmet popcorn here--each kernel yields a tasty surprise--and the whole scenario plays out with the breezy assurance of vintage screwball comedy. It's pure gold from start to finish, and even the closing credits offer another reason to laugh.Obviously,the nice thing about it is that it won't disappoint the viewer.

Recap: A film team practically invades a small rural town in Vermont after being kicked out of their last intended shooting location. Short on cash, short on time and with a lot of people talented in finding trouble they must convince the townsfolk to let the shoot their movie, and use their building. Problem is, the building they want to use burned downed in 1960.Comments: A movie about all the small things that complicate your life as a movie producer or director. Never mind that you're short on cash and time, but when your lead star has an improper taste for (too) young girls, your shooting location burnt down a few decades ago and a town council member really hates you, then you almost appreciate the small troubles of life.This intention to make the movie a hectic, intense and funny project that finds trouble everywhere it goes is also it biggest problem. There are so many small sub-plots that none of them are given much time to grow and evolve. The result is that there are a lot of small "ha-ha"s but you never got a joke that really is given time to build up and make you roll on the floor laughing.It is nice, not hilarious. But it does redeem itself a little at the end, where it actually connects a lot of these sub-plots in one scene. And it also got a good cast with a few actually making a little something with the scarce screen time they get with so many plots to go around. I think especially of Macy, Stiles and Hoffman.But I had expected more. A laugh or two maybe. Something to get the movie going. Something extra. Unfortunately I got a little disappointed.5/10

State and Main never fails to reward repeated viewings no matter how many times I watch it, and I've watched it at least a dozen times. I could watch it a dozen more times. It's not typical Mamet, although I wish it was. The only other Mamet comedies that come to mind are "We're No Angels" and "Wag The Dog" and maybe "About Last Night." He seems to greatly prefer darker characters and darker themes ("Glengarry Glen Ross," "American Buffalo," "The Verdict," "Oleanna," "Edmond," etc. etc.) and, most notably, crackling, labyrinthine mysteries ("The Spanish Prisoner," "Heist," "House of Games," "Homicide," "Spartan").If you listen to the delightful cast commentary on the DVD, you will learn that Mamet is trying his hand at madcap comedy in the style of Preston Sturges ("Unfaithfully Yours (1948)"). There is never a dull moment. The movie is laced with running gags and brimming with razor-sharp wit. Mamet frequently delights us with complex, busy tracking shots choreographed to a fare-thee-well, moving from character to character and room to room with supporting characters moving in and out. Mamet is in top form as director and writer, which given his prodigious gifts-he won the Pulitzer Prize for "Glengarry Glen Ross"-means he is working at a level even Woody Allen at the height of his powers would be hard pressed to match.Read the lengthy quotes section if you need proof of this. Every exchange tickles the funnybone. Among the running gags are references to the World Court ("Of course he's on the coast, where's he gonna be, The Hague?"), the "spate of suspicious fires" that became the inspiration for the Waterford Huskies (huh?), and the burning question, "Does it have to be an Old Mill?" The pothole in the center of town is another subtle but brilliant comic leitmotiv. Every time you turn around, somebody's running through the darn thing. Then one night Alec Baldwin hits the pothole-and the consequences send State and Main to a whole new level of hysteria.Some of the best gags are pure through-the-looking-glass nonsense. Joe White tells director Walt Price, "I can only write on manual," to which the director replies, "I know the feeling." Marty Rossen asks Walt, "How are you getting on with these fine people?" and Walt answers cheerfully, "Like dykes and dogs." Walt tells Claire Wellesey a rambling yarn about Eleanor Duse, trying to inspire Claire to stay with the movie, but when he gets to the moral of the story… "And did she do the seven shows?" Claire asks. "No, Claire," Walt replies, "but I think you should do this movie." The cast of State and Main is a dream cast, and everyone delivers winning, spot-on performances. Philip Seymour Hoffman is a standout as the first-time screenwriter sheepishly trying to hang on to his moral compass, and William H. Macy is absolutely superb as the ringmaster who has an attitude to match every situation. But the centerpiece is Rebecca Pidgeon, whose placid warmth and wise charm provide the emotional eye-of-the-storm, the moral center, and the Greek chorus for the movie, anchoring the whirlwind of personal agendas and flawed characters swirling around her. (I will say that I find Mamet's casting of non-actors as bit players more than a bit distracting. He likes to cast his poker buddies, the commentary informs us.) That Pidgeon's Annie dumps her local politician boyfriend and ends up winning the heart of the idealistic Hollywood screenwriter should confound any attempt to simplistically reduce the film to "cynical Hollywood venality invades innocent small-town America". The movie is much more ambiguous and complex than that. Despite giving in to their worst impulses and coming within a hair's breadth of disaster for the second time, the film crew finally does get to make their movie. In the end, the moral of the story is, "The only second chance in life is the chance to make the same mistake twice."