¶ … Sit Through "What Just Happened?"
With veteran director Barry Levinson leading a generally brilliant cast of actors in a script about Hollywood by Art Linson, a longtime Hollywood producer, the newly-released "What Just Happened?" should have been great. Instead, the title -- borrowed from Linson's book, What Just Happened: Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Frontline -- could easily be querying this film's makers as to what, exactly, went wrong.
It is impossible to make a god movie without a good script, and that is really the issue at hand here. There is no sense of bitterness towards the Hollywood establishment lampooned here; the film comes off much more as one buddy (that would be screenwriter Linson) giving his other buddies a good ribbing. There is no meat; no real viciousness to the satire. The result is a rather limp and sometimes funny farce; all imbroglio and no indictment.
Don't let all that ruin it for you, though. The movie does have it's funny moments, like most bad television (a more appropriate format for this film), and if you're in the mood to leave the theatre chuckling and patting yourself on the back for not being a part of the moral and spiritual sinkhole that is Tinsel Town, then this is the movie for you. The cast -- including Bruce Willis as himself with a new-found sense of artistic commitment that includes a beer and a belly, John Turturro as his anxiety-ridden agent (especially fun to watch), and Robert De Niro as a producer dealing with two crumbling projects and a second crumbling marriage. His teenage daughter (Kristen Stewart) throws in some fun, if predictable antics, too.
If the characters had a little more depth, the comedy and the story would play better. Only one character actually is an adolescent, but everyone behaves that way. Even if this is an accurate description of Hollywood, it's no fun to watch. People go to the movies to get away from their teenagers, not babysit someone else's, and this movie felt like a chore. My regular readers know I am loathe to adopt a points system, but I have to say that this one deserves at least six-and-a-half question marks.
Sixties Sit-Ins -- 23:12, 15-16 All of the assigned sources seem to have as their major emphasis a support and acceptance of what the sit-ins were meant to accomplish. The writers seem sympathetic to the cause of Civil Rights. However they all seem to frame their subjects in language that misses the real point of any Civil Rights Movement in any era, any country; they also all seem to miss one
Era What Would the U.S. Have Been Like without a Progressive Era? What would have happened had there been no Progressive Era at the end of the 19th and early 20th century? The period between 1890 and 1920 saw the mobilization of several various platforms erected under social, economic and political banners -- all promoting progress in their respective fields. Had there been no Progressive Era, there would have been no
Those who could work, mostly men, were sent the other way and "processed" into the camp. They were stripped naked, all their belongings confiscated, and shaved from head to toe, given worn-out rags to wear and shoes that did not fit. There were no blankets, mattresses, pillows, or heat in the dormitory "beds" (like wooden boxes) where they slept six to a bed. They were systematically starved and used for
This is also in the context of bringing more relevant information to customers across all of these social media channels, and always living by the axiom of getting what you give (Bernoff, Schadler, 2010). Social media channels need to be orchestrated as any other multichannel strategy, with the leading companies globally today realizing that each of their customer bases relies on different social media channels for different needs (Bernoff, Schadler,
By the second night, a group of men had mutinied and attempted to kill the officers and destroy the raft, and by the third day, "those whom death had spared in the disastrous night […] fell upon the dead bodies with which the raft was covered, and cut off pieces, which some instantly devoured" (Savigny & Correard 192). Ultimately, the survivors were reduced to throwing the wounded overboard, and
Journalists, Their Terminology and Terrorism In the age of terrorism and in the age of the Internet, journalists are coming under more and more intensive scrutiny and are increasingly urged to act more sensitively to the power they have and the power which they can wield when it comes to reporting current events -- particularly those related to terrorism. As some scholars have illuminated, journalists are indeed arbitrators of rhetoric, and
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now