The Big Picture - 4

While Christopher Guest is most famous for his writing and acting in This is Spinal Tap, this film is his directorial debut. He has since gone on to direct mostly mockumentaries that I love (Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, and A Mighty Wind - he also has one coming out later this year). This film on the other hand starts out strong as a satire of Hollywood, but soon slows down its pace to a slow crawl. At that point I almost thought it had gotten boring. It tries to recover but sort of ends up a cheesy film. I think that the problem was that the characters took a little time to develop and then suddenly the film was about the plot rather than the characters, so that by the end everyone is a cardboard cutout. I'm glad Guest found his calling, this film was just a failure on the way to success. (On a more positive note, Kevin Bacon and Martin Short aren't half bad in their roles.)