AFI Review: What Just Happened?, Plus Art Linson

Here’s one more review from Adrienne Gruben, with a twist. Gruben takes a look at the work-in-progress, Robert de Niro-starring What Just Happened? But she also had a sitdown with the man whose life the movie is based on, legendary producer, director, and screenwriter Art Linson. It’s just a click away…

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Movies about movies aren’t rare, but they’re chancy. Singin’ in the Rain is my favorite. There’s the hilariously touching LA Story where Steve Martin drives two doors down to visit a pal. Altman’s The Player showed us the town’s temperament-a line I stole from Art Linson. Living in Oblivion satirizes low-budget filmmaking, and Ed Wood makes really, really low-budget filmmaking seem enchanting, which for him, it was. I myself, produced I Love Your Work, a dark-comedic take on a star so desperate to reclaim his pre-fame self, that he stalks a regular Joe. Which brings me to the work in progress screening of What Just Happened?, AFI Fest’s requisite filmmaking film, and I’m pleased to say it’s a delight. I saw the rough cut last night, and this morning, I sat down with Art Linson, What Just Happened’s author, screenwriter, producer, and subject in the W Hotel’s makes-you-feel-just-a-little-insecure “living room.” Given all those professional titles, Linson was remarkably funny, down-to-earth, and smart, but most of all, just as relaxed discussing his faults as his accomplishments. In fact, his mishaps made him giggle. He clearly did not seize those titles-he earned them.

There are industry folks who believe that films about films do not translate outside the business, that the situations, stakes, and humor seem too “insider,” something Linson and I both disagree with. He studied law (though did not practice) and briefly worked in the music industry. I have family in government consulting, dance, academia, art, and, well, prison, and just like in film, they all, at one point, served as diplomatic middle-men tiptoeing through political land-mines. And proof that Linson and I didn’t reach our conclusions in error, the twin, teen, Plano residents sitting next to me, Saad (taller), and Milad (1 min older, and yes they like the same types of girls), who happily acted as my non film biz advisers, confirmed them, by doubling-over in laughter by the first scene. Linson’s titular novel based film begins with the character of Linsons’ Ben (Robert De Niro) sitting through a dreadful test screening for his latest producing effort, Fiercely. It ends with both the hero (Sean Penn) and his dog getting shot. To death. The gasps of the film within a film’s studio execs and audience mean only this: The film, in its current state, won’t make it beyond, well, a pet cemetery. Our giggly audience, however, is ready for the ride.

And we’re off for a week in the life of Ben’s Homerian tightrope walk over troubled productions-from the dead-dog-loving director just off the pill wagon, to the insolent actor insisting on keeping a beard that the studio says will force them to shut down production (”We hired a hero, not Grizzly Adams.”) His relationships with his two ex-wives aren’t much tidier (he’s in amicable separation counseling with no. 2), though he finds solace in driving his three children to school. But once he walks them to class, he gets hit up in the schoolyard by a writer who’s simultaneously trying to sell him a script and sell him down the produceorial river for another producer/the kids’ soccer coach. The self-effacing Linson even shows Ben waxing his chest hair and cheap-dyeing patches of grey hair, black after a young conquest explains, “I looove older men.” Through all this, Ben rarely looses his cool. We know he’s hurt that the wife he’s learning to separate from may be dating, because he carts around the would-be paramour’s ugly and inadvertently located red argyle sock, and never admits disappointment by things like dismal test screenings (he pours over the scathing results in private), or learning that his naive, curious high-school age daughter was one of many young conquests of a sleezy agent who’s just committed suicide. I asked Linson if he always kept his cool in real life, and he laughed, explaining that he’s lost that and worse, but he and in turn, Ben, is driven to just survive, to just keep going, and that is what he does.

I asked him if he was a creative, logistical, financial, technical, or hand-holding producer and he said, “None of the above.” He explained that it was his job to allow everyone working with and for him to do their job better. Sometimes that meant insinuating oneself, other times it meant hanging back, being quiet, and staying out of the way. I’ve asked many producers this question, and most of the time, the answer was about them. It now makes sense why Linson isn’t worried that people will find the movie too “insider,” because he sees the world outside of himself. I also realized that if loggers or auto detailers could make cabins about logging or details about detailing, they might. I mean, any industry that can even remotely refer to itself, does. The “Head On-Apply Directly to the Forehead” commercials spoofed themselves, as did the Geico Cavemen. And need I name the numerous songs about Rock-n-Roll and touring? Does, “They say the road ain’t no place to raise a family”, mean anything to you? And so Levinson, De Niro, Linson, and Dallas’ own Todd Wagner (WJH’s Exec Producer) will return to the cutting room to fine tune (it still needs some pacing TLC) based on how the film played here. Which moments will they keep? Did they expect a big laugh that didn’t come, or vice versa? It looks like What Just Happened? will undergo the same scrutiny as the films it satirizes-a scrutiny that came from the outside.

This piece got my pals Margaret, Lisa, and eco-Scott talking about every movie about a movie we could think of. We included TV shows. We did not discriminate, and sometimes we stretched it a little. Care to add any?

Sunset Boulevard, 1950
8 1/2, 1963
Day For Night, 1973
Nickelodeon, 1976
Silent Movie, 1976
The Muppet Movie, 1979
Best Friends, 1982
Purple Rose of Cairo, 1985
Cinema Paradiso, 1990
Grand Canyon, 1991
Hearts of Darkness, 1991
Soapdish, 1991
Chaplin, 1992
Last Action Hero, 1993
I’ll Do Anything, 1994
Swimming With Sharks, 1994
Deconstructing Harry, 1997
Bowfinger, 1999
Notting Hill, 1999
Shadow of the Vampire, 2000
America’s Sweethearts, 2001
Adaptation, 2002
Lost In La Mancha, 2002
Entourage, 2004-present
Extras, 2005
For Your Consideration, 2006