Movies
Living in Oblivion
The follies of low-budget independent filmmaking, broken down into three separate chapters. The first two turn out to be dreams, of the director and the leading lady respectively, and the third depicts the actual shooting of a dream. Paradoxically, the first two have a firmer grip on hard realities -- the difficulty of pulling off a mistake-free single-take, the temperamentalism of a slumming Hollywood golden boy ("I'm just trying to throw out ideas, you know, get the creative juices flowing") -- while the third is more of a philistine's uninformed notion of what makes an "art film." By the same token, the easy chuckles tail off sharply two-thirds of the way through. Steve Buscemi, Catherine Keener, and James LeGros all give back much more than their salary's worth -- however little that was. With Dermot Mulroney and Danielle Von Zerneck; directed by Tom DiCillo. 1995.
— Duncan Shepherd
Reader Rating:
- MPAA Rating: R
