THE PLAYER

Michael Tolkin's 1988 novel ?The Player” was an insider's satire about the sleazy side of the movie business. Focusing primarily on a greedy, ruthless and arrogant studio executive who preys on screenwriters and other “expendable” types in Tinseltown, “The Player” was not only filled with internal monologues that would be almost impossible to film, it viciously attacked every person in the business who had the power to give the green light to its adaptation. Certainly, Tolkin assumed, the book would never be filmed. He was wrong. Robert Altman, director of such American classics as “M*A*S*H” and “Nashville,” took on the project, and Tolkin himself had the challenge of developing a script from his own “unfilmable” novel. Together these two have fashioned what is certainly the most searing film about Hollywood in years, the film that everyone in LA is talking about, and that just about every major studio wanted to distribute. Tim Robbins stars as an icy, Armani?suited executive who glides like a lizard through power lunches, chats on cordless phones, and makes glib judgments about movies. Gretta Seacchi, Whoopi Goldberg, Dean Stockwell, Angelica Houston and Sydney Pollack star in major roles. The film is peppered throughout with appearances by no fewer than 60 of Hollywood's biggest names, all playing themselves, who worked on the set for one day and contributed their union?scale wages to charity. Altman hirnself describes THE PLAYER as “the inside Hollywood romantic comedy suspense thriller… with a heart.”