The Big Picture

Film student Nick Chapman (Kevin Bacon) is nominated for an award at the National Film Institute. He's competing against the wacky Lydia Johnson (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and spoiled arrogant Jonathan Tristan-Bennet (Dan Schneider). After his win, he has big dreams but Hollywood is more than his naive expectations. There's studio head Allen Habel (J.T. Walsh), his wife Polo Habel (Fran Drescher), and his mistress Gretchen (Teri Hatcher). Allen starts changing Nick's movie. He's infatuated with Gretchen. He dumps his girlfriend Susan Rawlings and old friends like Emmet Sumner (Michael McKean).

Martin Short's bad hair really threw me off for a second. It suggests a broader, sillier comedy than I expected. Luckily, it doesn't go that way but this is not at the later Christopher Guest level. It takes all the standard Hollywood behind the scenes and puts it on the screen. It's quirky but no big laughs. It hits the nails on the head. Nick is not much in terms of rooting interest. This is early in the inside Hollywood satires. It could be darker. The girlfriend role needs a better actress. The most compelling character is actually Lydia who reconnects with the movie for a short while in the last third. The movie gets a lot better with her energy. It would help if his movie idea doesn't look so utterly self-congratulatory art-house. Overall, this is a nice lesser known Christopher Guest film.

THE BIG PICTURE is a breezy satire of the movie business from the mind of writer/director Christopher Guest (BEST IN SHOW, A MIGHTY WIND). It tells the story of Nick Chapman (Kevin Bacon), a young film director who gets put through the Hollywood wringer. Studio executives, agents, and starlets all prey on Nick's naivete and he eventually sells out, neglecting his girlfriend and best friend in the process.

What's interesting about THE BIG PICTURE is its grassroots portrayal of how Nick finally launches his Hollywood career - by starting small, doing his own thing, and involving his friends. Those are basically the tenets of independent film, which boomed in the decade following THE BIG PICTURE.

Nowadays, many of those indie directors - among them Steven Soderbergh, Robert Rodriguez, and Christopher Nolan - are getting hired to do big-budget studio pictures. In fact, Soderbergh's "sex, lies, and videotape" was released the same year as this movie.

Was Nick Chapman's "Pez People" video responsible for the indie film movement? Not likely, but THE BIG PICTURE was certainly an advocate of its principles.

This is an under-rated late 80's film that captures the changing entertainment scene of that decade, with much humor and irony.

While the usual "Hollywood is phony" theme exists here, that story is always interesting, and it really scores when it reminds us of how success can be gained and lost quickly.

Martin Short is the uncredited star here, with a couple of hilarious scenes, the best one at the outdoor patio restaurant where he praises Bacon without knowing any of his work. All in all, a nice movie about movies, with some special surprise locations for movie buffs!

The late J.T. Walsh offers a subtle performance here, with one of my favorite (perhaps a somewhat spoiler line, but nothing to do with the plot)...Bacon: "I'm from Ohio", with Walsh's comeback, "my first wife is from Illinois", as in everything outside of LA is one place. Perfect deadpan humor.

It's hard to believe it's been twenty years since this came out. Kevin Bacon is established as one of the best American actors (also, one of the greats who've never been nominated for an Oscar!). Teri Hatcher is the star of a huge television hit. Christopher Guest still makes brilliant films and gives his actors more freedom than almost any other director today. And my affection for "The Big Picture" only grows fonder as the time passes.

In "Rolling Stone" magazine's 1989 "Hot Issue", then newcomer Steven Soderbergh was profiled as that season's hot new filmmaker. One remark was about how students in LA based film schools have their works shown at big events, attended by many hot shots in the entertainment industry. Meaning, a young woman or man could have a "bomb" of sorts on their hands before even turning professional! Not the most nurturing environment for youthful talent.

Bacon's "Nick Chapman" gets the full treatment as a guy on the fast track after winning his school's big prize for his project. And things don't go wonderfully well after he starts meeting the movers and shakers in his new world. The late, great J.T. Walsh is a studio head (for the time being) who seduces Chapman into believing all his dreams are possible. Michael McKean is Chapman's friend, a cinematographer who isn't necessarily the first choice to shoot his debut. And John Cleese, Martin Short and Jennifer Jason Leigh have great turns as Chapman's different associates that can't really stop the grimly funny runaway train he's on until his self respect finally returns and he sees everything for what it really is.

Most films about film-making are not that good. This is a major exception to that rule. Very bitter, but also very sweet. Just like life!

I was in the midst of my own film career when this movie hit the theatres, and I went and saw it with a friend who in actuality turned out to be an actor (he had been assigned to me).

Nick goes through a typical Hollywood story of succumbing to temptation, and leaving behind all he values for what he believes is success, but finds that he never lost what he thought he had, and winds up a better person and film maker for it.

The movie is a kind of skewering of the Hollywood system, but it's all done in jest. The truth is the indy film maker is noted for his skill level and artistic intelligence based upon his work, and then offered assignments based on that grading. Believe it or not most directors do commercials and industrial training videos, not feature films.

It is a delightful film, and I had a gander at it on bluray since I first saw it at the Kabuki in San Francisco all those years ago, and it holds up well. For the first time in ages I found myself cheering and booing at Nick Chapman (Pee-Wee / Hustler dolly), and for some reason found myself very satisfied with the ending of a movie.

The film is essentially one man's story as an aspiring director, and has lots of funny moments, but doesn't show you some of the regular everyday hard work that goes on and off the set, because making movies is a job like anything else.

I don't have too much else to say about it, other than for the first time in years I actually enjoyed a movie without feeling the need to tear it apart on all levels.

A good watch. Give it a whirl on the player.