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William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, Sarah Jessica Parker, David Paymer, Charles Durning, Julia Stiles, and Rebecca Pidgeon star in "State and Main," a 2000 film written and directed b David Mamet.

Macy is the director, Walt Price, of a film shooting on location. For reasons not disclosed, they've been run out of one small town and now are in another one in Vermont. With him are his writer, Joseph Turner White,(Hoffman), heretofore a playwright, his stars (Baldwin & Parker), and various other assistants, cameramen, etc.

The name of the film is "The Old Mill" and the exciting thing about this town is that it actually has one. Well, it had one - they find out it burned down. This is actually the least of their problems. The female star refuses to bare her breasts, though someone comments that most of America can draw them from memory; then she holds them up for $800,000. The male lead likes underage girls and gets in a car accident with one in the car. Unfortunately, the writer is a witness, and due to the influence of a townswoman, Ann, he has fallen for (Pidgeon) he wants to maintain his integrity.

The Mayor (Durning) is willing to turn over the whole town to them seemingly for free until someone finds out it would cost $6 million to build a set of the town, so all the playing up to the Mayor seems to be for nothing. And an attorney, ex-fiancé of Ann's, is ready to extract revenge on the company by legal means.

Meanwhile, the wife of someone on the crew is having a baby, White can't type because he caught his finger in a fish hook, and the Price keeps asking for the scene where the horse dies. When White says, "You know you can't kill a horse," the director's angry answer is "f--- me." I'm sure some of this is very true to life, especially the director being hounded from all sides constantly and having to put out a million fires. Also the cover-up of the accident I'm sure has happened. The movie captures the awe that townspeople have when Hollywood types come in to make a film, as well as the self-indulgence of the actors.

Most of the time, the film was pretty funny. It's not Mamet's best by any means. It's a light story with some very good performances, particularly by Macy, who plays a determined director who pretends to be nice to perfection, and Hoffman, who walks around in a dream world on his first film. Baldwin nonchalantly gives us the narcissistic essence of his character, and Parker is a riot acting as if she's being asked to commit murder instead of something she's done a million times.

The end shouldn't come as any surprise. I would say this is atypical Mamet that, had it not been for the stars, could have been a TV movie.

The filmmakers who invade Vermont are patronizing, condescending and pig-headed...to the locals and to each other. Writer-director David Mamet gets in some good acerbic digs at show business and isn't afraid to make anyone and everyone look the fool. After all, it's only "just a movie" to us--to them, it's brain surgery at a cost. The cast seems to be having a great time, Alec Baldwin in particular. Philip Seymour Hoffman has never been so benign--and thats a good thing (what a nice change to see him relaxed, romantic and clean-cut). The picture isn't a barn-burner, it never crackles or builds comedic momentum like, say, "Tootsie", but it's a flip, funny, unfettered throwaway. **1/2 from ****

David Mamet's `State and Main' is what `Our Town' might have been had it been conceived by a clear-eyed, modern day cynic. In this tale, a Hollywood film crew invades the idyllic hamlet of Waterford, Vermont, determined to capture on celluloid the simple bucolic virtues of a bygone era. The only problem is that those involved with the making of this film-within-a-film lack the requisite innocence themselves to do justice to the theme they purport to be exploring. They are all typical products of the crass Hollywood culture – boorish, self-obsessed and thoroughly amoral. All except the writer of the piece that is, Joseph Turner White (played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman), the one character who is not only in touch with his cravings for a return to innocence, but who passes the moral test laid out for him along those lines at the end.

`State and Main' is a clever film, a cute film, a likable film – it just isn't a very FUNNY film. The Mamet specialty – flat, monotone, emotionless line readings – becomes grating and irritating after awhile. Both the small town rubes and the big city elitists come across as little more than tired stereotypes who really don't have anything particularly funny to say. As a result, most of the attempts at humor simply fall flat. We've seen these characters and situations countless times before – the temperamental star making exorbitant financial demands, the lecherous leading man endangering the production with his reckless sexual dalliances, the harried producers and directors fighting a constant transcontinental phone battle with demanding studio heads `back on the coast.' And it just isn't all that interesting. Part of the problem, I think, is that Mamet never really exploits or explores the setting he's chosen. Most of the townsfolk emerge as minor, background characters at best, with the possible exception of Rebecca Pidgeon as Annie, Joe's eventual love interest. Pidgeon, who looks uncannily like Marlo Thomas in her `That Girl' days, seems sweet as all get out, but the atonal delivery of most of her lines hampers the interest we might otherwise find in her character. Actually, none of these characters are very interesting – or very funny. In fact, most of them seem rather pathetic when you get right down to it, and Mamet fails to provide the satirical wit and bite that would mitigate some of their unpleasantness. He doesn't generate the kind of out-and-out, hearty laughter that Christopher Guest derived from his examinations of rural America in movies like `Waiting For Guffman' and `Best of Show.' Mamet's take is, in many ways, so cynical that he seems to have forgotten to engender the kind of affection for his people that helps keep condescension at bay. Or, perhaps, it is really so much simpler than that – maybe he merely neglected to write any truly funny material this time around.

State(the people from Hollywood) and Main(the people of Waterford,Vermont) - Two whole different worlds meet each other. The move was enjoyable. It wasn't really a comdey nor a romance, or wathever it must have been. I couldn't really laugh and the romance between Joe and Ann was poor. But it's worth time seeing it. You could see the chemistry between the actors. It has something, normally in such movies, movies as these never made it to the movie theatres, so there's the problem, why these movies don't get much attention, etc. Enough of my boring words, the choice is up to you : Do I want to see this movie or not ? That's the question.

I haven't been thoroughly following David Mamet's career, but just watching this film, "American Buffalo" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" I already get a feel of his unique style of writing. It's very witty, very original and he has certain trademarks, like quick exchanges of dialogue between actors and repeating of the same sentence of dialogue in a group of lines. Well, his uniqueness is quite evident in watching this movie and it works quite well.

First I'll mention the vast array of talented actors. I don't think the casting could've been any better. Character actor William H. Macy is brilliant as the almost unscrupulous director, who will do ANYTHING--and I'm not exaggerating the least bit--to get his picture done. Fellow character actor/fellow PT Anderson regular Philip Seymour-Hoffman turns in another brilliant, yet subtle performance as the shy but appealing and wildly creative screenwriter who is the fuel of this cinematic project. As I said, he's made a significant--and extremely impressive--transition from playing the airhead jerk in "Scent of a Woman" and "Twister" to playing deep character roles like this. He ranks among the top in my list of Best Underrated Actors (along with Macy) and I hope one of these days he'll become a household name. David Peymer, I think, delivers the best performance of his career as the fast-talking, sniveling producer. I've always known he was a good actor, but he truly flaunts his knack for acting and taking risks in this role. It figures that playwright Mamet would assemble a group of fine character actors, instead of simply casting people who "look good on camera." That's one of the advantages of having a playwright as a director.

The script is wildly original and kept me laughing. There are many interesting, memorable quotes. And this is just a fine adult comedy (Thank God!!). With the explosion of teen gross-out comedies, I'm sure audiences will cherish a comedy like this. It works in all aspects. Not only is it well-performed, but it's well-written (lots of comedies only contain one of those factors). And it's all done in good taste. So those of you expecting cheap sex jokes and low-brow gags involving bodily functions--sorry to disappoint you! There are no cliches. This movie is an explosion of Mamet's gift for creativity. Take for example, the relationship between Hoffman and the beautiful Rebecca Pidgeon. They don't have a sex scene. Most of their screen time is spent talking and getting to know each other, sharing their thoughts on writing, researching the town's history, finding out how much they have in common. Do we still see that in the movies? Character development in romance? In the scene where Hoffman is in the hotel room with Sarah Jessica Parker lying on the bed naked, and Pidgeon knocks on his door to greet him with a bouquet of flowers, there's no predictability. You would assume she would take one look at Parker's naked body and punch him in face. I'm not going to give away what happens, but that moment stuck in my mind, because it is the first film I've seen to go a different route with the whole "girlfriend catches you in bed with another girl" premise.

"State and Main" is pleasant, light-hearted, funny, original comedy and it's one I'd definitely recommend. If you want to see great performances and laugh at good, tasteful humor--you can't go wrong!

My score: 7 (out of 10)