Worth seeing, especially for people interested in the inner workings of the Hollywood machine, but don't go in expecting a laugh a minute.
What Just Happened (2008)
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Reviews Counted:128
Fresh:69
Rotten:59
Average Rating:5.8/10
Consensus: What Just Happened has some inspired comic moments, but this inside-baseball take on Hollywood lacks satirical bite.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for language, some violent images, sexual content and some drug material.
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:Oct 17, 2008 Limited
Box Office: $1,043,419
Synopsis:
What Just Happened is a winningly sharp comedy about two nail-biting, back-stabbing, roller-coaster weeks in the world of a middle-aged Hollywood producer -- as he tries to juggle an actual life...
What Just Happened is a winningly sharp comedy about two nail-biting, back-stabbing, roller-coaster weeks in the world of a middle-aged Hollywood producer -- as he tries to juggle an actual life with an outrageous series of crises in his day job.
Academy Award® winning director Barry Levinson reunites with Academy Award® winning actor Robert De Niro and leading producer Art Linson, who wrote the screenplay based on his bestselling memoir. They all join with an all-star cast in this rollicking, shrewd tale of a man besieged by people who want him to be all sorts of things -- a money maker, an ego buster, a bad news breaker, an artistic champion, a loyal husband, an all-knowing father, not to mention sexy, youthful and tuned-in – everything except for the one thing he and all the preposterously behaved people he’s surrounded by really are: bumbling human beings just trying to survive by any means necessary.
Ben (DE NIRO) is already in over his head trying to balance the tug-of-war of having two ex-wives and two different families with his latest business venture – the boldly “visionary” movie Fiercely starring Sean Penn (SEAN PENN) – when everything that can go wrong goes completely screwy.
Fiercely looks like an audience-offending flop which draws the ire of iron-gloved studio chief Lou (CATHERINE KEENER), who forces him into tangling with the film’s rebellious and drug-addled director Jeremy (MICHAEL WINCOTT). Meanwhile, he’s confused and bewitched by his ex Kelly (ROBIN WRIGHT PENN) who can’t make up her mind about him; shocked by his daughter Zoe (KRISTEN STEWART), who seems to have grown up overnight; infuriated by his screenwriter friend Scott (STANLEY TUCCI) who’s trying to make a deal with him while making moves on his former wife; horrified by a hirsute Bruce Willis (BRUCE WILLIS) and flummoxed by Willis’ nebbishy agent Dick (JOHN TURTURRO), who’s scared to death of his own clients.
Somehow amidst all the madness, treachery, deceit, runaway egos, rampant commercialism, personal politics and atrocious behavior of America’s dream-making machinery, Ben has to find a way not just to make it to Cannes with a finished film, but to cope . . .
What Just Happened is based on the acclaimed, bestselling memoir by veteran Hollywood producer Art Linson, who wrote the screenplay and produced the film with Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal. The executive producers are Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban.
The behind-the-scenes team includes cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine (Talk To Me, The Beat My Heart Skipped), editor Hank Corwin (The New World), production designer Stefania Cella (Man of the Year) and composer Marcelo Zarvos (The Good Shepherd). The film is set to a soundtrack that mixes the classic cinematic sounds of Ennio Morricone with the songs of Nick Drake, Citizen Cope, Dire Straits, Bebel Gilberto and Nina Simone, among others. --© Magnolia Pictures
Starring: Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Catherine Keener, John Turturro
Starring: Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Catherine Keener, John Turturro, Robin Wright Penn, Stanley Tucci, Kristen Stewart, Michael Wincott, Bruce Willis
Director: Barry Levinson
Director: Barry Levinson
Screenwriter: Art Linson
Producer: Robert De Niro, Art Linson, Jane Rosenthal, Barry Levinson
Composer: Marcelo Zarvos
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
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Release:
Feb 24, 2009
Reviews for What Just Happened
It's a pungent film about Hollywood power and a useful manual for young producers on how to stay upright in Hollywood or at least, how to lose your soul with grace.
In an era where old rope such as Fast & Furious can strangle the box office, any reminder of Hollywood's clueless cynicism is more than welcome.
What Just Happened, despite an air of crisis, feels sluggish and plodding.
An insider's Hollywood story, Barry Levinson's film lacks the bite of other admired "movie movies", such as The Player, or way back, The Bad and the Beautiful.
I don't think it's particularly funny and I think that's the problem with the film. I think it wants to be funny.
It’s a shame that the film doesn’t ever really take off into the stratosphere, because so many of the ingredients are funny and revealing. But this is just another case where it was a better read than a film.
A welcome return to form from Robert De Niro, who has not been so proactively reactive on-screen for many, many years.
It's also mercifully free of the kind of phony pretensions to subversion and irreverence that weighed down, say, Robert Altman's The Player.
The film must have great resonance in Hollywood, which loves nothing more than to see its innards hung out in proud dirty linen fashion, but the nebulous structure and meandering storytelling leaves the rest of us a little dissatisfied.
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More understated than sidesplitting, this biting satire of showbiz offers an amusing enough inside peek at what life might be like in Tinseltown to remain recommended, its mostly inside industry jokes notwithstanding.
Polished, coherent, rich with internal consistency... and sacrilegious for believers in The Movies
It is hard to empathize with the petty problems of people living in luxurious houses the size of hotels when so many people in American have lost their homes.
Director Barry Levinson's What Just Happened? is about spoiled brats. But it's amusing.
Ao contrário do recente The Deal, este filme não exibe carinho nenhum por Hollywood (uma clara hipocrisia), o que tampouco o torna melhor do que aquela produção %u2013 ambos esforços terrivelmente inferiores ao genial O Jogador.
Although slightly scathing in its cynical look at highly paid Hollywood hacks rambunctiously jumping through artistic creative hoops, Happened is impishly on the spot in its aimless ribbing at movie wheeling-and-dealing madness.
Latest News for What Just Happened
February 28, 2009:
Showbiz satire starring De Niro and Willis offers inside look at challenge of moviemaking in Hollywood. ![]()
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February 27, 2009:
Like the perpetual insider crap shoot and big bucks blown on questionable movie fare, Levinson is willing to take his chances on that backroom and behind the scenes pathological reality show drama known as Hollywood. ![]()
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February 08, 2009:
Like the perpetual insider crap shoot and big bucks blown on questionable movie fare, Levinson is willing to take his chances on that backroom and behind the scenes pathological reality show drama known as Hollywood. ![]()
More...
November 28, 2008:
UK Critics Consensus: Local Critics Warm To Changeling; De Niro Delights But What Just Happened Doesn't
It's Friday, there's a new raft of movies in the UK cinemas this week, but are any of them any good? This week the UK film hacks give us their opinions on Clint Eastwood's... More...
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 36% 36% | Angels & Demons |
| 25% 25% | Four Christmases |
| 68% 68% | Funny People |
| 95% 95% | Star Trek |
| 14% 14% | The Ugly Truth |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 32% 32% | Terminator Salvation |
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| 86% 86% | A Christmas Tale |
| 60% 60% | Paper Heart |
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