What Just Happened
Director: Barry Levinson
You’d probably need a veteran Hollywood psychiatrist to explain Tinseltown’s fascination with its own muck. While rock ’n’ rollers celebrate their art (are you ready to rawk?) movie stars, directors and producers love to moan about how tough life is at 24 frames per second.
DVD delete bins overflow with movies about the idiocy of making movies. For every razor-sharp satire like Robert Altman’s The Player (still the gold standard), there are a dozen blunt instruments like Barry Levinson’s What Just Happened.
Robert De Niro cashes another paycheque as Ben, a film producer on the skids. Ben has seen better times at work and at home, and he’s in desperate need of a hit.
The jokes are so inside-Hollywood they’re claustrophobic.
Masochists will delight at the numerous extras, which include an audio commentary by Levinson and writer/producer Art Linson and three deleted scenes.
