What Just Happened (2008)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

Barry Levinson

Writers (WGA):

Art Linson (written by)
Art Linson (book)

Release Date:

28 November 2008 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

In Hollywood, everybody can hear you scream.

Plot:

Two weeks in the life of a fading Hollywood producer who's having a rough time trying to get his new picture made.

Plot Keywords:

Hollywood | Beard | Agent | Ex Wife | Actor

Cast

Robert De Niro	...	Ben
Sean Penn	...	Himself
Catherine Keener	...	Lou Tarnow
Bruce Willis	...	Actor
John Turturro	...	Dick Bell
Robin Wright Penn	...	Kelly
Stanley Tucci	...	Scott Solomon
Kristen Stewart	...	Zoe
Michael Wincott	...	Jeremy Brunell
Jason Kravits	...	Pollster (as Jason Kravitz)
Mark Ivanir	...	Johnny
Remy K. Selma	...	Jimmy (as Remy Selma)
Christopher Evan Welch	...	Studio Marketing Guy
Lily Rabe	...	Dawn
Sam Levinson	...	Carl

MPAA:

Rated R for language, some violent images, sexual content and some drug material.

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Hebrew | French

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | SDDS | DTS

Certification:

USA:R (certificate #44075) | UK:15 | Ireland:15A | Hong Kong:IIB | Netherlands:16 | Finland:K-13 | Singapore:M18 (DVD rating) | Singapore:NC-16 | Germany:12 (f)

Filming Locations:

California State University Northridge - 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

2929 Productions

Trivia:

The film's tagline "In Hollywood, everybody can hear you scream" is a play on Alien (1979)'s famous tagline "In space no one can hear you scream."

Movie Connections:

References Amores perros (2000)

Soundtrack:

Flow of Experience

A hilarious look at the way Hollywood works

You wouldn't want to make a steady diet of inside-Hollywood satires ("The Player," "Tropic Thunder"), but Barry Levinson serves a suitably savory morsel with "What Just Happened?," a finely observed and occasionally outright hilarious glimpse at the most treacherous inner workings of Tinseltown. As gratifying as it always is to laugh at the movie industry's most appalling excesses, the biggest pleasure of "What Just Happened?" is watching Robert De Niro deliver one of his most understated and genuinely affecting performances in recent years. Here he plays a veteran producer named Ben who is juggling two ex-wives, two movies with problems, a midlife crisis, a troubled teenage daughter and various agents, studio executives and apparatchiks who give him no end of tsoris. (Sometimes Yiddish is the only linguistic resort.) Written by real-life producer Art Linson and based on his memoir, "What Just Happened?" brims with juicy inside jokes and cameos, including Bruce Willis as the apotheosis of the temperamental star; Sean Penn, demanding a private jet to Cannes so he can smoke on the plane; and Robin Wright Penn as Ben's second ex-wife, for whom he harbors unresolved feelings. Sometimes silly, often scathingly funny, "What Just Happened?" finally possesses a winning mix of toughness and heart.