The Muse (1999)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

So much average

Perfect cast and a good story

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

"The Muse" from 1999 is an Albert Brooks film, starring Brooks, Sharon Stone, Andie MacDowell, Bradley Whitford, Mark Feuerstein, Jeff Bridges, and cameos by the likes of Wolfgang Puck, Rob Reiner, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Jennifer Tilly, Lorenzo Lamas, and others.Brooks plays Steven Phillips, a Hollywood screenwriter who has written 17 films. When he goes to a meeting at Paramount, where he has a deal, he's basically told that they want him off the lot by 5 p.m., his deal is cancelled, he's lost his "edge", and his script is terrible. And by the way, so were the last couple of films.Discouraged, and at his wife's (MacDowell's) suggestion, he goes and talks to his best friend Jack (Jeff Bridges) who explains that he used the services of a Muse, Sarah Little (Stone) for inspiration. He calls her for Steven and Steven rushes to see her. Well, this Muse is an earthly pain in the you know what. Anyone who goes to see her has to bring a gift from Tiffany. She wants to be put up at the Four Seasons, have a limo at her disposal, and health foods purchased for her. She spends perhaps five minutes with Steven, who does get an idea for a script. Meanwhile, unable to sleep, she's moved into the guest house/office on his property. She's also turned his wife into the second Mrs. Fields by encouraging her to market her cookies. Very funny comedy with the hapless Brooks nearly driven out of his mind by this woman. And the film has a delightful twist.Someone mentioned the party Wolfgang Puck throws for Steven's wife (Puck is serving her cookies). Steven gets into a conversation with a man who can't understand English and misinterprets everything he says. It is hilarious.This isn't considered Brooks' best, but given for what passes for comedy today, it's practically Pulitzer Prize material. Well worth seeing.

Albert Brooks is funny. A good comedic actor and voice-over talent. Some of the funniest scenes involve Mr. Brooks. But what a total piece of doodoo is this.Why? 1. PRETENTIOUS. I hate movies that show people living perfect, rich lifestyles with syrupy families. How many shots of Albert driving a $75k black Mercedes to his mansion in BH do we need? 2. Shameless cameos by middle-aged bloated actors. Gee, aren't I cool? I'm making a movie about the movie business, wanna do a walk on? We'll nosh after wards. Don't schwitz it! 3. Sharon Stone. Is there a more selfish, untalented actress who forced her way on to the screen that this lady? Yeesh. She's stinks as an actress and her looks are the kind of scary, barren ice queen variety that reminds me of a parasite who sucks the life force out of stupid men in Porsche's. Hideous choice.4. The story. Gee, do I care that a Hollywood screenwriter is having writer's block and can't crank out the same drivel and trash that is making America even dumber so he can support his completely vapid, boring and lazy trophy wife (nothing against Andie McDowell just talking about the story line kids)? Not to mention the weak 2nd story line of his wife becoming a cookie making sensation! Wow how novel. Another yenta wife of a rich Hollywood star making cookies! Writing a cookbook! Wow! How super! Never mind that it happens in second. Never mind that trying to sell a new chocolate chip cookie in a completely saturated market would be harder than achieving cold fusion in your garage.Anyhoo.5. Albert Brooks is one arrogant guy. He loves to be the smartest guy in the room, doesn't he? He thinks he's Einstein. Yeah, I know.6. Did I mention how completely selfish, arrogant, phony and unsympathetic the characters and the entire situation is? Just checking.If you want to see Albert Brooks at his best, see Defending Your Life, Lost in America, Broadcast News or Finding Nemo. But forget The Muse.Unless you want to waste over an hour watching obnoxiously insipid rich people cavort around LA whining about their little club of film making members. Ha ha ha. NOT.

I asked my friend as we watched this movie what it was about Sharon Stone's performance that was so weirdly off-putting, and she hit it immediately: Stone is supposed to be cute when her type is inescapably that of a femme fatale. Take that scene where she sucks on the end of a straw without handling it. She's trying to look adorable, but comes off like a cat keeping an eye out for prey.Stone, so perfect in "Basic Instinct" and "Casino," kills this comedy with her unretractable claws, but it would have been sickly even without her. Albert Brooks co-wrote, directed and starred in this Hollywood satire, a kind of weak sister to Robert Altman's "The Player." This one's about a whiny screenwriter (Brooks) whose career is hitting the skids and who needs inspiration which he finds in Sarah Little (Stone), who claims to be a real-life Muse out of Greek mythology. Brooks's friend and fellow screenwriter (Jeff Bridges) swears by her, and so do a number of other Hollywood luminaries who appear as themselves in surprise cameos. But her services come with expensive and eccentric demands, from a $1700-a-day hotel suite to a Waldorf salad at 3 A.M. Worse, she insinuates herself into his family life and inspires his wife (Andie MacDowell) to start up a cookie business.I say "worse" because this subplot gives us terrible scenes with Stone and MacDowell. Stone cannot convincingly play a nurturing friend to another woman, and MacDowell cannot play comedy. We fancy an unintended subtext: the Muse really wants to claw out the wife's eyes; and the wife expresses her disdain by speaking robotically and using exaggerated facial expressions. These two are so bad we almost forget that Brooks is also awful. His performance would be spot-on if he were parodying a whiny Jewish comedian, but he merely is one.Some independent movies have small audiences because they don't pander, while others like "The Muse" have small audiences because they deserve them. Who cares about this inside-baseball stuff anyway? Leonard Maltin says Brooks's "gibes at Hollywood are priceless", but oh how I didn't laugh at how difficult it is to meet with Steven Spielberg, and oh how my sides stayed unsplit by how show-biz types will belittle your humanitarian award. Plenty of Hollywood satires like "The Player" draw us in and fascinate us. But Brooks's "priceless" "gibes" sound like an insider chortling to himself while expecting other insiders to chortle along with him. Meanwhile, outsiders stare blankly at the screen. As for the whimsy, I quote Otis Ferguson on the light touch of fantasy in "The Wizard of Oz": "It weighs like a pound of fruit cake soaking wet."

I know that most people are very demanding of the movies they watch. That being said, I guess I'm not one of them. I have owned "The Muse" for about three years, and I usually watch it about once a year, after being reminded of its existence on cable/HBO. I always enjoy it every time I watch it. I think Sharon Stone portrays her character with class and humor; not to mention that she is one of the most stunning women ever to be in motion pictures. While I do think that by the end of this movie, you'll probably have had enough of Albert Brooks' whiney, monotonous voice, some of his lines and "sound effects" are rather funny. Andie MacDowell is a beautiful woman, and while her characters are never really memorable, I feel she is a good actress, and entertaining to watch in movies.This movie is a light-hearted, film of mindless entertainment. Certainly, it is not one for the "Hall of Fame", but if you're looking for an amusing story, with attractive scenery (who doesn't like looking at Hollywood mansions), and a plot you don't have to race to keep up with, "The Muse might be for you.