An Alan Smithee Film: Burn, Hollywood, Burn (1998)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

There's enough of a shameful cloud hanging over "Burn Hollywood Burn", but you just have to see it to know exactly why. And it's almost awe-inspiring how badly this has been put together. It's a long 86 minutes, never funny, and it totally squanders its roster of name actors. Among them, Ryan O'Neal fares the worst, while Richard Jeni and non-actor Harvey Weinstein emerge unscathed. Somewhere in all of this is a film industry satire, but there's no consistency in the cutting and the parade of talking heads gets old very quickly. The irony in the title (that Arthur Hiller himself became the Alan Smithee gimmick that this is skewering) is the funniest thing about this movie.I can't recommend this to anyone.3/10

Anyone who doesn't like this film, and there are a lot who don't, obviously has no idea of how Hollywood works. It's a funny film, it's got a lot of pace, good performances and lots of stars. The story is quite good, and the reversal of fortunes quite believable.You don't have to work in Hollywood to understand this movie, a bit of imagination is all it takes. If you liked "The Player" you will like this. It's Robert Altman type funny. I would also compare it to the Larry David Show.Also don't stop watching once the credits roll, there are some great parts all the way through to the end.

Burn Hollywood Burn is a terrible movie in every sense of the word and its only redeeming quality is because of an accident that occurred after filming concluded.On concept this high brow yet simple movie of mockery is a thing of genius. I mean make a movie about a guy named Alen Smithee whom is losing control of a big budget movie. However, he cannot disavow the movie because he is the "fake name" he is Alen Smithee. Now thats funny (but maybe only if you know movie history?) Perhaps it is to high brow because nobody went to see this film. OR perhaps it is to English (ie Eric Idle as the leading role). Or perhaps it is just plan terrible.The movie basically, rather than poking fun at Hollywood and the stream of never ending big budget special effect extravaganzas (which Eric Idle's character is making 1 of), pokes fun at itself instead. It jokes about the movie being made is worse than Showgirls (BHB is from the writer of Showgirls), but in reality the movie (BHB) itself is worse than Showgirls.The actors just don't have any fun and are not very good.They are stuck in the middle of hamming it up and actually acting.This is probably because the fake movie is supposed to be bad, but instead that badness overflows into the real movie.Jackie Chan, Sly Stallone, and Whoppie Goldberg cameo as overpaid and past their prime actors demanding huge wages and silly concessions and while some aspects are true, they don't all apply to the actors (Jackie Chan wanting like red M&ms taken out or something?) Anyway, the movie turned out to be directed by Alan Smithee which is almost a saving grace, but it had to be the writers cut which survived to get that moniker and not the directors cut. (the incident occurring after filming wrapped) Perhaps doing as such was a lame attempt to save a lame movie, but this movie about making a bad movie turned out to be just that= aka A BAD movie

"A mockumentary of a mockumentary" is the best term I can think of describe this random, self-conflicted attempt at Hollywood self-parody.Supposedly, a first-time director whose real name is Alan Smithee directs a huge summer blockbuster called Trio. But he thinks his movie stinks, so he steals the film canisters. Cue lots of faux interviews with studio heads, big-budget stars, family members, and random other people who wander in and out of the story.The movie is supposed to be a lampoon of Hollywood. But everyone in this picture acts like they're afraid to reveal too much information about what they're supposed to be lampooning, as if too good a roasting of executive-Hollywood hubris might cost them a future role. Sylvester Stallone and Whoopi Goldberg in particular seem terrified that anyone might find out that A-list movie stars like themselves really ARE as demanding and arrogant as the parody script portrays them. Gasp gasp.So the whole thing has a tone of "let's make fun of the boss but we're not sure if he's watching or if he'll think it's funny so let's tone it down." Compromise comedy never works.On top of that, the real movie Burn Hollywood Burn seems to have suffered all the calamities that the fictional movie Trio did. You've got your petulant cast, a script that's been over-written into a nonsensical blob, and a director who removes his name from the credits. Everything except the master copy being stolen. Unfortunately.As a result of all these conflicting forces, Burn Hollywood Burn becomes a mockumentary of a mockumentary. It's Hollywood making fun of Hollywood making fun of Hollywood. It's self-parody taken to a new extreme of recursiveness.And as final tribute to the complete insincerity of this production, there are outtakes in the final credits. Outtakes, in a movie where everybody plays parody versions of themselves. Shouldn't the outtakes BE the movie?