Word: mamet
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...hero of a David Mamet movie, of House of Games, Homicide, Oleanna or his newest, finest shell game, The Spanish Prisoner. In this diamond-hard, ice-cold thriller, young Joe Ross (Campbell Scott) has developed a secret "process" worth billions to his company, whose chief (Ben Gazzara) is slow to give Joe credit and quick to worry about someone stealing the process. In the company Joe has an ally (Ricky Jay) and a No. 1 fan, a perkily sarcastic secretary (Rebecca Pidgeon). But Joe is tempted to confide in Jimmy Dell (Steve Martin), a mysterious fellow with a wise warning...
...chased and pretty much treated like another Joseph, in Kafka's The Trial (original German title: Der Prozess). But don't let the pedigree fool you. The Spanish Prisoner is exemplary entertainment. Come expecting a dour jeremiad on man's corruptibility--or even a slice-of-lice drama like Mamet's American Buffalo or Glengarry Glen Ross--and you'll be pleasantly surprised. The villains in The Spanish Prisoner (like the war-games con men in Mamet's Wag the Dog script) dress well, speak softly and carry a silver stiletto. They kill for sport...
DIED. J.T. WALSH, 54, character actor and specialist in obdurate personae; of a heart attack; outside San Diego. Walsh's sense of icy machismo made him perfect for David Mamet's anomic world; the playwright gave Walsh his first big break when he cast him in the 1984 Broadway production of Glengarry Glen Ross. Walsh did not start acting until he was 30, yet he brought his skill to nearly 60 film roles, including a turn as John Ehrlichman in Nixon and recently as a redneck kidnapper in the 1997 thriller Breakdown...
There are, of course, some major flaws in Mamet's screenplay, not least of which is the basic premise itself. Would the American public really forget about the President being an alleged pedophile and suddenly turn all attention to Albania? The answer, of course, is a resounding no. In satirizing the intelligence of the masses, the film accidentally overestimates their gullibility...
...cause is easy. But what if we say we don't care why he died? (We do.) Then what if he was really on the verge of pulling out of the spin? He had been talking about doing the Fatty Arbuckle story, from a script that David Mamet wrote just for him. A movie movie. In which he would neither crush furniture with his cascading body nor walk into a glass door and then rub his head until his hair stuck out all over. He would not be playing a fat white ninja. He called the Arbuckle idea "a departure...