Word: tolkin
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Peter and Katherine (Peter Weller and Judy Davis) are bored and careless. They lose jobs, take on lovers, futz around with guru-driven spirituality and dress to the nines. You could argue, as writer-director Michael Tolkin doubtless did when he was pitching The New Age, that they are perfect exemplars of chic anomie as it manifests itself in postmodern -- or postrational -- Los Angeles. You could also argue, as people whose malls don't yet contain an Issey Miyake boutique might, that they are hopeless twits...
...possible that Tolkin, who in 1992 adapted his own novel, The Player, for the screen, harbored satirical hopes for this project. But as a director he lacks the antic eye that (often enough to keep us interested) rescues Robert Altman from depression and pretension. Tolkin just doesn't know how to position himself -- far enough from his characters to make fun of them, close enough to them to retain our sympathy. And the question of whether they will make a go of Hipocracy, the upmarket clothing store they decide to open, is not a compelling one. Shopkeeping cannot compare...
...children and facing at mid-life a personal or career crisis that reminds boomers of the need for moorings. "You have to start thinking about God in the face of how to raise children in a society that has lost all connection to God," says Hollywood screenwriter- director Michael Tolkin, 42. He has ended up a more prayerful Jew than his liberal parents after seeking religious training for his children...
Robert Altman's The Player has the razorsharp quality of a grudge long nursed by lucid bitterness. Adapted by Michael Tolkin from his own book, the film plays like every screenwriter's revenge fantasy. With strychnine-laced, on-target humor, Altman's movie dissects Hollywood as if it were a corpse that hasn't quite died...
...that its satire is too inside. In the opening scene, for instance, the studio executive played by Tim Robbins sits listening to a series of real-life screenwriters pitching plausibly dopey movie ideas -- among them Buck Henry, who co-wrote The Graduate, proposing a ridiculous Graduate sequel. Michael Tolkin, who wrote the screenplay and the 1988 novel on which The Player is based, also appears in the film as a screenwriter. But all the in-jokes are a secondary pleasure, not the essence. Even if you don't know what turnaround means, The Player is a satisfying thriller -- and besides...