An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn

Many users have said this is a really bad film. A totally rubbish film. But this film is really a brilliantly funny film; it's so full of irony, every line form start to finish. Sadly the US audience doesn't understand irony so the film flopped. But if you're British you will like this film.

Example. The person who plays the director is Eric Idle, From Monty Pythons Flying Cirrus, and an ironic joke in itself. WATCH THIS FILM.

How could this many people hate a film so much? I'm giving it a 10 just so the average will go up a little. If you liked spinal tap and Waiting for Guffman then this movie is a must, but like spinal tap, it's all about dialog, like Stallone's observation of the immaculate conception in the Rocky movies truely great. If you are looking for a great action movie with big stars then the joke is on you. This is maybe the most realist portrail of how the movie business works maybe that's why people don't like this movie because it takes all the "magic" out it and shows how the public is completely "played" by the movie companies (people don't like it when a movie shows how easily the general public is manipulated). Much like another movie everybody hated "the last action hero" cars don't blow up when you shoot them, chances are you'll break your hand trying to punch your way through a windshield etc..

I laughed all the way though this movie from the first 5 seconds till the end (When I realized I had been duped). Maybe americans can't get it but I guess I was lucky. This is Ryan O' Neil's best role in years and Coolio and Chuck D are perfect as the Brother Brothers (Cosacks), Richard Jeni is classic. Its amazing the movie ever got made,,not because it's bad, but because it shows the blatant prostitution of the movie business.

This is a comedy and you are the joke,,,relax and laugh at yourself

I disagree with the people here saying this is one of the worst films ever made. I'm somewhat of a connosieur of bad films, and that just isn't the case. It's competently put together from front to back, but the script definitely could have used another draft or two.

At its worst, it's just unfunny, not mind-bendingly horrible as some would have you to believe. Certainly if you know nothing about the inner workings of Hollywood you won't understand the references and almost none of it will be funny.

I'm sure there were lots of references I didn't understand -- I get the feeling people working in Hollywood would get more out of this movie than the rest of us. One odd reference is the repeated name of "Michael Ovitz" throughout the movie. It appears in the song "I Wanna Be Michael Ovitz" in the soundtrack, there's a "Paging Dr. Ovitz..." in the background in a hospital, etc. It's not quite clear what writer Eszterhas's feelings toward Ovitz are -- does he hate him or look up to him?

Another thing I don't understand is why director Arthur Hiller felt he had to change his credit to "Alan Smithee", except that it's amusingly appropriate. Looking at the film, I can't imagine that it was changed too radically in the editing, except perhaps the ultra-acidic put-downs on the title cards that introduce new characters.

'Burn Hollywood Burn' isn't bad. It's actually entertaining if you have a twisted, shameless enough fascination with the mechanics of the entertainment industry, as I do. The lying, deceiving and stonewalling tactics played out all over the story (such as it is) shows us one comical scenario of Tinseltown. My favorite bits were the cameo scenes by producer Robert Evans. For him to get in front of the camera again after so many years took some cajones. He plays it very cool though, Mr. Blame-It-On-The-Bossa-Nova. I rented the flick for two bucks one night, it was worth the two bucks.

If you are in the feature film industry, what makes this picture so funny is the close parody... some of the characters appear to be modeled on real people. It would not be too far a stretch of the imagination to believe that two of the characters are parodies of Peter Guber and John Peters of Sony Pictures. Read the true story of these two guys' careers, documented in the book, Hit and Run, then watch Burn Hollywood Burn again. You will probably find the film twice as entertaining as the first time you watched it. After having last watched the film 7 years ago, I bought the DVD this week because I wanted to see if I could grab the title track that I liked, and I also clearly remembered (and liked) the graffiti art that was drawn for the movie title. Once I got the DVD in my hands, though, I watched the film all the way through again, and enjoyed it every bit as much as the first time I saw it.