Film

What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases

Search cinema listings

Browse cinemas A-Z

Search 20,000 reviews

 

The Big Picture (1988)

Director: Christopher Guest

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Actor-turned-director Guest presents a comic cautionary tale about a young film school graduate (Bacon) seduced into the compromises necessary to make his first big picture - a snowbound country-house drama that almost ends up as a teen comedy called 'Beach Nuts'. Bacon is engagingly naive as the starstruck director whose artistic pretensions are whittled away by a slimy studio exec (Walsh). He also becomes increasingly estranged from homely girlfriend (Longstreth) and best pal cinematographer (McKean), and carnal temptation comes in the heavenly form of a TV starlet (Hatcher) who sees him as a ticket to big screen fame. The movie references may strike some as in-jokey, but Guest's likeable film has enough jaundiced sideswipes and lighter chuckles to see it through its slacker spells. Even so, an increasing sense of bittiness creeps in, emphasised by a series of cameos: loopy Jennifer Jason Leigh, an Irish John Cleese, judge Roddy McDowall, and spaced-out agent Martin Short (whose contribution alone is worth the price of admission).

Author: NF

Time Out Film Guide


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields







Top Stories

Mickey Rourke: a life in film

Mickey Rourke: a life in film

To celebrate the release of 'The Wrestler', Time Out takes a look at the highs, lows and many middles of the career of Mickey Rourke

'Milk': preview

'Milk': preview

Paul Burston, Time Out’s Gay editor, revisits milestones in gay cinema and new flick ‘Milk’, an ‘extraordinary, Oscar-worthy’ biopic of gay US politician Harvey Milk

The softer side of Sam Peckinpah

The softer side of Sam Peckinpah

Ahead of a retrospective of his films at BFI Southbank, Time Out look at the softer side of Sam Peckinpah

Best films of 2008

Best films of 2008

Time Out’s film critics remember 2008’s silver screen highs, lows and welcome reissues

Sir David Hare: interview

Sir David Hare: interview

Wally Hammond meets Sir David Hare to talk about his latest screen adaptation, which tackles Bernhard Schlink’s post-Holocaust romance ‘The Reader’

Spring film preview 2009

Spring film preview 2009

Take a peek at what the Time Out Film team are looking forward to in the new year with our spring film preview