Seth Rogen’s Toothless Hollywood Satire

In Robert Altman’s The Player (1992), a studio exec named Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) kills a screenwriter in cold blood. He mistakenly believes his victim was a stalker who had been sending death threats to his office, presumably because he rejected one of his movie ideas. Mill only greenlights 12 pitches every year, and he will only approve those that have certain audience-friendly elements, primarily happy endings. At a glitzy charity gala, Mill gives a self-aggrandizing speech arguing that film studios have “a responsibility to the public to maintain the art of motion pictures as [their] primary mandate.” In reality, though, he will happily sacrifice art on the twin altars of entertainment and capital, and step over anyone who gets in his way.