The Player

Ben Mankiewicz introduces The Player, 1992.

Ben Mankiewicz introduces The Player, 1992.

Guest host Michael Phillips introduces The Player, 1992.

A critical moment, Tim Robbins as studio exec Griffin Mill believes Kahane (Vincent D’Onofrio) is the screenwriter who’s been sending threatening post cards, offers again to buy him off, leading to a scuffle, director Robert Altman shooting outside the still-standing Rialto in South Pasadena, in The Player, 1992.

Director Robert Altman dazzling, still in the opening scene at the studio, Griffin (Tim Robbins) visits exec Joel (Brion James), with side-man Walter (Fred Ward) and a hanger-on, then at a restaurant cameos for Anjelica Huston and John Cusack, and a better look at rival Larry (Peter Gallagher), early in The Player, 1992.

Robert Altman has quasi-villain Peter Gallagher leaving and lead Tim Robbins arriving at a chic L-A lunch spot, with a parenthetical use of Burt Reynolds and critic Charles Champlin, the table of studio boss Brion James being ground zero, in a typical episode from his Hollywood satire The Player, 1992.

Robert Altman’s opening shot runs eight minutes and seven seconds, surpassing the Orson Welles shot from Touch Of Evil, 1956, referred to twice by Fred Ward, and we meet handfuls of studio people, principally Tim Robbins as exe Griffin, and Buck Henry pitching a sequel to his own movie, in The Player, 1992.