History Literature / ThePlayer

* CelebrityCameo: Tons and tons of them: Music/HarryBelafonte, Creator/GaryBusey, Music/{{Cher}}, Creator/JamesCoburn, Creator/AnjelicaHuston, Creator/JeffGoldblum, Creator/MalcolmMcDowell, Creator/JackLemmon, Creator/BurtReynolds, Creator/JuliaRoberts, Creator/SusanSarandon, Creator/BruceWillis,... and those are just a handful of the ''actors''. Appearances are also made by well-known producers, screenwriters, and directors. Most of whom worked for nothing; if they were charged their normal asking prices, the film's budget would've exceeded $100 million.

* EpicTrackingShot: The film opens with an amazing ''eight minute take'' setting the scene at the studio.

* [[ShowWithinAShow Film Within A Film]]: We see many being proposed. The most prominent one is called ''Habeas Corpus''.

* TheyPlottedAPerfectlyGoodWaste: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] and InUniverse. The [[FilmWithinAFilm in-film movie]] ''Habeas Corpus'', initially pitched for its "reality" is later described by Griffin Mill at one point as a hairbrained idea with "no second act" and no overarching plot or conflict between the setup and its conclusion. This proves true when its later revealed that the original ending was not received well by test audiences, which [[ExecutiveMeddling compelled the studio to fit the premise to their more usual formula]]. In the end, even the film's writer reverses his initial opinion on bringing "reality" in movies.

HighConcept: Set in the film industry, this is now a textbook for how to make film pitches.

** Griffin Mill is a hack and executive. He initially talks up his love for ''The Bicycle Thief'', the Italian classic to the writer who points out that he would never allow a film in that style to be made in Hollywood today. Later, he attends a gala event procalaiming cinema as art and dropping names of outsider film-makers like Creator/OrsonWelles while still shilling the same shlock day-in-and-day-out.

* HideYourPregnancy: Greta Scacchi wears caftans throughout the first part of the movie, as well as being shown soaking in a body-covering mud bath. At the end, she is able to show her pregnancy as it is appropriate to her character at that point in the story.
* HighConcept: Set in the film industry, this is now a textbook for how to make film pitches.

* XMeetsY: The pitches Griffin hears inevitably get simplified into something familiar, like "''Film/PrettyWoman'' meets Film/OutOfAfrica" or "''Film/{{Ghost}}'' meets ''Film/TheManchurianCandidate''."

->''"[[BlatantLies No stars,]] [[ItMakesSenseInContext just talent.]]"''

* RougeAnglesOfSatin: The first death threat we see reads "YOUR DEAD!"

** Richard E. Grant's screenwriter initially defends "Habeas Corpus" as a serious edgy crime drama with a DownerEnding and fights for it to Griffin Mill, [[spoiler:by the end he has cheerfully and cyncially become a SellOut, happily taking the bigger cheque and deal offered to him by Mill]].

* TheyPlottedAPerfectlyGoodWaste: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] and InUniverse. The [[ShowWithinAShow in-film movie]] ''Habeas Corpus'', initially pitched for its "reality" is later described by Griffin Mill at one point as a hairbrained idea with "no second act" and no overarching plot or conflict between the setup and its conclusion. This proves true when its later revealed that the original ending was not received well by test audiences, which [[ExecutiveMeddling compelled the studio to fit the premise to their more usual formula]]. In the end, even the film's writer reverses his initial opinion on bringing "reality" in movies.

* AntiHero

* ComfortingTheWidow

* CreatorCareerSelfDeprecation: This movie is a very rare example of Hollywood willing to poke fun at themselves. Naturally it was directed by a more independent cineast: Creator/RobertAltman.

* HorribleHollywood: In spades.
* HyperlinkStory

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Griffin. You know, our '''hero'''.

* FocusGroupEnding: Mocked; Griffin uses this justification for changing the DownerEnding of ''Habeas Corpus.''

* PoliceLineup: Griffin appears in one, and a witness's mistake lets him get off the hook.
* {{Postmodernism}}: As with many of Altman's films, ''The Player'' operates on multiple panes of reality; see TheyPlottedAPerfectlyGoodWaste.

* TheyPlottedAPerfectlyGoodWaste: Many of the film's motifs mirror that of the [[ShowWithinAShow in-film movie]] [[ExecutiveMeddling the executives are tampering with]]. Not only do both have a [[FocusGroupEnding "Hollywood ending"]], but they also have big-name actors and arbitrary sex.

* XMeetsY: The pitches Griffin hears inevitably get simplified into something familiar, like "''Film/TheGodsMustBeCrazy'' except the coke bottle is an actress," or "''Film/{{Ghost}}'' meets ''Film/TheManchurianCandidate''."

* CelebrityCameo: Tons and tons of them: Music/HarryBelafonte, Creator/GaryBusey, Music/{{Cher}}, Creator/JamesCoburn, Creator/WhoopiGoldberg, Creator/AnjelicaHuston, Creator/JeffGoldblum, Creator/MalcolmMcDowell, Creator/JackLemmon, Creator/BurtReynolds, Creator/JuliaRoberts, Creator/SusanSarandon, Creator/BruceWillis,... and those are just a handful of the ''actors''. Appearances are also made by well-known producers, screenwriters, and directors. Most of whom worked for nothing; if they were charged their normal asking prices, the film's budget would've exceeded $100 million.

* CelebrityCameo: Tons and tons of them: Music/HarryBelafonte, Creator/GaryBusey, Music/{{Cher}}, Creator/JamesCoburn, Creator/WhoopiGoldberg, Creator/AnjelicaHuston, Creator/JeffGoldblum, Creator/MalcolmMcDowell, Creator/JackLemmon, Creator/BurtReynolds, Creator/JuliaRoberts, Creator/SusanSarandon, Creator/BruceWillis,... and that's just a few. Most of whom worked for nothing; if they were charged their normal asking prices, the film's budget would've ballooned to $100 million+.
** The guy proposing a sequel to ''Film/TheGraduate'' was one of the original screenwriters of that film.

* DoubleMeaningTitle: InUniverse, in another context, the literal translation of the proposed "LawProcedural" ''Habeas Corpus'' ("produce the corpse") also signifies the fact that the screenwriters are pitching a completely ludicrous idea for a movie that has no chance of being successful. Griffin points out the absurdity of it all when he notes that Tom Oakley's pitch distinctly lacks a [[ThreeActStructure Second Act]]; in the originally proposed story, there wouldn't be any meaningful development of the plot or its main character (the District Attorney) until after [[ShockingSwerve a sudden plot twist]] near the very conclusion. Later [[ExecutiveMeddling studio changes]] after the film gets produced only only take an already absurd premise (for a movie) and make it even stranger.

* WritersSuck: Pitches become so much more important than finished scripts that Larry Levy arrives at the studio to argue that writers are unnecessary to the filmmaking process; anybody can just spin a story pitch out of a newspaper article and follow [[ThreeActStructure a simple, easy to understand formula]].

* WritersSuck: Pitches become so much more important than finished scripts that Larry Levy arrives at the studio to argue that writers are unnecessary to the filmmaking process; anybody can just spin a pitch out of a newspaper article and follow [[ThreeActStructure a simple, easy to understand formula]].

* WritersSuck: At best, they're too busy making pitches to actually write screenplays. At worst, they're outright murderers. (Not that anyone else in the business looks any better.)

* {{Defictionalization}}: Attempted; according to Michael Tolkin, a production company tried to have him option a real life version of ''Habeas Corpus.''

* ThrowItIn: The cameo stars improvised their lines.

* TheCameo: Tons and tons of them, most of whom worked for nothing; if they were charged their normal asking prices, the film's budget would've ballooned to $100 million+.

* CreatorCareerSelfDeprecation: This movie is a very rare example of Hollywood willing to poke fun at themselves. Naturally it was directed by a more independent cineast: Creator/RobertAltman.

* WritersSuck: At best, they're too busy making pitches to actually write screenplays. At worst, they're outright murderers.

A 1988 satirical novel by Michael Tolkin, ''The Player'' was brought to the screen in 1992 by Creator/RobertAltman with a screenplay also by Tolkin. The film version starred Tim Robbins, Peter Gallagher and a '''ton''' of stars as themselves.

Griffin Mill is a sleazy studio executive whose job it is to decide which screenplays get produced. He finds his life threatened by a stalker, supposedly a screenwriter whose pitch he once rejected. In a confrontation with a disgruntled screenwriter he believes to be the stalker, they get into a confrontation and he accidentally kills him. Naturally, this is where things go to hell for Griffin, not helped by not being certain he was the right man in the first place.

Griffin Mill is a sleazy studio executive whose job it is to decide which screenplays get produced. He finds his life threatened by a stalker, supposedly a screenwriter whose pitch he once rejected. The stalker’s threats drive him over the edge, and he ends up [[spoiler:killing the wrong man]]. Naturally, this is where things go to hell for him.

->[[BlatantLies No stars,]] [[ItMakesSenseInContext just talent.]]
-->-- '''Griffin Mill'''

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