Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

adonis98-743-186503 Two weeks in the life of a fading Hollywood producer who's having a rough time trying to get his new picture made. This is without a doubt the most weird movie Robert De Niro ever starred in although the cast that follows is really great Sean Penn, Robin Wright, Kristen Stewart, John Turturro, Catherine Keener, Stanley Tucci and Bruce Willis this movie was definitely made just in order to show the inside of the big shiny Hollywood life and sure it's slow paced and boring at times but it's a fun, dumb and stupid movie with a great cast and if you turn off your brain you might like it who knows. I'm going to give What Just Happened a 7/10.

NateWatchesCoolMovies Barry Levinson's What Just Happened is an unfairly overlooked little Hollywood satire, a little less bombastic than his excellent Wag The Dog, but no less biting. It's like Entourage on Zanax, a surprisingly laid back entry into an oeuvre that is usually foaming at the mouth with frenzy. Robert De Niro plays Ben, a very stressed out movie producer who is dealing with a zillion different things at once, most of which are going wrong. The character is based partly on real life Hollywood producer Art Linson, and his book. Ben has a lead actor (Bruce Willis playing Bruce Willis) who refuses to shave his bushy beard for a film. Anyone who remembers the film The Edge with Alec Baldwin and how big his beard was in that, well, that's where the idea came from. That's just a taste of how many weird things that both Hollywood and his personal life toss at Ben. He's also in post production on a Sean Penn film (Penn also plays himself) with a very stubborn and flamboyant director named Jeremy (Michael Wincott) who refuses to cut the film in accordance with the studio's wishes (here manifested by an icy Catherine Keener). Ben's daughter (a weepy Kristen Stewart) is going through personal crisis, he's also got a bitter rivalry with an obnoxious writer (Stanley Tucci) and has to babysit an anxiety ridden agent (John Turturro). It's all a lot for him to handle and we begin to see the turmoil start to boil under Ben's cool exterior. The cast is beyond ridiculous, with additional work from Moon Bloodgood, Peter Jacobson, Lily Rabe and Robin Wright as Ben's estranged wife. Standouts include Michael Wincott who is a comic gem and gives the film it's life with his pissy, enraged and altogether charming performance. Willis is also priceless as he ruthlessly parodies himself to the hilt. It's slight, it's never too much and is probably a bit too laid back for its own good, but I had a lot of fun with it, and it's always cool to see meta movies about the inner workings of Hollywood.

Rodrigo Amaro At one time, Art Linson was one of the top film producers working in Hollywood responsible for films like "Fight Club", "The Unotuchables", "The Edge" and others. Some of his experiences in the film business were gathered in a book, and this book became this film starring Robert DeNiro, who plays a film producer that goes under the same issues Linson had in his career. "What Just Happened?" doesn't add much in terms of what we know about Hollywood and their secrets, doesn't have the same sarcasm and bite as Altman's "The Player" but it is watchable, slightly funny and has its moments.It's tough to be a famous producer in Hollywood. You have to deal with egomaniacs actors who don't want to shave their beards to make a film (Bruce Willis plays himself portraying a similar event that happened with Alec Baldwin on the set of "The Edge") delaying schedules and budget; the same holy man has to deal with actors agents, studio bosses, directors who are hard to handle because they want to protect their material, they wanna leave it as it was conceived (here comes the sickest joke of the film when the director within the movie filmed the killing of a dog, which causes a shocked reaction at the film's screening test and DeNiro has to make the editor cut down the scene). And the same producer has to take care of his ex-wives and kids, release more films and work on new developments.The guy is beat down, has a weak influence on the town and even weaker on the people who seem to push this guy down to the ground. He has to step down on everything and even when he thinks he's winning something he gets fooled again. Bottom of line is: everybody wants to move forward, no one can move one centimeter back because the only one who must do that is the producer. But in the end everything gets solved, the picture is made and everybody's happy or at least close to that since you can't embrace all audiences. This movie didn't conquered everybody at all even with a super stellar cast with names like Sean Penn, Catherine Keener, Robin Wright Penn, John Turturro, Michael Wincott, Kristen Stewart, Peter Jacobson, Stanley Tucci and the fore-mentioned Willis and DeNiro; the level of discussion about the amount of dislikes here are bigger than the Everest; and with a budget of US$25,000,000, the return was pretty low worldwide. But people missed the point of this film, and there is one if you look real closer. It's all about how a man always closer to end his career by making a giant mistake in one of his films has the ability of surprise himself and others by letting things go. He gets metaphorically beaten up by the system where he's a great star, doesn't punch back so much, seems to have all under control and when you think he's heading for a disaster that might kill his career he succeeds it. But audiences can relate with him or the other characters? Difficult but not impossible. It has its flaws, sometimes Barry Levinson loses the sense for sarcastic comedies ("Wag the Dog" was way better) and makes a film that takes too much time to display a funny moment, I mean, the screenplay doesn't work quite right. The great thing about the film is the performances, all great, most notably DeNiro and Michael Wincott, playing a tough film director that sounds like Keith Richards, the guy mentioned earlier for the dog scene, he steals the show. If the movie wanted to make its audience feel sorry for film producers out there who are trying to make their job done well it failed because they underestimate their audience, specially Hollywood producers, who only want money instead of showing a good spectacle. I don't feel sorry for them, although in this film DeNiro makes of his producer such an nice character compared to other producers presented in other films of the genre that you might feel different about the filmmaking process and how producers suffer a little bit. Good idea but it wasn't something that people really wanted to see it with such a talented cast. 8/10

nathanschubach This movie is an adaptation of film producer Art Linson's tales in the book "What Just Happened: Bitter Hollywood Tales From the Front Line," and as a movie, it's not completely boring, but it doesn't feel like I'm watching anything new. Making movies about movie-making is an old, old subject of films, and to me, it feels like a collective of actors masturbating to their industry-worship. I personally think they should have left this project alone; it works much better as a book, making anecdotes of the past instead of trying to make this Robert De Niro's producer-character life seem interesting. They use the term "melancholy-comedy" to describe what this movie is, referring to what this character is going through, much like Kevin Spacey in "American Beauty" (which coincidently has a tie to his work on "The Negotiator," and in this movie, De Niro's character refers to himself as a master negotiator of many projects). There are great lines like "In the end, no director, no stars, not even a title...just a number" (as De Niro looks towards a movie poster with nothing but a dinosaur eye and the amount they got for the film). Insider movies aren't for everyone, and this one is no exception. As a De Niro fan, I had to watch it at least twice, but I don't see myself going back to it anytime soon.