Hollywood is such a duplicitous, back-stabbing, narcissistic pit of weasels and vipers that making a satire about it should be no more difficult than, say, getting a gram of cocaine delivered to a 90210 address at four in the morning. And yet the conundrum is this: If you really tell it like it is, you can kiss your career goodbye. Hollywood, no less so than the Mafia, relies on a code of silence. Sure, you may have to eat dirt now, but suck it up, and in a few years, you'll be the one serving it to others.
Every now and then, someone — usually some poor sap with no bridges left to burn — comes along and speaks the truth, in books such as Julia Philips' "You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again" and David Mamet's "Bambi vs. Goliath," or films like Robert Altman's "The Player" and David Rabe's "Hurlyburly" (a personal fave). Yet these are remarkably rare occasions.
Director Barry Levinson, with a stable 28-year career that stretches from "Diner" to "Wag the Dog" and beyond, didn't seem like a prime candidate to engage in anything so bold. And sure enough, his Hollywood insider comedy "What Just Happened?" (Japan title: "Trouble in Hollywood") attempts to cut steak with a butter knife.