Whether or not what James Toback and Alec Baldwin reveal about the movie industry (and what they reveal is, essentially, the movie industry) is news to you, their film Seduced and Abandoned is a brisk, breezy, elucidating film with an engaging subject and even more engaging subjects. They go to Cannes with the intention of pitching 'Last Tango in Tikrit' - not the film's real name, but then it's not a real film either, surely... surely... - to the Cannes film market. The only surprising aspect of the film is how unaware the pair seems of this enormous market, or at least how unaware they are willing to appear. Cos these two slimeballs sure know how to grease up a goose! It'll star Alec and Neve Campbell. They want $50 million. They must be joking. Who cares if they are or not? This project will never make money (heck, it'll never even be made), and investors are damn frank about its prospects. Neve is involved from early on; she doesn't attend Cannes, instead dangling with her dunce hat on back in the US - making this mostly a film about fat old men having conversations. Some fat old men though, huh? Polanski, Bertolucci, Coppola, Scorsese, and the occasional hot young Hollywood star, roped in in good faith and with good humour, as perhaps the notion of being interviewed by a filmmaker while at Cannes trumps yet another interview with the press. Even James Toback. An airy, artless film, it's nevertheless extremely watchable. I won't even begin to wonder why the music of Shostakovich was used as the soundtrack, but if it distracted me from what was being said and shown on screen, what a fine distraction it was!
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