This is a very funny movie written and directed by David Mamet. His script requires some close attention, though, as the jokes are subtle and come at you out of left field.The cast is excellent: Clark Gregg, Charles Durning, Christopher Kaldor, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, David Paymer, and Rebecca Pidgeon, to name too few. The plot is tight, the dialogue is fast-paced, and the actors deliver with great precision and aplomb.Macy plays the director of a movie that has had to leave its earlier location for a reason that leaks out of the dialogue without ever being stated. And we watch as history repeats itself with the inevitability of history itself. Macy's character, Walt Price, is a lying, conniving, manipulative, unfeeling jerk that Macy keeps from being unlikeable by showing us that Walt _needs_ to be all those things to get the film in the can.Walt Price and his crew are trying to shoot a film in a small town in Vermont, where the residents are wowed by the attention. Mamet's script is a silent riot, as we see the rubes go from reading the local paper to Variety, all in the background, so if you're not paying attention to the background, you're missing a substantial part of the humor and foreshadowing of what's going to happen. Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, so lawyers are brought in, cash is brought in, and love is brought in. Rebecca Pidgeon is great as the straight-faced, straight-talking love interest for Hoffman, and Hoffman delivers a great performance as Mamet -- the writer of art who gets the full Hollywood treatment and who must decide between love/art and seduction/corruption. As Hoffman's character keeps saying, it's all about purity.This is a very funny movie, and I wouldn't want to be an associate producer. (Oh, and be sure to watch through the credits and read them. Only 2 animals were harmed during the production of this movie!)

This very enjoyable witty and sophisticated parody of an independent motion picture company selecting a small town in Vermont as a location to make a major film, after being ejected from a small town in New Hampshire (for some unspecified bad behavior), is kind of a David Mamet family project. Mamet is credited as the writer and director. The most compelling character in the film, Ann, who owns and runs the town's book store and heads the town drama club, is played excellently by Mamet's wife, Rebecca Pidgeon. Her brother, Matthew Pidgeon, has a bit part as a British TV newscaster, Mamet's brother Tony plays an electrician. While on the subject of the cast, Broadway musical great Patti LuPone does a nice job, in a very minor role, as the small town Mayor's wife who apparently has high society ambitions and apparently money enough to back up that ambition. She is not someone you want to make angry because the Mayor (Charles Durning effortlessly playing a kind of mild- mannered role I've seen him in before) is also the Town Council. As long as his wife is happy he is thrilled to have the company use his town. Major movie star and heartthrob Bob Barrenger (Alec Baldwin), the male lead of the movie that the fictional film company is making, is an oblivious sex addict with a taste for underage girls. His activities are one of the major problems the film director (William H. Macy) and producers face. Another is that the lead actress (Sarah Jessica Parker), who was cast because of her contractual agreement to play a nude scene as she has done in several earlier films, has changed her mind. A third crisis for the producers has to do with the town's historic mill that was the main reason they chose the town, and a fourth is a splendid stained glass window that is in the way of a crucial camera shot.I would have preferred that the film had a different title than " State and Main." Perhaps something such as "The Old Mill Set" or "Second Chance." I think I noticed two goofs in the film: When a date on the white board has to be written again because it is accidentally erased, it is clearly rewritten on the same date as the original. In a critical later scene it is at a different date. The other is Joseph Turner White (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the fictional first time screenwriter and author of the fictional book the fictional film is based on, says at one point that he has perjured himself although he knows at that time that he was not really under oath when he lied. When watching "State and Main," don't turn it off before the credits or you'll miss some of the wit.

Recap: A film team practically invades a small rural town in Vermont after being kicked out of their last intended shooting location. Short on cash, short on time and with a lot of people talented in finding trouble they must convince the townsfolk to let the shoot their movie, and use their building. Problem is, the building they want to use burned downed in 1960.Comments: A movie about all the small things that complicate your life as a movie producer or director. Never mind that you're short on cash and time, but when your lead star has an improper taste for (too) young girls, your shooting location burnt down a few decades ago and a town council member really hates you, then you almost appreciate the small troubles of life.This intention to make the movie a hectic, intense and funny project that finds trouble everywhere it goes is also it biggest problem. There are so many small sub-plots that none of them are given much time to grow and evolve. The result is that there are a lot of small "ha-ha"s but you never got a joke that really is given time to build up and make you roll on the floor laughing.It is nice, not hilarious. But it does redeem itself a little at the end, where it actually connects a lot of these sub-plots in one scene. And it also got a good cast with a few actually making a little something with the scarce screen time they get with so many plots to go around. I think especially of Macy, Stiles and Hoffman.But I had expected more. A laugh or two maybe. Something to get the movie going. Something extra. Unfortunately I got a little disappointed.5/10

This is a great and very fun film.The performances are great.The film is about a director and actors who go to a little town to shoot a movie.But shooting the movie will be very difficult.David Mamet made an excellent film.The script is brilliant,and some situations are really original.This is a great parody to the industry of the cinema.William H.Macy,Philip S.Hoffman and Alec Baldwin make the best performances on this movie.I totally recommend this movie to everyone,specially to fans of the cinema because on this movie you see that making a movie is something really difficult.Rating: 9