Big Picture, The

"The Big Picture" is a very amusing jab at the movie industry by co-writer/director Christopher Guest, best known as an actor playing the six-fingered villain in "The Princess Bride" and a goofy wacked-out rock musician in "This Is Spinal Tap."

It's a gentle jab, to be sure, and some critics have complained that "The Big Picture" doesn't seem to have a hard enough edge. They can stick with "S.O.B." if they like, but audiences are more likely to respond to this funny look at a young, idealistic, albeit misguided film student (Bacon) who finds he's willing to compromise those ideals for an inside track that leads to Hollywood's fast lane.

Needless to say, he turns into a jerk along the way as he begins "taking meetings" with slimy producers (represented wonderfully by J.T. Walsh) and signs on with a weird agent (a hilarious extended cameo by Martin Short).

The plot is familiar, but Guest and his co-writers (Michael McKean, who is also very good as Bacon's best friend, and Michael Varhol, co-writer of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure") have come up with some wonderful twists on the theme.

First there are the student films that start off "The Big Picture," several hysterical minipictures ranging from an amateurish courtroom drama (featuring cameos by Stephen Collins, Roddy McDowall, Elliott Gould and June Lockhart) to a self-indulgent swashbuckling adventure to Bacon's own nightmarish black-and-white cross between an Ingmar Bergman film, a John Hughes comedy and "Citizen Kane."

Then there are the fantasies, during which Bacon imagines himself in scenes that exploit movie cliches, ranging from film noir to a spoof of "It's a Wonderful Life" (the latter featuring a cameo by John Cleese).

And finally there's Bacon's dream film, a pretentious black-and-white movie he longs to make and which suspiciously resembles one of Woody Allen's forays into "serious" filmmaking. A deft touch has the characters in this movie looking puzzled as Bacon compromises his vision.

Toward the end, as Bacon is finding himself through wacky music videos (with help from a self-consciously trendy friend, delightfully played by Jennifer Jason Leigh), "The Big Picture" begins to feel a bit sluggish, but never really runs out of steam.

All in all this is a terrific comedy that punctures Hollywood's pretentiousness but is never mean-spirited about it. And that's not a criticism from this corner.