geminiredblue Having spent the better half of the last 7 years working on both sides of the camera, I can sympathize with filmmakers and actors. Most people have this mistaken notion that "All you have to do is push a button and act a little here and there." But that is not the case at all. Whenever the camera is rolling and the director calls "ACTION", practically anything could happen... and often does! What's so great about LIVING IN OBLIVION is that Tom DiCillo turns the camera around and shows us what really happens behind the scenes. And nothing is spared. We get to see the odd mix of nerves, ennui, exhaustion, desperation, disappointments, and surprises, deftly handled with a comedic touch. Steve Buscemi (who is no stranger to directing) gives his best performance as Nick Reve, the quirky director who tries to keep everything from falling apart. And if ever a struggling filmmaker needed some inspiration, this movie would grant it! For anyone thinking of making a movie, I'd highly recommend watching this movie and "American Movie" on a double bill!

mhantholz I stood this for 41:33---root canal is more bearable than this gruesomely predictable time- waster from the indie psycho ward. All the by-the-numbers indie elements are here: zero budget, non-existent production value, flaccid pace,"edgy" characters (=weirdos), cut-&-paste "script" (no more than a collection of notions about what a film *really* is)---in other words, the same old indie riff.*Yawn* They crank these things out, like sausages, for the tax break that these born-to-lose duds provide- --their only reason for being. These indie dogs have a liturgical quality---lovable losers struggling through life, make you laugh/make you cry, blase blase. Absolutely nothing new here. The inevitable Steve Buscemi--- hideously loathsome in the stomach-turning "Ghost World" (2001), is here doing his indie thing (=pre-psychotic nut-job) for the ten thousandth time. Next case. This is pure indie, to the bone: ad infinitum, ad nauseum, ad absurdum. There will always be a small hard-core audience for junk like this, just like the market for '70s TV sit-coms, banjo music, political "documentaries", etc. "Bad & The Beautiful" (1951) and "Le Mepris/Contempt" (1963) are the real-deal films about movie-making, made by pros who knew what they were doing---but for grown-up adults only. Indie-stoner characters will salivate over this, for sure---they're an easy sell. It's worth noting this pimple got SEVEN "awards". From whom, and for what ? "Citizen Kane" (1941) only got three.

gheyworth Just one of the most engaging, likable, watchable films I've ever seen.What?!!! I am not going to write 9 more lines of fluff to satisfy some arbitrary requirement by the web site. You want a comment to improve the site? Stop with the 10 line minimum. Brevity is the soul of wit. Q.E.D.Now is the time for all good men...I could have Danced all night, I could have danced all night and still have begged for...Oh, Hi, White Fang. Is that meringue pie for me?The good ol' song of Wah-hoo-Wah, We'll sing it o'er and o'er... It cheers our heart and warms our blood, To hear them shout and roar.

Galina "Living in Oblivion" (1995) - is a 91 minutes long low-budget independent movie about trials and tribulations during making a low budget independent movie called.. "Living in Oblivion". Writer-director Tom DiCillo made in 1991 a film called "Johnny Suede" starring a young and unknown at the time actor named Brad Pitt. "Johnny Suede" was a failure with both critics and viewers but an artist can learn from any experience however disappointing or devastating it is. DiCillo wrote a short story from his frustration and turned his experience into a smart, funny, playful, and highly enjoyable second feature "Living in Oblivion" that takes place during one day of shooting a low budget film. Photographed with the color-to-black-and-white transitions, "Living in Oblivions" has surreal, strangely poetic and amusing quality to it.The cast is solid and consists of DiCillo's friends who are the regulars in his films. Steve Buscemi, the king of independent movies, in the rare starring role, plays Nick Reve, a long-haired, dedicated but frustrated director who in the moments of creative inspiration has to get back to earth and to deal with the tensions between his leading lady (Catherine Keener, before her star-making turn in "Being John Malkovich" but already a wonderfully talented beautiful and sexy actress) with whom he is silently in love and the male star, arrogant egotist Chad Palomino (James LeGros does an un-flattering but hilarious and quite accurate impersonation of the real life model for Chad). If these problems are not enough, there is eye-patch wearing sensitive leather-clad cameraman named Wolf (Dermot Mulroney) who went through a painful break-up right on the set. There is a great scene with an irritated dwarf Tito (Peter Dinklage) who was hired for a dream sequence and who hates dreams with the dwarfs in them: "Have you ever had a dream with a dwarf in it? Do you know anyone who's had a dream with a dwarf in it? No! I don't even have dreams with dwarfs in them. The only place I've seen dwarfs in dreams is in stupid movies like this!" There is also a smoke machine that explodes every time when turned on...And to top it all, Nick's senile mother surprisingly shows up during the shot and eventually saves the dream sequence and the movie. That's what the mothers are for, aren't they?