Chase_Witherspoon Talky fantasy-comedy with the sardonic Albert Brooks playing a struggling screen-writer who re-discovers his mojo after he's introduced by buddy Jeff Bridges to a mysterious muse (Stone) who holds the power to inspire creativity and success - at a price.The only trouble I had with this picture were some of the performances, Brooks & Stone in particular, which seemed self-indulgent and more than a little sarcastic in their delivery of the wry dialogue. Bridges seems fairly sincere in his role as a journalist whose career nose-dive has been recovered by Stone's influence, while Andie MacDowell plays the neurotic Brooks' savvy wife with assurance, the two coming off as the film's more likable characters.It's an interesting concept and the script is full of smart one-liners in a very hit and miss affair; low key, a sort of "inside" Hollywood story that's perhaps more for the actors and the audience.

Robert J. Maxwell Albert Brooks, who wrote this and acted in it, is a Hollywood screenwriter who's being rejected with every script he submits. He lives in a mansion with his wife, Andie MacDowell, and is going nuts because he won't be able to support his family. A successful writer friend, Jeff Bridges, puts him in touch with a muse, a Greek spirit known for inspiring artists. The muse is Sharon Stone. And she is some work of art. She not only impinges on the lives of Brooks and his family. She takes them over.She has demanding tastes, grows quickly bored with the suite at the Four Seasons that Brooks is paying for. She has a whim of iron, sending Brooks out for Waldorf salad from Spago in the middle of the night. She's friendly towards Brooks' wife and urges her to begin the commercial cookie-making career that she's discarded over the years. MacDowell follows Stone's advice and finds self-fulfillment before the oven.Meanwhile, Brooks is going nuts. He's spending money and time keeping Sharon Stone satisfied but he's getting very little inspiration out of her. An occasional, off-the-cuff suggestion -- that's all. Brooks develops a script based on her hints but reaches a block at the end of Act II, with his protagonist owning an aquarium and nowhere else to go. He presses her abjectly for an idea and she suggests that, since they must use drilling equipment to build the foundation for the aquarium, why not have them strike oil? Right out of "The Beverley Hillbillies."In the end, Stone turns out to be not a muse but a multiple personality who has escaped from a private psychiatric hospital in Ohio. Last time out, she was Picasso's daughter. Brooks of course is a neural shambles by now, but -- Lo -- Paramount buys his script and everything is fine -- except that the producer at Paramount turns out to be Sharon Stone in another disguise.There are a lot of cameos in the film, some easily recognizable, others not -- from Wolfgang Puck to Martin Scorsese who does a hilarious turn as himself, planning a remake of "Raging Bull," only this time the guy is really THIN. "You see it? Can you see it?" Scorsese speaks faster than a normal person can think.Overall, it's mildly amusing, and that's about it. Nothing wrong with the professional players. Brooks is the anxiety-ridden middle-class character that he's perfected by now. Sharon Stone is seasoned. Andy MacDowell is beguiling. But the script is full of logical holes. This is okay in a comic fantasy, in itself, but there are so many of them here that they become noticeable. We can contrast "The Muse" with a comedy like "Groundhog Day" to illustrate when I mean. In "Groundhog Day," with an equally preposterous premise, one thing follows inexorably from what has happened before, so the film DEVELOPS. That sense of inexorability is lacking here. If Stone is really not a muse at all, but just a psychiatric case with an occasional shopworn notion, then what are people like Scorsese and Ian Cameron and Rob Reiner courting her for? And, shortly after she escapes from the doctors who have come to fetch her back to the institution, how does she suddenly show up as a producer at Paramount? It's good for a laugh but nothing has set the situation up, so it's a shallow chuckle rather than the conclusion of any plot thread. It's like: A man walks along the street, slips on a banana peel, and falls on his bum. Ha ha, but so what? Another instance: When he brings that Waldorf salad back to Stone's suite at night, she's lost interest in it and turns him away. Still holding the big bowl of salad, he backs into another hotel guest and crashes out of sight to the floor. We see the guest's face looking down as he asks, "Are you alright?" Well, we already KNOW what the gag is going to be. But instead of keeping the camera on the guest's face and hearing only a moan from the floor -- or seeing Brooks' salad-covered head very slowly emerge from the bottom of the screen -- there's a cut to Brooks on his back, decorated with salad. Where was the muse when she was most needed? The best feature of the film is Albert Brooks' performance. He's done it before just about perfectly, and here he does it again. It may be that no one in the history of movies has better expressed astonishment mixed with self-righteous indignation. What a terrific whiner he is.

philipdavies I have just discovered Albert Brooks, with his film The Muse. I can see why he is known as a West Coast Woody Allen.The Muse is both elegantly witty and laugh-out-loud funny by turns.The notion of a nearly-man so desperate for success that he is willing to suspend all reason, and believe that he can be rescued from his imminent Hollywood screen-writing oblivion by a woman claiming to be the Muse of Greek Mythology made real in flesh and blood, but who turns out to be only a particularly resourceful runaway from the local (shall we say) Home for the Oddly Gifted, is sublime! Sharon Stone s performance as the self- and omni-delusive (her psychiatrists, though amazed and amused, know otherwise!) Muse is outstanding. She effortlessly obliterates the wooden acting of the strangely-featured Andy McDowell throughout.As madly demanding actress - for that IS what she is doing in reality - and - in the final payoff - harridan Studio head she is just superb, and through her the film s high concept is perfectly - and delightfully - pitched.I cannot speak highly enough of this team of Brooks and Stone.

Edgar L. Davis Albert Brooks is funny. He has an interesting and unique way of telling story with humor, wit and sincerity. He is not afraid of appearing to be 'un-hip'. Actually that is the charm of most of his work. He has been compared to Woody Allen but Ithink that his work is much more universal. Woody's giant persona gets in the way of his stories whereas Brooks actually becomes a character. He does notplay himself and does not comment of things. He 'plays' characters like a real actor. The Muse is just as brilliant as Defending Your Life and Across America. Andie MacDowell is good when a good script guides her. Sharon Stone wasmade for the role of the Muse. Her energy is sexy, ditzy as well as forceful. There are some cameos in this movie that are priceless and lend an air ofauthenticity to the side of Hollywood that most people have no access to. I have seen this movie a hundred times and it never fails to make me laugh.