An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn

1998 • 85 minutes

About this movie

With hilarious humor and an all-star cast -- get ready for the ultimate comedy about the movie business! It's the wild story of a Hollywood director, Alan Smithee (Eric Idle), who steals his own film from the studio. Soon everyone, including his power-hungry studio boss (Ryan O'Neal), is after him to get it back!

Ratings and reviews

Quite possibly one of the worst movies ever made. It has potential, mind you--it's got one of the best setups I've ever heard for a movie. It's about a director named Alan Smithee who makes a terrible movie, describing it as "worst than Showgirls" (mostly funny when you realize that the screenwriter of the movie, Joe Eszterhas, also wrote Showgirls), and when he wants to have his name changed, he was told he can't because his name is Alan Smithee, which is the only allowed pseudonym; because he can't have his name taken off, he steals the master and goes into hiding. The movie itself is shot as a mockumentary, detailing where everyone was when the whole thing happened. Sounds great, right? Well, apart from the aforementioned "worse than Showgirls" joke and the fact that the movie Smithee makes is "Trio", an action film staring Sly Stallone, Jackie Chan and Whoopi Goldberg, the makers of the movie made the controversial decision of making a comedy with virtually no jokes. The setup is hilarious and the cast is fantastic, but there's absolutely nothing about this movie that works. It's not funny, and it's an absolute waste of time. Don't watch it.