One function of film festivals is to provide a home for movies made by well-placed industry insiders who are under the mistaken impression that we're waiting to see what they'll do when they "stretch." Festivals give them a chance to show off their little art projects to a receptive or at least indulgent audience, including fellow insiders and aspirants to insiderdom who will at least make a big show of getting the in-jokes. ("That gross, disgusting security guard character--do you think it was supposed to be Harvey!?") Finding Amanda was written and directed by Peter Tolan, who wrote Analyze This, co-wrote America's Sweethearts, worked on various TV series (Murphy Brown), and is the creator and co-producer of Rescue Me, a crime against humanity that is sometimes miscategorized as a TV show. His new movie stars Matthew Broderick, whose opportunities for leading movie roles are contracting as his neck expands, as a once-promising TV writer who smashed his career up on the shoals of a triumvirate of addictions (drugs, booze, and gambling) and has now managed to crawl back to a job writing a third-rate sitcom. (The at-work scenes come complete with a self-deprecating cameo appearance by Ed Begley, Jr.)
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