Swimming With Sharks

Originally screened at Telluride as The Buddy Factor, Swimming With Sharks is an uneven but engrossing picture, and a possible warning to anyone with plans to break into the motion-picture business. When Guy (Frank Whaley), a recent film-school graduate with big ideas, takes a job as assistant to ...more

Writer/director George Huang's vitriolic 1994 debut is perhaps most notable for the blistering, caustic turn by Kevin Spacey as remorseless studio executive Buddy Ackerman. Spacey's Buddy is a different kind of Hollywood monster: physically compact and unusually soft-spoken, he's like a seething volcano that erupts only sporadically, when people least expect it. Spacey has the good sense to underplay the role, rendering Buddy's actions and demands all the more horrific. The conclusion -- in ...more