Ivansxtc.
What we're watching • D (Substance Abuse), N (Nudity), L (Coarse Language), UR, 12-Sep-2000
Ivan Beckman (Danny Huston), Hollywood's most sought after talent agent, the darling and crown prince of La-La Land is dead. How and why did it happen? Was it drugs, murder or excess, or perhaps something altogether more mundane? IVANSXTX begins with an ending and then catapults us back a number of days to the apex of Ivan's brilliant career as he bags international megastar Don West (a superbly reptilian Peter Weller) onto his company's books, and then charts the highs, lows (and they are so very low) and extreme excesses of his final days. One of the earliest feature films to be shot on HD video, IVANSXTC boasts a shockingly raw visual style and a knockout script (the story is based in part on film-making team Rose and Enos's experiences in Hollywood). Danny Huston gives the performance of his career as Ivan the master manipulator hot shot, strung-out and coked-up with too much trouble brewing. Perhaps it is due in no small part to the fact that Ivan's multifaceted character was loosely inspired by such diverse sources as Tolstoy's titular hero of `The Death of Ivan Ilyich' and the real life, and similarly short-lived, superstar agent Jay Moloney, that IVANSXTC is so unique and compelling a take on the dark underside of the Hollywood dream.
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