In his latest satire State and Main, David Mamet simultaneously skewers Hollywood and small-town America.

In both real and reel life, this is a meeting of the improbables and therefore fertile ground for fun.

Mamet manages to get more than his fair share of snickers, giggles, laughs and guffaws from his observations of what happens when a major motion picture prepares to shoot in the one-street town of Waterford, Vt.

Director Walt Price (William H. Macy) and his crew descend on Waterford in hope of using the town's famous 19th-century mill.

To his dismay, Price discovers the famed mill actually burned down 40 years earlier and that the town's tourist bureau simply forgot to take it off its brochure.

This is just the beginning of Price's headaches.

His lead actor Bob Barrenger (Alec Baldwin) has an insatiable appetite for teenage girls and his lead actress Claire Wellesley (Sarah Jessica Parker) is demanding $600,000 more to do a pivotal nude scene.

The Hollywood contingent is composed of immoral, conniving, backstabbing opportunists.

On the surface, their counterparts in Waterford seem to be pillars of virtue. It's just a facade. They're every bit as manipulative as the big city folk.

As Hollywood satires go, State and Main is more Eva Gabor's Green Acres than it is Robert Altman's The Player, which means it is far more accessible to mainstream American audiences.

The insider hagglings of directors, producers, actors and writers is balanced by the antics of librarians, local politicians, merchants and townsfolk.

Mamet, who directs from his own screenplay, makes certain that State and Main moves at a jaunty pace. He doesn't dwell on any of the interweaving subplots.

Though Mamet is definitely the real star of the film, his actors rise to the challenge of his genius.

Baldwin is all sleaze, while Parker is a true spoiled diva. Macy is pure bombast and David Paymer, as the producer, is a callous and has zero conscience.

As the deflowered teen, Julia Stiles is no innocent and Patti LuPone is a whirlwind of determination as the mayor's wife.

Philip Seymour Hoffman quietly walks away with each scene he's in. He makes the harried screenwriter seem so insignificant -- but that's precisely what makes the character so interesting and appealing.

State and Main is a delightful subversive romp about the entertainment business that is genuinely and consistently entertaining.

(This film is rated AA)

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