Dennis Hopper in The Last Film Festival: A Tribute

We are mid-festival season with the venerable New York Film Festival opened this week, and the Hamptons International Film Festival next, but one festival that spoofs them all is shown in an indie comedy, The Last Film Festival, co-written and directed by Linda Yellen. Starring Dennis Hopper, ultra handsome in his very last film, and the delicious Jacqueline Bisset, this film is a laugh-out-loud riot, a mash up in the manner of Robert Altman and Christopher Guest, even though an end note says the influence was 1946 Cannes, when Hitchcock's Notorious was screened wrong reel first. But that is just one funny moment in The Last Film Festival, which also features raucous sex, a locker room catfight between older and younger actresses, and about everything you can do with a man in a wheelchair.

The supporting cast includes JoBeth Williams as a lush, loose mayor of the small town of O'Hi, Chris Kattan as an undertaker/film enthusiast named Harvey Weinstein, and Leelee Sobieski who thinks Hopper's Nick Twain is her biological dad. As one character says, O'Hi is where movies come to die. But Hollywood does beckon in the long run. Dennis Hopper's last movie, exuberant as it is, shows what a brilliant actor he was, fitting the film producer role perfectly, as he worked both sides of the camera in real life. And a question this film begs: why aren't we seeing more movies with Jacquline Bisset?

A version of this post also appears on Gossip Central.