One of the most creative and original screenwriters of the '90s, Michael Tolkin treats radically different themes with each new film. But whether his subject is Hollywood, Christian fundamentalism or the malaise of the married swinger, Tolkin's world is always brutally comic, laced with stinging irony and wild satire. The Player, which was directed by Robert Altman, is the most famous of these three, but the other two films, which Tolkin directed himself, are worth checking out. All of them work at such a high level of wit and erudition that the screenplays make just as good reading as the films do viewing.