In August of 1949, Life Magazine ran a banner headline that begged the question: "Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" The film is a look back into the life of an extraordinary man, a man who has fittingly been called "an artist dedicated to concealment, a celebrity who nobody knew." As he struggled with self-doubt, engaging in a lonely tug-of-war between needing to express himself and wanting to shut the world out, Pollock began a downward spiral.

Two young women and their friends spend spare time at an exclusive nightclub in 1980s New York.

Perhaps you have to love dogs in order to sell tins of slimy mystery meat to their owners. At any rate Martin, who is indifferent to pets in general, isn't doing all too well in his marketing job at Floppy Dog Foods. But right now this is the least of his problems: he has made a British au-pair pregnant in a one night stand; and while he is trying to figure out how to deal with this, his ex-wife (who divorced him over his not wanting children) and his mother (a militant anti-overpopulation, pro-birth control, pro-abortion activist) have a few comments to offer on the situation. Before his own child is born, Martin clearly has some growing up of his own to do.

A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood.