The three great talents of Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy and Frank Oz converge beautifully in one of the most fun pictures I've seen all year, Bowfinger. I admit, the TV ads, which highlight the boob jokes, had me worried. Some of Steve's recent work, like the truly dreadful Out Of Towners, has led me to consider that acting is no longer his bag, and that he should just spend his full energy writing humor pieces (like those collected in his brilliant book Pure Drivel) and plays. This film, though, has an energetic Steve, reminiscent of his driven, mad characters from films like All of Me or Roxanne. Murphy is marvelous, too, in a two roles, both of which steal every scene either of which is in. His powers of caricature are always refreshing, but as Kit Ramsey, the paranoid, Scientology-driven super star, he is sublime. He also ain't to shabby as the geeky, sweaty, toothy Kit Ramsey lookalike, either. Frank Oz's direction presents this in a light, youthful and spunky way, making the whole adventure reminiscent, not surprisingly, of many of the great old Muppet shows. Bowfinger is not only a sharp script penned by Martin, but it is a celebration of stupidity. That weird, I-kinda-get-it humor that swoops down from the highest pot-logic cerebral peak, to the lowest titty-joke valley. It's a fine script, somewhere between his "mature" L.A. Story and classics like The Jerk.

It concerns Bobby Bowfinger, an Ed Wood-esque producer with credits like "The Yugo: A Practical And Affordable Car." He's been on the fringes of fringe entertainment for years. We meet him in a darkened bungalow, with an upside-down dog named Betsy, dodging calls from debt collectors as he reads the finishing pages of "Chubby Rain," a script dashed off by his Arab accountant. Bowfinger smells a hit. He quickly springs into action, assembling his rag-tag crew, and it's off to make a picture. He's got drive, he's got ingenuity, he'll get the job done.

There's no restaurant he won't sneak his way into, no obtrusive favor he won't ask for, no embarrassing or dangerous stunt he won't make you pull . . . not because he's obnoxious, but because he believes. He knows that some day he's going to make it big, and that day, marked by the advent of "Chubby Rain," has come.

The bulk of the film is spent running around in a frenzy, trying to shoot footage of Kit Ramsey to insert into "Chubby Rain." Bowfinger's crew, half made up of illegal Mexican immigrants who read "Cahiers du Cinema," are always one step ahead of Ramsey and his "posse." Said posse includes Terence Stamp as an advanced counselor of "Mind Head," the first send-up of Hollywood's obsession with L. Ron Hubbard's religion. Lord knows how many Beverly Hills dinner parties Martin, Murphy & Oz will not be invited to after this flick.

"Chubby Rain" also stars the hilarious Christine Baranski, who plays a character similar to her role on "Cybil," but is worth seeing nonetheless. A big surprise is Heather Graham, who actually shows some comic timing, as well as good plastic surgery. I also have to tip my fez to a big star like that playing such a self-deprecating role. I still can't tell if Heather Graham is a good actress, and I tend to hate anyone who is that eerily Barbie looking, but her girl-off-the-bus routine has so many levels of irony to it that I doubt if anyone could play it better. She also has one of the best lines, "I may be from Ohio, but I'm not from Ohio."

The audience burst into spontaneous applause no fewer than five times during the picture, at the end of each of the major subterfuged shooting debacles. This is a real crowd pleaser, and a film, I think, that will have fans laughing for a long, long time.