Hollywoodland
So I saw Hollywoodland Tuesday afternoon at the big sixteen screen first run theater. It cost $5.50 for the ticket. Christ, I remember when that was the price of a Friday night showing. Please God say the minimum wage never goes up. I couldn't afford the inflation!
So what about the film? I liked it. It's about a true crime story about George Reeves' suicide. It's not about George Reeves exactly, it's really about Louis Simo, a private investigator played by Adrian Brody dredging shit up so he can make more money. After Reeves commits suicide, his mother wants to have the case reopened cause she doesn't believe her son would ever kill himself. Instead she is referred to a private investigator, Brody as Simo, who basically creates a media spectacle in order to make money off the woman and make a name for himself. What happens is, over time, he starts uncovering things that start making some people nervous. Initially, he pegs the ex-fiancee as the murderer but no go there. However, the behaviour of certain movie studio execs forces him to sniff in their direction. George, you see, was sleeping with the wife of the owner of MGM.
It was a public affair, mind you, but when Reeves dumps her for another woman this, Simo thinks, causes the MGM big shit to take revenge for his wife's emotional betrayel. While all this is happening, Simo's son starts exhibiting troubling behaviour in reaction to Reeves' suicide and another case Simo was working on concurrently with the Reeves' case goes south.
All in all, I liked the movie. Ben Affleck hasn't been this good since Good Will Hunting or whatever he last did with Matt Damon. Defintaly one of his best works. Adrian Brody is also good. There is a reason he won that best acting Oscar.
I had some small problems. The George Reeves scenes had to be severely compressed cause everything that involves him happens over a period of something like six of seven years. Towards the end of this period everything gets really rushed in what goes on and where he is. His time in New York is shown long enough to show his first encounter with his fiancee and then it's back to LA even though his time in New York was implied as being a long term thing. Basically that's it, but there was the matter of the subplot involving the other case Simo was working on. It would have been nice to see that fleshed out a bit more as the ending to that weighs heavily in the climax.
Yeah, absolutely worth seeing.
Next up, The Black Dahlia!
So what about the film? I liked it. It's about a true crime story about George Reeves' suicide. It's not about George Reeves exactly, it's really about Louis Simo, a private investigator played by Adrian Brody dredging shit up so he can make more money. After Reeves commits suicide, his mother wants to have the case reopened cause she doesn't believe her son would ever kill himself. Instead she is referred to a private investigator, Brody as Simo, who basically creates a media spectacle in order to make money off the woman and make a name for himself. What happens is, over time, he starts uncovering things that start making some people nervous. Initially, he pegs the ex-fiancee as the murderer but no go there. However, the behaviour of certain movie studio execs forces him to sniff in their direction. George, you see, was sleeping with the wife of the owner of MGM.
It was a public affair, mind you, but when Reeves dumps her for another woman this, Simo thinks, causes the MGM big shit to take revenge for his wife's emotional betrayel. While all this is happening, Simo's son starts exhibiting troubling behaviour in reaction to Reeves' suicide and another case Simo was working on concurrently with the Reeves' case goes south.
All in all, I liked the movie. Ben Affleck hasn't been this good since Good Will Hunting or whatever he last did with Matt Damon. Defintaly one of his best works. Adrian Brody is also good. There is a reason he won that best acting Oscar.
I had some small problems. The George Reeves scenes had to be severely compressed cause everything that involves him happens over a period of something like six of seven years. Towards the end of this period everything gets really rushed in what goes on and where he is. His time in New York is shown long enough to show his first encounter with his fiancee and then it's back to LA even though his time in New York was implied as being a long term thing. Basically that's it, but there was the matter of the subplot involving the other case Simo was working on. It would have been nice to see that fleshed out a bit more as the ending to that weighs heavily in the climax.
Yeah, absolutely worth seeing.
Next up, The Black Dahlia!
posted by Robert at 5:45 AM
1 Comments:
You know I read a good review of it this morning in Entertainment Weakly. Inspite of that I really want to see it. Maybe this weekend. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.
But this whole playing up the Affleck/Reeves similarity in having problems with their popularity is tiring. Almost as tiring as that last sentence.
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