Hollywoodland

Ben Affleck wasn’t bad. He wasn’t great (he never is) but as a wooden self absorbed actor with little to play he was quite good. Good enough to win the Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival (beating out Topo Gigio). The real shock was Diane Lane. Always one of my faves, at times her performance in this film was worthy of Faye Dunaway in MOMMIE DEAREST. Yikes! Her woman-scored rage scene could become a classic. Make no mistake, Superman’s girlfriend was Lois Lane not Diane Lane because Lois never dropped the “C” bomb. Jeepers, Mr. Kent!

HOLLYWOODLAND tries to be CHINATOWN but turns out to be CLICHEVILLE. Adrien Brody (the best thing in the movie) was a created character – your standard down and out private dick. Along the way he sasses the coppers, gets roughed up by some gunsels (“Let dis be a warnin’ to ya, drop dis case!”), hits the bottle pretty hard, confronts the big boss named Eddie, jaws the Wrigleys pretty good, and bites off more than he can chew. All in a sepia tone. Someone must’ve discovered that nifty feature when editing in FINAL CUT PRO 5.

PRISON BREAK’S recent corpse Robin Tunney played the wise cracking moll femme fatale. Too bad Wentworth Miller didn’t play George Reeves. That would have been surreal. Stacy Keach as Perry White, and T-Bag as Jimmy Olson to really scare the shit out of the kiddies.

In a recent interview, the filmmakers claim Reeves’ death was so significant because it shattered the innocence of the entire baby boomer generation. Don’t flatter yourself. That happened when Alfalfa shot himself. Or maybe the Kennedy assassination but more than likely Alfalfa.

Hollywood keeps making these faux noir movies of forgotten celebrity deaths based on flimsy speculation and so of course come to no real conclusions. I say, just combine them all. Save us time and money. Just say the guy who really killed George Reeves was the same guy who killed Bob Crane. Who’s going to know?

But Alfalfa – really, what’s the deal there???