The OtherArena

Steve Yohe · Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 2:19 am Post subject: Affleck sucks again

I rushed to see HOLLYWOODLAND tonight & it turned out to be terrible. Ben Affleck is perfecty cast as George Reeves & he just dies in the role. George Reeves was 8 times the actor Affleck is. The camera just hates him. This movie does a big disserves to Reeves. Says nothing & goes no where. Adrien Brody stinks too. *--Yohe

The Greatest Man Alive · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 100 Location: Manassas, VA

The Illusionist. I had no intentions of seeing it until the rotten tomatoes score was quite high and a few good friends recommended it. This movie makes Jessica freakin Beal come off as a competent actress, the story is simple yet not simplistic and the ending is one that leaves you satisfied. The stars are Paul Giammati and Rufus Sewell who are excellent supporting characters that actually carry several scenes.

DalyCityTrain · Joined: 06 Aug 2006 Posts: 76

I liked both these movies, more than just a "plug your nose and hope for the best" multiplex appreciation, to where I'd recommend them to almost anyone.

In particular The Illusionist. Everyone I know who's seen it has raved about it, which gives me hope that it'll gain clout over time. Edward Norton and Paul Giammati may end up having more currency in hindsight than they do at the box office. It's a movie where you'll probably predict what happens, but not how it happens and how much fun it will be to watch. Also, even if you dislike the mystery elements, the directness of the romance and the characters is engaging.

Hollywoodland tries to bring some of the modern gossip-sleaze overdose to "noir", but the best moments are the smaller ones which scale down Affleck-as-Reeves and his world to a very empathetic scale. An uncool, sometimes unsympathetic detective with moral complications suggests they were going less for Dashiell Hammett and more for Chinatown (a framing subplot about a paranoid husband makes the parallel obvious). That's probably the movie's biggest failure, because it doesn't have the detatched tone or the feeling of being trapped in purgatory that Chinatown had. Instead, the biggest evil here seems to be aging.

I have to disagree about the performances, though. Affleck is superficial, but he made Reeves the heart of the movie, and I thought Brody was very good, and Diane Lane and Bob Hoskins were too.