Review of Hollywoodland (2006) by Dawn E — 10 Jan 2009

First off, really dont like the title. Might just be cause I like its original title better (Truth, Justice, and the American Way), but DC comics wouldn't allow it. That's just me being nitpicky.

But yeah it was an interesting movie, but very slow (dragged on for almost exactly two hours). And it really felt like an Oscar type movie. I was kinda intrigued by the structure of the film. It starts off with the police investigating the scene just after Reeves' body was found.

From there the sequences alternate between following Reeves' life leading up to that point or following the PI investigating from that point. I guess it just gives me this image in my head of pulling out the pre-death story line and putting it ahead of the post-death storyline and being able to run the film completely in chronological order if you wanted.

That probably made no sense. Anyways, so I love Adrien Brody and he was great. But who really impressed me was Ben Affleck. I had heard that a lot of people were impressed with him in this film, which I was kinda skeptical of, but no he really did a great job.

He had Reeves' voice down really well. And if I wasn't focusing on his whole face (so just seeing his profile or only paying attention to this mouth or something) the facial structure and his mannerisms matched well enough.

But then if I saw his whole face, it would kinda ruin it cause I still have a hard time taking Affleck seriously, especially when he's wearing a Superman costume. It did come close to possibly being Ben's first good movie without Matt (Cause remember, the key difference between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon is that Matt can make a good movie without Ben.

Ben cant make a good movie without Matt), but was too slow for my taste.