I recommend Hollywoodland, a neat little noir that is no big shakes but is well-handled and intriguing enough. I expect that it will serve nicely as the first part of a double bill with The Black Dahlia, another story of dashed hopes in hollywood. and speaking of the black dahlia, please read the book by John Gilmore (which I’ve recommended elsewhere) called Severed–you can practically feel the seediness of 1940s LA and the desperation of midwestern starlets who find themselves in quasi-prostitution rather than working with Warner Brothers. In Hollywoodland, the nicest bits are Bob Hoskins as a feral studio exec whose wife overtly cheats on him with George Reeves, the man who played superman in the TV series. Ben Affleck, never known for his acting chops, is very fine as Reeves, getting his manner and vocal inflections down without being overbearing. the heart of the film is probably diane lane as the studio exec’s wife, carrying on with Reeves–she projects an interesting mix of sexiness with a tinge of desperation at getting old and at letting her life go to waste in pointless indulgence. Adrian Brody as the detective/plot exposition device who investigates the whole sordid affair (was Superman’s death a suicide or a murder?) is also good. The movie is competently directed by Allen Coulter, a regular director for The Sopranos. one wishes that Coulter had let go a bit in the manner of, say, Jack Nicholson in The Two Jakes (an unjustly overlooked masterpiece–I don’t care what fans of Chinatown say) or David Lynch in Mulholland Drive, but as a sucker for the fatalistic noir genre, I was happy for two hours. I, too, am afraid of being typecast as the invulnerable he-man type.
(more…)

I’m annoyed with myself for being unable to write up a short appreciation of Chris Eigeman here; particularly in the context of these two films. I’ve meant to do it for a while; thankfully I don’t write for a living. These two films have recently come out in Criterion editions, and both were quite excellent debut features by directors who had little idea how to make movies going into these. Though Criterion has been releasing some newer American films, I think it’s worth noting that they didn’t do a batch of Stillman or Baumbach; just these two films close together, which have in common only the presence of Chris Eigeman.

I can also say that both of these movies would be - well, not terrible - but not nearly as good without Eigeman, who raises the bar on both. (Kicking and Screaming at least benefits from a decent Eric Stoltz part, but it turns out it was written for him just as filming began, and it seems a little tacked on.)

So, I’m just throwing this out there hoping that Reynolds or someone else will pick up the ball and write somthing interesting about him and the movies he’s been in. (more…)