Too much of everything

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The violent death of a famous actor prompts an opportunistic private investigator to kick up a media storm with allegations of murder, but what trouble awaits him when vicious thugs from the movie industry are drawn into the frame?Elaborate noir with a down on his luck outsider, a femme fatale, feckless dames, and a twisty plot that spins a web of confusion without tearing apart. It's a fictionalised bio of the famous actor, which exaggerates quite a bit to increase the sense of tragedy and generate mystery. The atmosphere of '50s Hollywood is well done, and we're presented with a cycle of broken lives all trying desperately to feed off each other. The one inch of solid ground is provided by the actor's agent, who concludes with a non-committal act. So it's nihilistic, but there's plenty of passion and emotion - especially the sadness of loss.The performances are good, although I find it hard to accept the lead actor as a tough guy. As Marlowe would say: "no iron in his bones". The climax is good, but didn't pack a full punch for me - I think maybe the b&w footage of the wrestling audition didn't give the intended insight.The music is good, plenty of sorrowful brass. Highlight of the photography is flame-lighting of faces from dozens of cigarette scenes.Overall: Well paced genre piece that ends up solid rather than awe-inspiring.

slightly overlong but compelling drama based upon a true story.the obvious "companion" would be Stone's JFK > about an earnest, honest public servant who "knows" the facts and has developed a very credible explanation of a murder..but who cannot get his explanation beyond a headline or two. powers that be will let the scenario ride..unless it gets...too "close".the story really is more about a private detective who gets obsessed with getting to the truth of the George reeves reported suicide. he goes full throttle at the case, leaving behind another client and his family.beautiful, tasteful period cinematography, meticulously detailed attire, vehicles, music of 1959.we get a real drama here plus a credible summation of an event which has pervaded our consciousness for decades.minor demerits for length of movie and for the character of the investigator's girlfriend. her acting is fine but the character seems placed in the storyline to lend sympathy to the victimized wife. as if to say, he's wildly "rogue"...ultimately irresponsible.see this movie!

On the plus side, it's about time someone made a movie about George Reeves, and HOLLYWOODLAND delivers a lavish production that's really a performance piece. Affleck proves a terrific choice for Reeves. He brings his affable charm to the role and ably conveys Reeves' self- loathing at not being able to make it as a serious actor. The film's examination of his time as Superman is certainly its greatest aspect. And Diane Lane, gorgeous as always, does some of her best work here. Amazing stuff.The problem is that the movie actually tries to shed light on what happened on that fateful night in June, 1959. Did George actually kill himself or was there a gunman/woman in the room with him? It's through Adrien Brody's PI character that the movie posits a couple of explanations, but a movie like this has no answers to offer. It was a controversial death and investigation and it hasn't been conclusively solved since. And what was really disappointing about the movie is that it spent so much time with the Brody character, and dragged things off on a tangent with his chaotic personal life. I didn't care about any of that, and just wanted to get back to Reeves. HOLLYWOODLAND is worth seeing, just don't expect any answers. Still, it does a nice job creating the '50s Hollywood atmosphere, there's the always incredible Bob Hoskins, and it's got plenty of mood. It's just exasperating. Also, a really bad title for this movie.5/10

"Hollywoodland" suffers from trying to be two movies at once. The first movie, and the more entertaining of the two, is a biopic of George Reeves, the man who played Superman on TV in the Fifties. The second, and less interesting, follows Adrien Brody as a slovenly gumshoe trying to investigate Reeves' death.The Superman side of things is shot in bright colors and a suggestion of period style. Ben Affleck is surprisingly good as Reeves, with a fake nose and a modest gut, and injects some humor and soulfulness into the character. The scenes showing the production of the TV series, with wobbly sets, dangerous stunts, and unrehearsed scripts, are kind of fascinating. Much more could have been done with that material -- even if it's been done before, it's always fun to get a backstage glimpse into a small slice of history like that. Hollywood is in love with its own mythology, and seldom misses an opportunity to worship at its own altar; this film is a perfect example.The other half of the movie is just as familiar but nowhere near as interesting. Adrien Brody mumbles and squints -- like the new wave of Method movie actors who were displacing the old fashioned stars in 1959 -- as he slouches around drab locations looking for clues. He's an unsympathetic character, and his detective work doesn't seem to add anything to the story, considering he doesn't actually solve the case or discover anything remotely important. Instead he delivers most of his lines through clenched teeth, and one ends up pining for the good old days of Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster, when actors knew how to speak clearly. Perhaps the film's point here was to demonstrate that real private investigators aren't like Philip Marlowe (played in the pictures by Bogart and Mitchum, among others); the effort backfires when the best thing that happens to Brody is a punch in the face.The direction, acting, and production are generally good, but the film spends so much time wandering around its subject and distracting the audience with scenes of Brody's dysfunctional family life that all that hard work amounts to very little. The juxtaposition of the dreary reality of everyday life in Hollywood and the star-studded nightclub world of the big studios almost works -- but it works mostly against the movie, overdoing the drudgery and tedium of one while underplaying the glamor of the other.