Hollywood-BLAND!

Yesterday evening Lisa and I took in this film and well, the title says it all, folks. It's not from a lack of trying mind you, but there were so few good points in this film to make it either exciting or interesting that I can actually name them all in this short posting.

First of all, Ben Afleck just proved that, given a calmer role, one where he doesn't have to work to hard to get his character's personality across, he can act quite well. Amazing, yes. True, believe it. The guy gets it right for a change.

Aside from Ben's performance, everyone else just phones-in theirs. Diane Lane dawns some ghastly make-up to provide us all with a preview of her future roles (think Lucille Ball as a bag lady.) The usually impeccable Bob Hoskins takes his chances playing the villain role (and one akin to Chistopher Lloyd's villain that played opposite to Mr. Hoskin's Eddie Valiant character in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) and shows the audience a man who's both weak and unfinished in depth. Finally, Adrian Brody continues showing his fine acting abilities can go to waste in smaller films that overcharge him to take the lead with a character that's neither interesting or important. Some one in Hollywood had better give him a real role soon, or The Pianist will be his only hit.

Right, the good parts. Well woven flashbacks and current events make for a surreal setting which is what I'm presuming is what director Allen Coulter wanted his audience to buy into: that "Hollywoodland" is a fantasy world where what's shown and what's not shown often spills over into one another. Unfortunately for this film, Coulter's vision is still mulled with inserts of freaks (a smoking, sun-wrinkled workout grandad), gangster threats and uninteresting semi-sexual encounters. TV may have earned him awards, but this film's plots are dragged out for too long and made so convoluted that the audience is left wondering whom they should care for after 45 minutes. Two hours later, we leave knowing less and wanting lesser.

For those looking to get their fix on something based in the 1950s, await the upcoming Black Dahlia film or better yet read a Dashiell Hammett novel.

Oh... the best part of this film: because we went and saw this last night we didn't have to listen to the President's moronic speech on remembering 9/11 and renewing our fight against terror. Time well spent.