Two flicks

If you are looking for an engaging atmospheric movie about murder and intrigue in 1950s Hollywood, watch something other than Hollywoodland. Goodness gracious me, this is one boring movie. The movie concerns the death of George Reeves, who played Superman on TV. After his death, lame PI guy played by Adrien Brody works to find out if the apparent suicide was actually murder. I gave up on this one at the hour mark. Ben Affleck was good as Reeves, but the story is boring. The PI investigation is without any interest and the PI character is cut and pasted right out of Noir for Dummies. He is a wash-out with drinking and woman problems. For once can we have a clean-living, family man PI or someone who doesn't rip off Phillip Marlowe.

While it doesn't live up to the hype, Cloverfield is a diversion for movie monster fans. It suffers from shallow, uninteresting characters, far too much exposition populated by said characters, nausea inducing shaky cam and holding back too much information. On the plus side, the terror and confusion (clearly nodding to 9/11) of the event are well portrayed and there are a few scares. The monster is ok, nothing special, but his path of destruction is one of the better ones depicted. Lower your expectations and this one may keep you engaged.