Directed by Alan Coulter

Written by Paul Bernbaum

Starring: Adrien Brody, Ben Affleck, Diane Lane and Bob Hoskins

126 minutes

The first two deaths I remember leaving an indelible impression on me were those of my grandmother and George Reeves. Grandma Marks was as big as a sofa, seldom moved and had a voice that only dogs could hear. We never spent much in the way of quality time together. “Superman,” on the other hand, was a welcome visitor to my home every week.

Even though I was in kindergarten and yet unable to read, the sight of Clark Kent splattered across the front page of the Chicago American signaled more than a mere career move for the mild-mannered reporter. Word on the playground painted a disillusioned Reeves so drunk at a party that he jumped out a window in order to prove that he really could fly. For decades, I followed John Ford’s maxim, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend” and embraced the urban legend as gospel.

What actually happened in George Reeves’ (Ben Affleck) L.A. home on the night of June 16, 1959, has forever been shrouded in mystery. Was he accidentally shot during a tussle with then girlfriend Lenore Lemmon (Robin Tunney)? Perhaps it was spurned ex-love Toni Mannix (Diane Lane), wife of MGM studio head Eddie Mannix (Bob Hoskins), who called in a couple of goons to perform a mob hit. More than likely it was a self-inflicted gunshot administered by a washed-up, bourbon-swilling character actor who began his career in Gone With the Wind and saw nothing ahead short of a stint as a professional wrestler.

Hollywoodland never attempts to supply a concrete explanation. We are shown the three versions of Reeves’ death, all from the point of view of fictionalized ’50s gumshoe Louis Simo (Adrien Brody), and asked to draw our own conclusion. The final eight years or so of Reeves’ life are intercut with Simo’s investigation and the private dick trying to establish a name for himself off the scandalous murder.

Attempts to flesh out Simo’s character lead nowhere. A cuckolded client is tacked on to underscore the cheap detective’s anything-for-a-buck nature. He has an ex-wife (Molly Parker) and young kid (Zach Mills) tucked away in the suburbs. Simo’s relationship with his boy must have had more meaning in an earlier draft, and why the film ends on a shot of father and son reunited doesn’t compute.

A favorite occupational pastime is playing Spot the Character Actor. No matter how many times you see Gone With the Wind or From Here to Eternity projected with an audience, invariably someone points to the screen and with a burst of laughter shouts, “Hey, it’s Superman!” In the film’s most poignant scene, Reeves attends an audience preview of FHTE where his brief onscreen appearance opposite Burt Lancaster is met with cheers of, “Great Caesar’s ghost!”

The sharpest name for the film would have been Who Killed Superman? but Warner Bros., who owns the rights to the multimillion-dollar franchise, would never have let it fly. They nixed the original title, Truth, Justice and the American Way, and insisted that Focus Features refrain from using the “S” insignia in any promotional material. Ironically, they did let Affleck don the costume for a couple of scenes, but wouldn’t license the TV show’s opening credits, which had to be re-filmed.

George Reeves’ death has followed me my entire life. I’ve read all the books and studied both A&E’s “Biography” and the “E! True Hollywood Story.” Initially, I was in this for the plot, not the artistry, and managed to have a pretty good time. When an out-of-town guest asked to attend a subsequent preview, I gladly obliged. But some films don’t hold up well on a second viewing, and such was the case with Hollywoodland.

The performances looked even better the second time around. There isn’t an actor alive today more suitable to playing beefy dunderhead Reeves than Ben Affleck. Both are marginally talented pretty boys who used their looks to launch Hollywood careers. Although his accent wavers, this is the closest Affleck’s come to handing in a full-scale performance. Brody is perfectly cast in a role originally intended for Hugh Jackman, and Lane is once again indispensable.

The film’s alternating Brody/Affleck/Brody/Affleck structure didn’t improve with age, and Coulter’s direction is at best impersonal. Here is an example of the story as auteur, and as such would make a four-star episode of “Unsolved Mysteries.”

1/2

Written and directed by François Ozon

Starring: Melvil Poupard, Jeanne Moreau, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Marie Rivière

85 minutes in CinemaScope

In his latest film, François Ozon, France’s master of erotic despair, continues a “trilogy about mourning” that began with Under the Sand. No matter how stylishly he may serve it, what remains is a basic set-’em-up-to-watch-’em-die.

Time to Leave tells the story of Romain (Melvil Poupard, in what may amount to the performance of the year), a successful 31-year-old gay fashion photographer living the good life. After collapsing during a photo shoot, his doctor informs Romain that AIDS isn’t going to end his life, but a malignant tumor will. The cancer has spread to such an extent that even if Romain opted to undergo chemotherapy, which he declines, he would only have three months to live.

This is a story about one man living life with an ever-tightening noose around his neck. Instead of transforming his last days into one long party, Romain grieves in his own selfish manner with little or no interest in making peace with those around him. His parents are ridiculously supportive; dad even sits in the car while his son runs out to score some coke. Romain hates his sister and proves it by refusing to photograph her children because they sprang from her. His final instruction to his lover is: “I don’t care. I just want you gone.”

While the storyline may be hackneyed, Ozon’s presentation is anything but. When Romain finally consents to take a picture of his niece and nephew, it is without their mother’s knowledge. In a rare instance of a director knowing precisely how to employ a rack focus shot, we see Romain in the bushes behind his sister surreptitiously photographing the children.

A great deal of the film focuses on Romain’s attempts to come to terms with the inner child he despises. The only person he informs of his illness is his grandmother (Jeanne Moreau, in the Maria Ouspenskaya role). The reason he decides to confide in her is because she is old, and like him will die soon.

Early memories come rushing back while at grandma’s house. According to the director, “facing death is like seeing yourself as a child,” and throughout the picture we are presented with flashbacks to Romain’s youth. The first image of a child alone on the beach heralds sentiment, something normally out of line for the director. While it may not have the flagrant manipulative pull of Terms of Endearment, I was disappointed that the generally detached Ozon asked us to reach for a hankie.

Never one to shy away from championing deviant sexual behavior, I was wondering how Ozon was going to work his patented brand of kink into this somber material. He doesn’t disappoint. No one is more surprised than Romain when he accepts an infertile couple’s request for him to impregnate the wife. In the year’s most sensually charged scene, Romain joins the wife and husband in a steamy baby-making ménage.

According to the press notes, Time to Leave was inspired by Douglas Sirk’s supreme 1950s melodramas. If that’s the case, the film is a resounding failure. Sirk was all about style, presenting biting satiric indictments of his tortured, narcissistic characters. No matter how brittle their emotions, Sirk’s surface visuals refused to simply compliment his characters’ miseries. Check out Imitation of Life or Written on the Wind; if anything, his ironic use of cheery color plays diametrically against the story’s grain. Ozon’s dance of death is good, but not that good.

Here is a rare instance where a film’s poster may actually provide a clue. In an image that never appears in the film, we see Romain lying naked with a newborn infant at his side. Is it a summation of the birth and death of Romain or an artist in bed with his final act of creation?