This article claims the title, Truth, Justice and the American Way, was changed to avoid confusion with “Superman Returns,” but I was certain that they changed the title only after Warner Brothers threatened to sue them. Still, that doesn’t mean I’m less interested in seeing “Hollywoodland.” The George Reeve death-opic easily looks to be the best thing Affleck’s been involved in years, and it’s about a subject that fascinates just about ever comic book or movie fan in existence. Between this and “Black Dahlia,” are we on the cusp of a Hollywood trend of vintage true-crime flicks?
The obvious tragedy of Reeves was his relatively early death. The film questions whether it was indeed suicide or murder, but up until then, Reeves was so despondent that his career went the way of popcorn, he seemed like he could have used a telephone hotline.
“There is a line where George Reeves says, ‘It should’ve been enough for life’ [regarding] what he had. To me it’s about the condition of humanity whereby it’s never really enough. It’s that feeling, that ambition that drives you to achieve and for people to invent rockets and to build machines and the industrial age. It also keeps us perpetually kind of dissatisfied, that sort of grass is greener thing. Those things that at propel us at the same time frustrate us and stifle us in trying to live and manage those two things. It’s really that contradiction and the contradictory impulses that are universally human that I believe everyone can understand and that are really painful. It’s like in life us going, ‘If I just had this then I would be happy.’ And then finding out that that’s not really the thing, and I think that’s really what’s at the root of it all for me and I think that it really kind of transcends Hollywood even though it is a really good example of that kind of thing because it is to the extreme.â€?
