Hollywoodland

Engaging film noir that weaves a fictional plot into the real life death of actor George Revees in 1959. The official verdict was suicide, but whispers of murder have endured down through the years. Reeves was an affable, ambitious actor whose only genuine claim to fame was his portrayal of the comic book character Superman on a low-budget 1950s television series, a role that he felt was far beneath his talents. The actor ended his long (and lucrative) love affair with the wife of a highly-placed executive at MGM when he became engaged to a younger woman, thus triggering a chain of events that may have led to his death. First-time director Allen Coulter exhibts a fine sense of atmosphere and time and his provocative movie is one of its namesake's better offerings in 2006.