He stank up King Kong and now he’s stinking up Hollywoodland. Guy can’t act. He’s an ugly, runty guy who thinks he’s great stuff. You can tell that, because there’s absolutely no difference between the way Brophy played the lovelorn writer in Kong vs. the wisecracking PI in Hollywoodland. God, the guy is bad. Ben Affleck acted RINGS around Brophy in this film. Come to think of it, so did everyone else in the cast. If Brophy’s roles were commensurate with his acting ability he’d be doing Skinamax erotic thrillers, except that, well, Brophy’s not good looking enough and too obnoxious to do erotic anything.
I’d be very pleased if Brophy never gets an acting job again, but he’ll probably be stinking up another movie at a theater near me soon. What a waste. He might have made a decent shoe salesman.
Odd comments. Brody was fine in Hollywoodland and spectacular in The Pianist. I also find it odd you refer to him as a “runt,” since he’s clearly a pretty tall man.
You forgot to mention how bad he was in Summer Of Sam and The Village, though, wood for the trees, as they say.
Haven’t seen The Pianist, but they say everyone has at least one good performance in them.
I agree that Brody’s performance gunked up Hollywoodland.
I also agree that Ben Affleck acted circles around him. (I think Ben Affleck is a very fine actor. I’ve never understood why he gets so little credit in the echo chamber of the internet.)
I always thought his acting ability was so-so. As far as his looks, people seem to either think he’s ugly or that he’s gorgeous and elegant-looking. The only aberrant facial feature he has is basically that his nose is huge - the rest of his face looks clasically handsome. But there are a lot of women that think big noses are sexy, so Brody has his legions of female admirers.
When I heard that Brody was supposedly being considered for the role of Spock in the new Star Trek, I clenched my hands in fists of rage and screamed at the top of my lungs. I was relieved when I read that Zachary Quinto was actually cast, although I think he looks more like Tom Cruise than Leonard Nimoy.
OK, maybe he is tall. The way he carries himself, bent over and hollow-eyed, is runtish. And he was NOT fine in Hollywoodland. He was supposed to be a wisecracking, self-important half-assed excuse for a private eye trying to hog the spotlight. A lot of actors would just melt into a role like that. But I never say any character, just ADRIAN BRODY being ADRIAN BRODY, pretty much the same ADRIAN BRODY that was in King Kong. Gah, he sucked.
Affleck, by contrast, did kinda melt into the Steve Reeves role. He almost seemed to be more pudgy and rounded than normal. I felt I was watching Steve Reeves the actor, not BEN AFFLECK playing at being Steve Reeves.
Bottom line with regard to Brody, Keanu Reeves would have been more in character in the PI role than Brody. I started watching the film and really enjoyed the Affleck/Reeves segments and got more and more annoyed with Brody hamming it up and misplaying the P.I. as the film went on, until I realized I was mad at him for stinking up what was otherwise an interesting little film so badly.
I find it hard to believe that Ben Affleck could act rings around anybody under any conditions, including the possibility of his playing a character named “The Symbol of the Olympic Games.”
But I haven’t seen Hollywoodland yet, so I won’t actually call bullshit.
I’ve hated Adrian Brody since The Pianist. That movie is sooooo over-rated and his performance sucked ass so much that I thought that immediately upon leaving the theatre, I must have slipped into a parallel universe where everyone else saw a different film than I did.
Then he molested Halle Berry at the Oscars. Real classy.
I didn’t have any problem with the way he played the role. I actually thought he was trying to play it against cliche, which may be your problem: you expected a cliche and got a performance.
See, this is just the kind of thing that gets spouted off about Affleck all the time on the internet, and I just don’t get it. He was outstanding in Hollywoodland. He was excellent in Good Will Hunting. He did a fine job in Dazed and Confused. He was good in Shakespeare in Love. Wherefore all the Affleck hate?
In Brody’s defense, I couldn’t tell how badly he sucked in The Jacket because his suck was drowned out by all the suck of the whole movie. Saying he stunk it up would be like saying that somebody stunk up an outhouse. That movie was teh suck in a big way, but it was cashing in on the popularity of The Butterfly Effect, which I know many dopers hated. I’m not sure if I should forgive Jennifer Jason Leigh (a very versitile and talented actress, IMO) for being in The Jacket.
