Just finished Ryan Murphy’s 7 hour Netflix miniseries, Hollywood. It’s historical fiction imagining what would have happened if bigotry against persons of color and LBGT had been addressed and overcome in the 1940’s.
It is a flashy, beautiful mess. There are some stand out perfomances - Patti LuPone, Jeremy Pope, and Dylan McDermott topped my list. Jim Parsons followed his slimy weasel turn in Hidden Figures by being an even slimier weasel in this. Having said that, the story was a mess. There were so many ways that the characters and the situations could have been fleshed out if there wasn’t so much other stuff crammed into it.
For example, in an earlier scene screenwriter Jeremy Pope reveals to director Darren Criss that the studio doesn’t know that he is black. And he also knows that if they do know his race they won’t make the picture. So here is a prime opportunity to use the inherent dramatic tension in this situation - some near misses, a dramatic confrontation between the screen writer and studio heads, etc etc. Instead Criss just laughs and says they’re going to find out soon.
To use a Ryan Murphy analogy, Hollywood is season 5 of Glee, it could have been season 2 with a little more restraint and effort.
Also, it appears as if foreplay had not yet been discovered in the 40’s.
Eh, Ryan Murphy has BIG ideas, but he has problems putting together coherent stories that aren’t crammed with a lot of excess hoopla, for lack of a better word. Which often leads him to the cheesy side.
I wonder if Ryan Murphy is going the way of George Lucas. Becoming powerful enough to demand full artistic control, which can lead to a lot of self-indulgence.
Hollywood needed someone to add some brakes to the runaway truck of a production.
I finished the first two eps. Very far from perfect, as has been stated, but I love stories about old Hollywood. There’s not too much I can say for the plot and it is rather disorganized, but I’m really enjoying looking at it.
I have never been a Dylan McDermott fan, a hater actually, and he is knocking it out of the park. The whole cast in general is doing a great job with so so material. Does anyone else find themselves confusing two of the males leads - Ray and Jack? Objectively the two actors don’t look alike yet if I don’t pay close attention, I forget which character I’m watching. Also, I did not recognize Rob Reiner as Ace Amberg.
Yeah, I was wondering for a second why Jack was being changed to Rock Hudson before realising that it was the other actor. And also yeah, I had to look up Ace Amberg to see shy he looked so familiar.
Wife and I have been working through this. It’s watchable enough, and looks great. My wife usually has this superpower recognizing actors even when they’ve been made up to be unrecognizable, so I was happy when I ID’ed Ace Amberg as Rob Reiner and my wife said, “I thought that too for a second, but no”. I called up IMDB and proudly proved her wrong. But then when I said, “hey, that Jeanne character looks vaguely familiar” my wife was like “Mira Sorvino, duhhhh”.
I generally have a problem with alternate history fiction though. Fictionalized history is fine, as long as it gets the main facts right. For example, I tried getting into “The Man in the High Castle”, couldn’t do it. And Tarantino, the end of “Inglorius Basterds” had me going WTF. On the other hand, I was aware and ready for the alternate ending of “Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood”, so I was all:
I just finished this, and I have some mixed feelings. Most of the performances were great, it all looked really good, and “What if a major film studio had made a picture with a black lead actress in 1947?” made for an intriguing premise.
But in the end, it didn’t have as much to say as it seemed at first glance. They missed a big opportunity to explore what really might have happened in this situation and avoided any difficult story choices by glossing over the worst possibilities. Instead, everything was wrapped up in a big red bow: The movie was a hit and won Oscars, so there’s no more racism or homophobia anymore! Yay! I couldn’t buy it.
Still, I’m not mad I watched it. It was worth the 7 hours to me.