COUCH POTATO CATCH-UP (KETCHUP?)

For those high-minded, low-motivated souls who want to see the latest (and best) movies of 2006 & 2007—but somehow can’t rouse oneself out of genetically-planted inertia—it is a boon thing that On Demand services were created. (Can’t wear out our tootsies braving a trip to a video store, or even to the mailbox, for Heaven’s sake!)

Two flicks (among millions) that I previously missed I’ve now had the chance to catch up with—and though I may be the last soul on the planet to view them, I can now recommend them to you.

HOLLYWOODLAND: The sad, mysterious death of George Reeves, TV’s Superman, is grippingly re-visited (without any firm conclusion) in this wonderfully noir feature by one of cable’s best directors, Allen Coulter (THE SOPRANOS, SIX FEET UNDER, DAMAGES). Ben Affleck gives the performance of his career thusfar, stunningly lacking in vanity, as the tragic Reeves, an actor who aspired to serious consideration and yet felt like a clown in a stretchy jumpsuit, playing a superhero in this cheap and pathetic new medium called television. (Whether this is truth or conjecture is the filmmaker’s prerogative—Reeves death was ruled a suicide, but to this day, questions remain, which is precisely where Coulter wants us for this outing.) Diane Lane is stunning as a Hollywood mogul’s wife who pretty much “keeps” Reeves, and Bob Hoskins and Joe Spano are appropriately menacing as studio men with shady reputations to uphold. Yet the film is told in flashback and really belongs to Adrian Brody, the Oscar winner for THE PIANIST, who is still slowly unveiling his talents to the public. Brody is a poet of moral conflict. As the hapless detective tracking the case, his face is an increasingly dented mask that nonetheless reveals a wide range of contrasting emotions as he pieces together a case while barely holding his own life together. HOLLYWOODLAND is fascinating, knowing the ways in which show business and television now operate—and the continuing obsession Americans have with stars and their pursuit of stardom. (Have Lindsay, Brittany or Paris seen this one? They might think twice before some of their choices if they did!)

THANK YOU FOR SMOKING: in the 80s and 90s, Ivan Reitman made a name for himself as one of the most successful directors of light comedies with a vaguely political edge. Now his son, Jason, seems to have taken up the mantel, with a slightly darker edge and a less glossy veneer. The results are quite positive. THANK YOU FOR SMOKING (based on the novel by Christopher Buckley) is sitcom-quick but subtly more stinging. Aaron Eckhart, by stealth the most versatile leading man in Hollywood, gives one of his sharpest turns yet as Nick Naylor, a tobacco industry lobbyist who takes pride in both his ability to spin and his love for his young and impressionable son. He is shameless as he defends an industry he fully recognizes as evil and self-serving, and yet (as he explains to his kid), EVERYONE in America deserves a good defense. His chief antagonist is the wonderful William H. Macy as a Vermont senator currying favor with a rabid anti-smoking/pro-Cheddar platform, and there are numerous star cameo turns from Robert Duvall, Maria Bello, Joshua Jackson, J.K. Simmons, and Mrs. Tom Cruise (Katie Holmes). Young Cameron Bright, seemingly the successor to Haley Joel Osment in the deep-thinking kid department, provides a great moral tent post to the piece as Naylor’s young son, and Rob Lowe is once again effectively glib as a power broker who never lets a care crease that pretty face of his. But it is Eckart’s film and he has never been more affable, even as he approaches total moral bankruptcy. This is a fun summer watch that also manages to be a good litmus test of American marketing and mores.