items tagged with Remember the Titans

HOLLYWOODLAND

Against all expectation, the most touching performance in current releases is probably Ben Affleck's turn as George Reeves in the Tinseltown drama Hollywoodland. Director Allen Coulter's work centers around the mysterious shooting death of the famed Superman star of '50s television, and Affleck is just about perfect here. Seen in flashbacks, he plays Reeves' heartrending rise and fall with the abashed sweetness of a man who knows his good looks and moderate talent will only carry him so far, and Affleck's strong, subtle turn is effortlessly moving. And as trophy wife Tony Mannix, Diane Lane nearly matches him, suggesting entire generations of women carelessly tossed away by Hollywood's obsession with youth and beauty; Hollywoodland's tragedy is hers as much as Reeves', and the emotionally naked Lane turns in a fierce, brave portrayal.

MIRACLE

Although I’m generally a sucker for triumph-of-the-underdog sports flicks – 1986’s Hoosiers remains my favorite – and was all set to have a good sniffle at Miracle, the movie is so cynically programmed to be a lump-in-the-throat audience-pleaser that I found it all too easy to resist.

REMEMBER THE TITANS

No one could have been less enthused than I at the prospect of Remember the Titans, the inspirational high-school-football flick starring Denzel Washington. The film’s omnipresent previews – which, I swear, seemed to precede every movie released from June through September – not only appeared to give away all aspects of the film’s plot but all aspects of the film’s subplots, and it was being released right on the heels of the scabs-play-football bomb The Replacements, arguably the most wretched movie of the past summer.