Rented 2 DVD’s this weekend, films that I skipped purposely in the theater, because they were better suited for an in home viewing. First up: Lady in the Water.

Admittedly, I am a M. Night Shyamalan admirer, one who wanted to like this movie, because his previous 4 films ranged between quite good and excellent, and I enjoyed each on a multiplex screen. Enough peers warned me off this flick, so I passed, and waited for the DVD. I watched it carefully, and will make only one observation. The real problem with this movie was the form; it needed to be a book. Interesting characters, a workable situation and a reasonable paced plot, Lady could have been a great read. A classic fairy tale, even. Some imagery plays well mentally, yet translate those same ideas for screen, and it falls short. Also, because the medium lacks the depth to bounce between a number of characters thoughts, complicated story arcs get lost, or dampened. Both compromises happened here. Chalk it to an extremely ambitious concept executed with the right intentions, but unfortunately in the wrong media.

Hollywoodland suffers from a different–and oh so similar–problem. This concept was the stuff of a made for television movie, twenty years too late. As a twelve-year-old, I might have liked this one as the Sunday Afternoon Million Dollar Movie. Alas, it surfaced in 2006, fifty years after George blew–or someone blew–his brains out across his bedroom wall. Ben Affleck did better than I expected, and Adrien Brody is a talent of note, but otherwise this could have been done for a lot less scratch, and for similar results. The storyline offered countless possible explanations for the former Superman’s death, yet very few reasons to care about the characters, why someone might want to kill him, or why he wanted to die.

Verdict: Lady, rentable; Hollywoodland, flushable.