Hollywood

This syrupy effort from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan is, at best, pretty but hard to watch. I had to force myself through the first four episodes to get to a point where I cared enough to endure the bad writing and uneven direction and finish it. There's way too little plot, character development, or point to carry it. The cast did the best they could with some awful, preachy dialogue, overly sugary and convenient plot 'twists' and the shallowest characterisations.

The cast was a mixed bag of wonderful 'seniors', mid-ground familiar faces and inexperienced young over-actors.Patty Lupone, Holland Taylor and Joe Mantello shone in their roles and carried the show throughout. In the mid field, Queen Latifah, Dylan McDermott, Darren Criss and Jim Parsons did excellent work and obviously enjoyed their roles. Queen Latifah always has screen presence and as such, she was under-utilised. Dylan McDermott revelled in his silver fox rendition and Jim Parsons developed his character, as best as the script would allow, from vile to virtuous (too much so, but anyway). The young ones added the pretty and, possibly accidental, youthful naivete.

As to the point of the show, it was never clear what it was trying to do: just entertain? make a point about gays (as a gay person I am tired of the cliche way this is always depicted, find a new cause or at least a new angle) and coloureds? was it to show the 'true' Hollywood? (hardly). At times I wondered if it was trying to be a 1950's women's melodrama about the making of a 1950's melodrama, but that didn't really play out. The directing was extremely uneven. Though it was very heavily preachy (way too preachy) it didn't give any depth to the topic: it really only exploited the 'issues' to provide the little plot that there was. It even seemed to endorse the violence against the journalist/reporter that was going to expose something that was shown to be true.

It was mostly predictable, cliched and shallow and, therefore, very disappointing. It's a shame that all the effort put into recreating the era, ultimately amounted to very little: an opportunity missed (as others have said). Somewhat entertainingly disappointing: will just a little more, it could have been so much more.

Full of colors, fun, diverse characters and drama, Hollywood is a mini series (I don't get the current possibility for season 2) worth a watch if you're into historical what-ifs, or you just want to watch a fun "period" drama that is not the real Golden Age Hollywood... So don't expect history lessons, and just enjoy 1940s through rose colored glasses. It would've been a better choice to go full-fiction with all fiction characters though, without terrible Rock Hudson portrayal for example. Or to go 100% factual (it's not that hard) and show how things really happened in Hollywood, with real struggles of aspiring writers, directors, actors, poor, non-white, different sexuality (for example, Rock Hudson's real closet case). As for the quality of the series in general, it started excellent and then just lost itself with unbelievable plot and characters acting forced, unnatural and silly. The cinematography is great. Drama is mostly interesting, something that's usual for Ryan Murphy (I love American Horror story and Scream queens, he should stick to horror comedy). All in all, I gave 7/10 for the first few episodes, cinematography, silly drama and feel-good mindless fun. It would have been much lower if I took it seriously... Or if I judge by last few episodes... Or if they decide to make season 2 (oh no)! P. S. The tune at the end of each episode is so annoying and repetitive!

I was a young girl in the 70s, so one of my fondest memories is watching American movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood with my family, mainly in black and white, usually on a Monday evening, broadcast by the Italian public tv channel. Those movies were the thread of our dreams, back in our childhood.

I liked "Hollywood" a lot more than I expected. Dylan McDermott (an actor I'm not familiar with since I live in Italy) is phenomenal. I enjoyed every scene featuring him, same with Patti LuPone.

Jim Parsons (one of the reasons I watched this series in the first place) is really surprising as an evil character, so different from his role in TBBT.

Joe Mantello and Ellen Kinkaid are two more actors that excell here.

All in all, a good series, I only took off one star for the amount of nudity and sex, but for the rest is very enjoyable. Dylan McDermott shines on all through the series, he was born for this role and I hope to see him soon in other projects.

It started out sooo good. The first 3 episodes were great. I thought for sure this would be Oscar worthy...then, it took a hard dip by episode 4, turning into Make-A-Wish foundation, and by episode 5, it was a PSA announcement. We shut it off mid-episode 'cause we were bored, and I was calling out every plot twist before it happened it had become so predictable. It was like Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan wrote the first 3 episodes, got bored, and told their 22-year-old writer's assistants to finish the show.

I feel like Ryan Murphy is at that point in his career where he can get anything greenlit so now he's writing entirely for himself and doesn't care what the audience or his fans want. It's a shame. The writing started out so strong. Imagine the first half of this show like Glee season 1 and the second half like Glee, the final years, and you have an idea of where the writing went on this show. Too bad.

I saw the documentary that they ripped the gas station / Dreamland part of the show, and that was fun, despite they took that guy's life and probably didn't pay him. There's zero tension in the show after episode 3. It's just wish fulfillment, where everyone gets what they want, like a pre-school show for kids, so, despite the strength of the first few episodes you stop caring about the characters because you can predict everything that will happen so what's the point of seeing it? No mystery. No struggle after episode three, they suddenly magically get everything they want. There's no reason to watch until episode 7 because mid-episode 5 it's an easy guess where it's going, which we confirmed by reading reviews.

I just don't know how Murphy went from America Crime Story: Versace, to this. Such a great idea, and so magical, and it just fell apart, as if they stopped caring halfway through.

Rock Hudson was great. That was one bright spot in the show, aside from the initial writing and the production value. He was endearing and vulnerable. You really root for him, despite the show falling apart around him. And was interesting to see Jim Parsons as a villain after 12 seasons of him playing Sheldon. I'm sure he loved playing that. The entire cast is likable, it just would have been nice for them to be consistent as opposed to shifting their characters completely and unrealistically halfway though. Again, bad writing.

Ryan Murphy seems to believe that Darren Criss is a talented actor or maybe he just has a soft spot for him. Personally I think he plays EVERY role the exact same way except for a few tweaks here and there.

I didn't think Jim Parsons had the chops to tackle a role like this but he was amazing as real life agent Henry Wilson. I absolutely love Henry Cavill and he will always be Superman (and Geralt) in my mind but I am a little curious to see what David Corenswet (Jack Costello) will do with the Superman role.

Everyone gave a great performance in Hollywood except for Laura Harriet who played Camille and Maude Apatow who played Henrietta. Maude is a nepo-baby so unfortunately I understand why she keeps getting roles but who is Laura related to ?? I haven't seen acting that bad since Selena Gomez in Only Murders in the Building.