Film name: The Hollywood Complex
Source: Netflix Instant Watch
Rating: 6/10
The Hollywood Complex is a movie about children who aspire to be on television and their famililes that follow their dreams to Hollywood and take up residence in The Oakwood Apartments, during pilot season. The children and families that were featured were all very different despite their common goals. Most of the families are rather eccentric and "just know" that their little one is going to be the biggest star in the world. While the photographers, agents and certainly leasing agents at The Oakwood all welcome them, the callbacks just don't come.
I don't need to see any kind of tarring and feathering of kids and their parents, but it kind of happens here. Most of these princesses are "dethroned" so to speak when they are not scooped by Ron Reiner within the first half hour of arrival in Hollywood. We see a mother and daughter sleeping on the floor in an overpriced unit while dad is back home working himself, most likely to an early grave to finance their dreams. We are introduced to a really attractive young lady and her mother, who both seem intelligent and down to earth, so I am still wondering what the hell they were possibly doing there! And last but not least a mom that homeschools the kids she is trying to break down the Hollywood doors for while dad is in the military. She picks bottles from the trash to make ends meet and espouses that Jesus has put here because she was able to talk a another stage mommy out of letting her eight year old wear a leather bra for a part?! I just couldn't make this shit up!
It was an interesting concept to see all these hopefuls in one place and I learned about tv pilots, and online schooling I guess. But the rest of it was just so sad to me. No one should put their kids down or really mock their aspirations, but stop all this over the top enthusiasm and dedication for something that is not going to happen! It takes years to be an "overnight success" and if you doubt that watch this movie. It was kind of a tamer version of the show Showbiz Moms and Dads from the back in the day. Even after being featured in the documentary, I haven't seen anything more from any of these people. Who wants to sleep on the ground and live in some sort of Hollywood mommy commune even if the Oakwood did turn out Hilary Duff and Zach Efron. That is two out of thousands and thousands and thousands. It was really gross to watch two middle aged casting directors scan through thousands of tapes of kids and make rude remarks, and even grosser when one of them kept insisting they not hire any girl who had "titties"............This is the world the parents wanted for their kids and it is appalling to the rest of us.
I would like to watch this movie and see if any of these kids are the same kids as beauty pageant kids or is this something else. I'm going to have to check out this movie
ReplyDeleteThanks for viewing my page and thanks for your comments. To answer your question, it was a bit different than the pageant scene appears to be but similar in ways that most of the mothers were not attractive and seemingly living through their children and allowing their kids to have really unattainable and inappropriate goals to be honest. I think you would enjoy this movie its interesting I learned some new stuff about how Hollywood makes tv shows. Keep on following me please!
ReplyDelete