Forever Hollywood

Documentaries by Hollywood for Hollywood (think of the film-history documentaries shown at the Disney-MGM theme park or Universal studios) tend to be mostly self-congratulatory ass-kissing, but this American Cinematheque production, conceived and directed by Variety critic Todd McCarthy and narrated by Sharon Stone, is less overbearing fare than normal, depicting many Hollywood luminaries (among them Mel Gibson, Andre De Toth, Rob Reiner, and Quentin Tarantino) in a casual, laid-back setting. The only interviewee who takes himself too seriously is Steven Spielberg, rambling on about how moviemaking is the most important science of the 20th century and how World War II-era movies depicted combat in a more light-hearted vein than it actually was (gee, maybe we need someone to make a realistic World War II movie. . . Oh, wait...). Fortunately, for every self-important comment by Spielberg, we get the likes of Samuel L. Jackson remembering how he wanted to act in "anything that had a sword and people swingin' in it," John Waters wondering why Dorothy would ever want to go back to boring old Kansas, or Clint Eastwood recalling how, in the Marlon Brando era, he thought that he needed to mumble in order to be a good actor. Essentially the kind of film-history overview that you might see in an introductory college film course, Forever Hollywood begins with a modern shot of the Egyptian Theatre that dissolves into the same venue hosting its first premiere in 1922 (the Douglas Fairbanks Robin Hood), and gives us plenty of clips along the way, mostly from Hollywood-themed films such as Singing in the Rain and The Muppet Movie. Anything negative that touched the film industry is glossed over (no mention of the Hays Code, blacklisting, or the evolution of today's corporate mentality), but this is, after all, a movie aimed at tourists.