Quiet Days in Hollywood

Purporting to show life as it really is in a milieu you thought you knew (which only makes its pretentiousness all the more insufferable) writer/director Josef Rusnak's Quiet Days in Hollywood tells an episodic tale of several troubled Los Angeles residents, among them a teen hooker (Hilary Swank), a low-level gangster (Daryl Mitchell), a cocky lawyer (Chad Lowe) and an in-the-closet gay movie star (Peter Dobson). Their stories are loosely connected by the appearance of one character from the previous vignette in the next vignette, one of those devices intended to point out what a big, crazy, interconnected world we live in. Instead, it merely emphasizes what a big, crazy, disconnected script Rusnak has concocted, the kind that tries to pack every ounce of a character's psychology (and at least one sexual act) into the 10-12 minutes of screen time he or she is allotted. A few decent character moments and bits of effective acting sneak in when Rusnak isn't looking; otherwise, Quiet Days is a dreary 95 minute walk along the Hollywood Walk of Infamy. Not recommended. (S. Renshaw)