Then there’s our leading man, Christopher Dennis, aka Superman. Oh dear, where to start? He doesn’t just play Superman for the benefit of tourists; he lives and breathes the Man of Steel. Saying he’s obsessed is showing great restraint. The documentary shows multiple exterior establishing shots of his apartment building — which appears to be in a part of Hollywood untouched by the renaissance of the past decade — in which he houses an impressive, wall-to-wall collection of all things Superman. This collection is apparently quite valuable, in the neighborhood of $90,000 according to Dennis. One can’t help but wonder how long it will be before someone ID’s the building and robs the place. There’s a lot of stuff packed into that apartment and it’s got to be worth something.

The veteran of our costumed quartet (he’s been at it for over a dozen years) also claims to be the son of Oscar and Tony Award-winning actress Sandy Dennis, despite her family’s claim that she never actually had a son. He also claims he never had any Hollywood aspirations until his mother begged him to go into acting on her deathbed. Now he has big aspirations, but I have a feeling this documentary will be the apex of his “acting career.” Dennis proposes to his girlfriend (it’s true, apparently there is someone for everyone) at a Superman convention and yes, he wears the Superman costume for the ceremony.

It had to be tempting, but to their credit the filmmakers never stooped to mock the performers, allowing them to present themselves on their own terms. Any disturbing weirdness that comes across is directly from the individual performer to the viewer. And again, to their credit, I did feel some sympathy for these denizens of the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, even if I still think they’re crazy in their own varying ways. Hollywood has always drawn desperate dreamers and it probably always will. At least they can say they tried.

Plus, they make the tourists happy, and that’s important in the new and improved Hollywood.