Another look at Sleazywood: David Cronenberg and Bruce Wagner's louche MAPS TO THE STARS

Does anyone have a more jaundiced, delightfully despicable view of Hollywood and its dank denizens than writer Bruce Wagner (shown below)? From his comic Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills to the masterful I'm Losing You (novel and film) to this latest lollapalooza -- MAPS TO THE STARS -- Wagner shows us la-la-land with an incredible blend of black humor and rapier wit tempered with just a dash of feeling so that we can't quite dismiss his nasty satire out of hand. To bring to fruition his latest foray into our narcissistic depths, he's landed David Cronenberg, shown above (or maybe to the right), to direct, and the combo turns out to be a marriage made in an absolutely heavenly hell.

Maps to the Stars begins rather quietly, if bizarrely, for we haven't yet understood the depths to which the characters we're meeting will soon sink -- how their insatiable need for constant acknowledgment and fame outdoes any human instinct they might have once possessed. Yet so interesting and strange seem all the people we encounter that we're hooked from scene one.

Mr Wagner's dialog definitely helps. Notes one character early on: "I met the Dalai Lama! He's the kind of guy you just want to hang with. But you can't. Because he's, like, you know, the Dalai Lama."

It isn't long, however, before the characters we're laughing at and with turn darker, nastier. Darkest of all and the woman we probably get to know best is the famous actress named Havana Segrand (played by last night's Oscar-winner Julianne Moore, shown above and below, right).

Also proving a strange character we learn to care about (and become a bit frightened of, as well) is Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska, above, left and below). Agatha, who now possess an unsightly scarred body and face, is the daughter of a famous self-help guru, Standford Weiss, who serves the Hollywood set and is played with his usual panache by John Cusack (shown in the penultimate photo), who seems to be taking to darker roles like that proverbial duck to water.

Into Agatha's life also comes a handsome chauffeur-cum-screenwriter, played well by Robert Pattinson, below, who has by now thankfully gotten that stupid-but-successful Twilight series out of his system and can move on to roles that call for some actual acting. He's the character through whom we see much of what is happening (and is said to be based upon Wagner's own early Hollywood history).

The Weiss family also includes a mother, played with rigid intensity by the fine Olivia Williams, and a drug-addled TV-actor son, Benji, whose name and interaction with a dog should bring to mind a certain (in)famous series of animal movies. As played by the terrific and creepy Evan Bird, below, Benji complete this family of would-be Hollywood royalty, a matched set of major nut-jobs.

That Weiss family dances with and around our gal Havana, who pretty much rules the movie in the same manner as she does her retinue. There is a particular scene -- between Ms Moore and another actress playing an actress (Jennifer Gibson) on a Beverly Hills sidewalk outside one or another swank shop -- so perfectly on the mark and full of friendly sweetness masking outright hatred that it becomes an instant classic. The interaction demonstrates to a "t" how Hollywood folk are never scarier than when they're being "nice."

Ms Moore -- always a great actress who rarely makes a misstep or chooses a project that is not worthwhile -- is so very fine in this rich, rabid role that she actually makes what happens to her character somehow enjoyable. And that is indeed what they call "going some."

Well, that's Mr. Wagner for you. He turns us all into the kind of people who can take schadenfreude to unspeakable new heights. Or, rather, depths. "Juicy" does not begin to describe this amazing film.

Maps to the Stars -- from Focus Features and running 111 minutes -- opens theatrically this Friday, February 27, in various locales.

Here in the NYC area, it'll play at Manhattan's IFC Center, the Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn and the Kew Gardens Cinema in Queens. In the L.A. area, look for it at the Sundance Sunset Cinema, and at Laemmle's Playhouse 7 in Pasadena and their NoHo 7 in North Hollywood. Elsewhere? Maybe, and if I can find a link to playdates, I'll post it later....

Half a haircut: Cronenberg's COSMOPOLIS demonstrates to a T the 3 P's of "art" films

You don't know the three P's? You will after you've seen a pile of glossy garbage called COSMOPOLIS: Pompous, Pretentious, Pointless. TrustMovies had to miss an earlier showing of this film and so attended its special opening day screening this past Friday, followed by a Q&A with David Cronenberg, the film's director and adapter (of the novel by Dom DeLillo) at the Walter Reade Theater of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. (The movie is having its official NYC theatrical release just across the street in the not-enough-leg-room-for-tall-people Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, as well as at the more comfortable Landmark Sunshine Cinema.)

TM never misses a Cronenberg movie (the filmmaker is shown at left), even though he consistently runs hot and cold to them: loved A Dangerous Method; found the ending of Eastern Promises ridiculously unbelievable and melodramatic; for all the good in A History of Violence, the man couldn't direct a believable shoot-out action sequence to save his life; thought Naked Lunch was brilliant, his best and, in fact, one of the best adaptations-to-film ever, working on every level. And so on.

I have read only two of DeLillo's novel (Players and White Noise), did not enjoy or find either one edifying, and so was not expecting to be blown away. From what I hear, Cronenberg has been quite faithful to his source. The movie is set in New York City, in the environs of Wall Street, and tells the tale of a more-or-less current Master of the Universe named Packer (played by Robert Pattinson, above) having a very bad day, financially, if not sexually/medically. If only he could relax and enjoy that rectal exam....

Perhaps half of this movie takes place in our "hero's" white stretch limo (including the rectal exam), and the filmmaker sees to it that we're inside this confined space without feeling unduly cramped or claustrophobic. He also occasionally surprises us with what the limo contains (the scene of Pattinson peeing is a perfect example). Outside the limo all hell is breaking loose: The "President" is in town, and there are protests going on all around. But Packer wants to get a haircut and so demands that his "security" and driver take him to his special barber (shown at bottom).

Along the route various folk climb in and out of the lino, most of whom -- those who are not servicing him sexually, that is -- are connected with Packer in some business way. Look! There's Jay Baruchel and Juliette Binoche (shown two photos above). Now comes Emily Hampshire and Samantha Morton. Later, and best of all, are Mathieu Amalric (above, being molested by the very fine Kevin Durand, of Citizen Gangster) and, in his own non-limo space, Paul Giamatti, below, who provides the film's one real bit of characterization, and, as you might expect from Mr. Giamatti, it's a lulu, though too little, too late.

None of these people -- given the dialog they're given --  provide much character, but then DeLillo is not big on this; his people tend to sound, if not act, quite alike. Their dialog runs to arch and archer. Occasionally this provides a laugh, but even those seem awfully second-hand. And how often, I wonder, must we hear the prostate "joke"? Let me count the toll.

Does this movie have anything remotely new or interesting to say? I don't think so. Money and power corrupt. The life of Wall Street is dank, empty and unsatisfying (except for maybe the money). The past does indeed impact us. Few understand the jargon and number-crunching that goes on in this banking business. And we all need to be saved. That's about it. But if you've ever wanted to spend lots of time inside a stretch limo, here's the movie for you.

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TM had all good intentions of staying for the Q&A, but Cosmopolis left him in the foulest mood he's sustained so far this year, and so he just wanted to go home and kick the dog. Upon sight of the closing credits, he beat a hasty retreat from the theater and onto the subway. Fortunately, he doesn't have a dog.

Cronenberg's A DANGEROUS METHOD offers cool insight on some hot subjects

At times, and very briefly, as I watched David Cronenberg's new movie A DANGEROUS METHOD -- about Freud and Jung, their relationship, a female patient whom they "shared" for a time and another, male, whom one analyst passed to his peer -- the 1962 John Huston film Freud would flicker through my mind. This was brief, yes, because I wanted nothing to distract me from the excellent work at hand. But I could not help but marvel at how much movies have grown up -- in terms of subject matter and how it is handled -- in the nearly half-century between the two films. That is to say, when cinema actually takes the trouble to make real and intelligent use of what is permitted, now that so many barriers have fallen in regard to what may be shown and discussed on screen, what marvels we can sometimes be served.

This becomes even more interesting when one considers the career of Mr. Cronenberg, shown at left, who has in the past seemed to delight in pushing all sorts of envelopes, particulary those involving sex and violence, often used in tandem. With his latest work, this filmmaker is pushing the intellectual envelope, I think, by giving us such an intelligent and insightful movie about (yes, sex and violence figure into the mix) the human mind and body, the practice of psychotherapy, the doctor/patient relationship, shame, envy, ambition, hypocrisy, aging and death. There's more, but what you take away from this film will depend greatly on on your own background and prior knowledge.

There are three main characters here: Jung (brought to wonderful and full life by British actor Michael Fassbender, above, right, who even looks a good deal like the real Carl Jung); the patient (and later doctor) Sabina Spielrein, a role and performance that should bring Keira Knightley (above, left) a well-deserved Oscar nomination; and Freud (given less screen time but brought to life with great wit, humor and just a little, hmmm, jealousy by Viggo Mortensen, below).

A lesser but still major role, that of the patient/doctor Otto Gross, is played by that fine French actor Vincent Cassel (below), whom Cronenberg used to much more obvious and heavy-handed effect in Eastern Promises, but is as good here as I think I've ever seen him. Radiating intelligence and sex appeal (rather than simply the latter, as is more often the case), Cassel creates, in what seems a minimum of screen time, such a thoughtful, full-bodied character that we miss him when he disappears from the film. This is one of the quietest, most specific performances I've seen the actor give.

The smart, literate screenplay by Christopher Hampton (based on his own play, which was in turn based on the book A Most Dangerous Method by John Kerr) cleverly weaves history and personality into the themes that Hampton and Cronenberg want to tackle, and it seems to me that the writer and filmmaker honor the former even as they expand on the latter. Those of you who know more about Freud and Jung (and Spielrein) than I may quibble here and there, but enough of the characters come through to work as both icons and human beings.

As good as Mortensen and Fassbender both are, it is Ms Knightley who actually holds the film together and makes us care. From her first scene, as a character suffering from what might today be termed PTSD, among other things, this actress creates such living, breathing pain than she makes us more empathetic than I recall ever feeling toward any character she's played. (She did this also, but to a lesser extent, in the recent London Boulevard.) She's as beautiful as ever; now, with this vulnerability and openness (the character is not open, but Ms Knightley somehow lets us see her fully), the actress pulls us in as never before.

While the film concentrates on a relatively brief period in the lives of its characters, what we know of history allows us to appreciate the specifics of this time frame. When, at movie's close, we learn what happened to Sabina Spielrein, the information carries enormous weight and personalizes yet again the awful consequences of one of history's major atrocities.

A Dangerous Method, from Sony Pictures Classics, opens this Wednesday, November 23, in New York (at the Lincoln Plaza and Sunshine cinemas) and in Los Angeles (at The Landmark) -- with a limited nationwide release soon to follow.