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....

On Demand now and opening theatrically soon: TRUST ME, the best inside-Hollywood film since...

Since... when? The Bad and the Beautiful? The Player? Hollywoodland? Take your choice, or just fill in your own favorite "Hollywood" movie here. Seems like every decade or two, along comes one of those inside-the-industry films that sticks. Such a one is TRUST ME, the new "inside" movie written and directed by and starring Clark Gregg, a fellow most of us have seen and enjoyed, usually in smaller roles that he fills out graciously and fully. Not anymore. This film should put Mr. Gregg, shown above and below, on the "star" map. He's clearly a force with which we must now reckon.

The fellow has written himself a wonderful role, to which he gives his all (what a pleasure it is to see the guy really cut loose in all directions). He also directs with a surprisingly sure sense of what to do and how to do it -- or at very least he has surrounded himself with some terrific technicians in all departments. Trust Me tells the tale of Howard Holloway, a former child star (though we don't really learn this fact, I think, until well into things) who now acts as an agent for upcoming child actors.

The movie begins with Howard, late for an appointment as usual, rushing off to help guide his little actor to success at an audition. Gregg is amazing in this scene -- by turns helpful, harmful, crazy, sane, smart and stupid. Everyone surrounding him is aces, as well. Clearly, the man knows how to cast and then to bring out the best in his actors. By chance, or maybe by something a little bit more pre-determined, he comes upon a new and slightly older child actress, up for a lead role in what everyone hopes will be a new franchise based on some best-selling novels. This actress, Lydia, is good -- really good -- and she takes a liking to Howard. Her father, however (a lip-smackingly craven job from Paul Sparks, below), doesn't care so much for our guy.

From there we go deeper and deeper inside things -- via managers (Molly Shannon), parents, filmmakers, actors, agents (Sam Rockwell in a small but choice role), studio people (large and small: that's Allison Janney, below, dishing up as only she can serve it), right to the big-cheese woman producer, or maybe she's a studio head (the kind of subtle and then ferocious performance from Felicity Huffman, that will cause male audience member's dicks to shrink) who clearly calls all the shots.

Trust Me moves, from first scene to last, like a house afire. and it's funny, too. Really funny. And nasty. And crass. And then it's moving. And real. And shocking. And sad. Gregg weaves all this together so expertly that we're laughing our asses off one second, then watching, mouths agape, as something near-magical happens.

This is not the uber-cynicism of Altman's Player. If you want that, go elsewhere.  Oh, there is plenty of cynicism here, but it's matched with feeling and yearning and especially love -- for what the industry always promises but seldom delivers. "Trust me," though a much used phrase/command, is a fine title for this film because that's what every character here is saying, out loud or implicitly, though to a man and woman, they all have unbridled self-interest entirely at heart. Only Howard -- and a couple of other characters we meet (his lovely neighbor, played by Amanda Peet, above, is one of these) -- seem to be able to occasionally rise above this.

What makes Trust Me really special however, is its nuanced look at Howard's character. This guy wants, he needs to believe in the dream factory in which he labors. This is his undoing. We can see it in the scene in which he helps coach his young actress, a knockout performance from Saxon Sharbino, above, into delivering the kind of acting everyone wants. We view Howard's dream again later, as we learn his history, and understand what this early success meant to him.

Wings are a big theme in the film, too -- from the butterfly we see in odd places, almost from the start, to the winged characters that inhabit the new franchise about to be filmed and who represents the "new" species, or perhaps what we human might someday be capable of. But of course that's just fantasy.

Mr. Gregg, via Howard's character, implicates us all in the work of the dream factory. We're so like him, no? We want to hold on to that dream. Finally, Gregg gives us, via this amazing film, all the backstabbing and glamor, the hopes dashed against reality, the thrills and the bleakness of the industry that provides the product that so many of us consider vital to our lives. (And all the while, the movie is consistently funny and entertaining.) But what remains at the end? You'll see. Trust Me is one hell of a ride -- and an accomplishment. This is the inside-Hollywood film for the new millennium. Don't miss it.

From Starz Digital Media, the movie is showing now via VOD and iTunes, and will hit theaters on Friday, June 6. 

Streaming: Ian Roumain/Michael Schwartz's THAT GUY... WHO WAS IN THAT THING

For anyone interested in the profession of on-screen acting -- movies, TV, cable -- or in the industry in general, this recent documentary (from 2012) ought to be shoo-in viewing. THAT GUY... WHO WAS IN THAT THING (clever title!) documents the lives, professional and otherwise, of some 18 "character" actors ranging from the quite well-known (Oscar-nominated Bruce Davison, shown below, and Emmy-winning Zelko Ivanek) to oft-seen but not-so-oft remembered by name (Timothy Omundson and Wade Williams).

Among these, there is but one black actor (Rick Worthy, shown below) and -- hello -- no women whatsoever. Well, the filmmakers do interview briefly a female talent agent and casting director, along with a couple of male counterparts. Perhaps, even as I write this, they're working on the sequel, That Gal...Who was in That Thing. But don't bet on it. For whatever reason, the percentage of white males in this movie generally mirrors the views of powerful Hollywood suits a propos the place of blacks and women in the industry.

All this is not to say that this smart and entertaining little documentary, put together by first-time filmmakers Ian Roumain and Michael Schwartz, isn't quite interesting and often a lot of fun. It's both -- and more -- as it probes these guys for the skinny on their careers, hopes, dreams and disappointments -- and how they juggle all this to manage a decent income and maybe a family life.

Some are more forth-coming than others (Mr. Williams and Mr. Worthy seem the most talkative), but there is little we hear that isn't worth listening to as, one by one, these guys ring bell after bell about acting, friendship, jealousy and, yes, depression. Some of this might even give certain younger viewers second thoughts about entering the acting profession. Almost all the guys hate auditions (some things never change), but few of them seem willing to stop what they're doing and are happy to have -- or have had -- their career. (One of them, Stanley Kamel, shown above, has died since the film was completed.)

The devil, as they say, is in the details, and there are plenty of those here. We learn that Ivanek, above, is color blind, and that he also has an action figure made for one of his roles. And yes, most of these guys have appeared in one or another (or several) permutations of the Star Trek franchise -- which, for whatever you may think of it, has at least provided many actors with a lot of work

Craig Fairbrass (above), Xander Berkeley, Zach Grenier, Paul Guilfoyle, Robert Joy (below) -- they're all present and accounted for, and each has his own special post to fill and story to tell. One of these stories, repeated by several, is all about how pay for acting jobs is going way down, while what you are expected to do and the hours you must put in continue to rise.

One of the most interesting sections of the film is told us by that woman, talent agent Donna Massetti, who leads us through the maze of auditioning for a TV pilot, along with what happens (or doesn't) afterwards.

A real "learning experience" and a must-see if you want to discover what's behind some of the many male faces you've grown to know and love over the years, That Guy...Who Was in That Thing, running just 78 minutes, is available now via Netflix Streaming and perhaps elsewhere, too.

Schrader & Ellis' THE CANYONS: Finally, a movie to make you feel good about yourself

Yes, I know advance word about THE CANYONS might not lead you to believe that this film will make you feel grateful that you're you. Trust me: It will. Unless of course you are one of those Hollywood "types" pictured in the movie: underlings surviving as best they can on the largess of the monied and powerful, or overlings wielding that power for greater access to sex and... uh, sex. Come on, surely these people have something more on their tiny little minds? Nope and nope again.

Well, one of them is interested in his career, such as it is (not much). Another teaches, I think, yoga, though we never see her doing any such thing -- just gossiping and fucking and then -- wait: we shall allow no spoilers here. Another, played by the infamous Lindsay Lohan (reclining above), just wants to be loved. Is that so wrong? (Christ -- I'm quoting Harvey Fierstein; this movie has weakened my mental muscles.)

There are supposedly intelligent people out there claiming that The Canyons is about something. Because it is directed by Paul Schrader (shown at left), a writer and filmmaker I have long admired even through some pretty foggy movies, I gave it the benefit of the doubt, and for as long as possible. But because the screenplay is by Bret Easton Ellis, whom I generally think of as a talentless poseur, there is a battle going on, and I am afraid that Ellis wins it hands down.

The movie begins with a series of fascinating, unsettling shots of dead movie theaters, a comment no doubt on where we are and where we're headed, among maybe some other ideas, too. Then we're at dinner and/or drinks with a quartet of lovelies including Christian (James Deen, above, left), a nasty Trust-Fund baby who invests in the occasional movie and is also into videoing his girlfriend having sex with others; that gf, Tara (played by Ms Lohan, above, right; Ryan (Nolan Funk), a young actor who has managed to land a role in Christian's latest slasher film; and his girlfriend, Gina (Amanda Brooks), who is also working on said film.

The conversation in this scene is serviceable and sets the plot, such as it is, in motion, but it hardly sparkles. Yet, writing-wise, it's the best the movie has to offer, as we learn who these people are and a bit about what they may want. After that, it's mostly all sex-related power trips. Trust is brought up early on as a driving force -- as though anyone here had the smallest notion of what that word might mean. Which is, I guess, the point. Think of it as Les Liaisons Dangereuses with only a single (male) conniver and without a lick of class (except, perhaps, in the clothes).

As the overlord, Mr Deen, who evidently came to fame as a porn star, looks good, with a body that is noticeably and rather nicely un-buffed. He's relatively thin and wiry -- rather like John Holmes in his heyday, less long-haired hippy, but with equally impressive sexual equipment, of which we get one nice view. He can act, at least well enough not to embarrass himself or the film, but I thought I detected a slight lisp in his voice now and then, though that may have been a faulty soundtrack.

Ms Lohan looks and acts initially stern and then changes to vulnerable and sad throughout. She's pretty good at this, but as the screenplay gives her so little character to work with, so what? Mr. Funk remains in one, as both character and actor, and Ms Brooks is sweetly put-upon as the movie's "good girl." In the supporting cast, the choicest  turn comes from Gus Van Sant as Christian's therapist, who clearly understands who is buttering his, and his client's, bread.

Technical credits are fine, especially for a low-budget endeavor, though L.A. does seem, as in the recent mini-budget Maniac, woefully under-populated. As a director Schrader (shown above, right) is working well, giving us his usual brush with moral choice. Toward the finale, it looks as if he might give us a little De Palma, too, but no, he turns away from getting too graphic.

The Canyons, I suppose, is something to see so you can say you saw it. Otherwise, there's little to be gained here. The film, from IFC and running around 95 minutes, opens tomorrow is New York City at the IFC Center, and is simultaneously making its VOD and digital platform debut.

Movie-Movie! Peter Hanson's royally entertaining TALES FROM THE SCRIPT

If, as a movie-lover, you're not hooked by the very first anecdote (from screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin, about his Oscar-winner Ghost) in TALES FROM THE SCRIPT, I'll be more than surprised. This documentary, in which screen-writers regale us with their woes, is so full of funny, bitchy, nasty, sad stories -- most of which, if you have any acquaintance with the task of writing for the movies, will have you in stitches -- that it becomes an instant classic. If you've ever considered going into this occupation, "Tales" will give you second thoughts aplenty -- about both the writing process & working with directors, stars, Hollywood "suits" and -- ah, yes -- agents.

Directed by Peter Hanson (shown, left) and co-written/co-produced by Hanson and Paul Robert Herman, from an idea by Mr. Herman, the documentary is little more than a parade of talking heads, intercut with some of the juicier and more memorable snippets from movies that deal with Hollywood and its treatment of writers and scripts. Yet that's all it really needs to royally entertain anyone interested in screenwriting and/or Hollywood gossip.

Those talking heads includes some of the better writers around, and even if you don't agree with that assessment going in (David Hayter, shown above, who did the ill-fated Watchmen), you may coming out, because these guys (and gals: Allison Anders, Guinevere Turner, shown below, Naomi Foner, Kriss Turner) are extremely well-spoken, thoughtful, intelligent and funny. Even Peter Hyams, whose work I often loathe, speaks smartly and well.

It's tempting to simply quote one after another of these great anecdotes and interesting ideas, but I won't -- since that would be the equivalent of giving away the plot to a narrative film. Instead, I'll just say that if you want to listen to one of Hollywood's best B-moviemakers, Larry Cohen, you can do it here. You'll also learn (from Kris Young) why those soldiers in the initial scene of Saving Private Ryan make good stand-ins for screenwriters; from Andrew W. Marlowe, who insists that there are no breakthrough moments for the writer, only a series of small breaks; from Dennis Palumbo who tells us why "no" is such a well-loved word in Hollywood; from Justin Zackham on how The Bucket List came into being; hints on how to negotiate the shoals of the "meeting" from Steven E. de Souza (shown below: this guy seems a font of good information!); and my favorite "funny": Ronald Shusett telling a great story about Dino Di Laurentis and King Kong Lives.

They're all here and all worth hearing: Paul Schrader, Frank Darabont (shown below) Shane Black, William Goldman (of course!), David S. Ward, Michael Wolk, the actual Antwone Fisher, the late Melville Shavelson (shown at bottom, who died the day after Hanson's interview with him) and more. While the movie is organized in a seemingly scatter-shot manner, it makes little difference because the stories are so good, the editing (by J.D. Funari) smart and swift, and the cumulative effect bracing. Oddly enough, the film doesn't go into the possibilities of the writer's best revenge: becoming a writer/director, or even better, a writer/director/producer. Maybe Messieurs Hanson and Herman assumed we'd know that already.

One of the more surprising reactions I had to this documentary was that it did not matter whether the films under discussion were ones I'd loved or hated: The anecdotes about them and their "making" proved equally interesting and on-point. There is so little to see about screenwriters/screenwriting in general (Russell Brown's The Blue Tooth Virgin is the best and most original narrative feature on this subject to appear in some time), so this new documentary is to be welcomed on several fronts.

Tales From the Script, from First Run Features, open Friday, March 12 in New York at the Quad Cinema and on March 19 in L.A. at the Laemmle Music Hall.  Knowing FRF, a DVD release is probably in the offing soon.

(The photos in this post, including that 

of the director -- good ones all -- 

were taken by the director himself: Peter Hanson.)