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Cronenberg's Maps To the Stars is finally happening. Cast includes Julianne Moore, John Cusack, Robert Pattinson, Sarah Gadon, Mia Wasikowska, Olivia Williams. There was talk last fall about Rachel Weisz & Viggo Mortensen being cast, but I'm assuming they've been replaced by Moore & Cusack.

Yeah, Mortensen is busy shooting Lisandro Alonso's new film (co-written with Fabian Casas!) right now so that rules him out. Map to the Stars sounds great, though.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Trailer

Here's a different, NSFW trailer

Wasikowska's leather gloves nearly distracted me from everything else.

Focus Features' VOD dump label Focus World has picked up the film. They're holding it until 2015. Based on the Cannes reception, I was expecting some possible awards season traction for Julianne Moore.

I think all potential Best Actresses are steering clear of that other Oscarless redhead this year anyways

You might want to change the year in the heading: the UK cinema release is the 26th of this month.

More to the point: It seems to be opening just about everywhere but the U.S. during 2014.

domino harvey wrote:I think all potential Best Actresses are steering clear of that other Oscarless redhead this year anyways

Amy Adams for Big Eyes?

Yes, though she's blonde in the movie!

I was moderately optimistic about this until (the admittedly catty) Cinemascope poured cold water on it by describing it as 'David Cronenberg’s worst movie in fifteen years'. Hopefully that's hyperbole, although many of the reviews have criticised the script as a stale satire that misses the mark.

That's still a pretty decent movie. What's the worst that came out in that period? A History of Violence?

knives wrote:That's still a pretty decent movie. What's the worst that came out in that period? A History of Violence?

One must assume this one is supposedly the worst since EXISTENZ (1999).

Though derivative as hell and with a nonsense ending John Carpenter would be proud of I actually thought it fared fairly well.

Roger Ryan wrote:

knives wrote:That's still a pretty decent movie. What's the worst that came out in that period? A History of Violence?

One must assume this one is supposedly the worst since EXISTENZ (1999).

Actually eXistenZ is one of my favourites – marginally prefer it to any of DC's 21st C. stuff. I thought Eastern Promises was quite weak, and Dangerous Method well-made but unremarkable. In both cases, I think the shortcomings are mostly in the writing (of tepid Brits Steven Knight and Christopher Hampton, respectively - I exempt Patrick McGrath's underrated Spider from that criticism). For of all of his classic 80s work, Cronenberg wrote the scripts himself; Cosmopolis felt like a return to form partly because it was his own adaptation from the DeLillo.

From 2003's Spider all the way up to A Dangerous Method, I think Cronenberg has had a remarkable run. Spider and A History of Violence are two masterpieces in my book, and the rest are very, very good. Cosmopolis on the other hand was an admirable failure, but it had a memorable performance by Paul Giamatti. I'm still looking forward to this - even his worst films have something to recommend.

Just to clarify, I'm assuming that the cinema-scope.com critic is referring specifically to EXISTENZ when he states that MAPS is Cronenberg's "worst movie in fifteen years" since the former was, indeed, released 15 years ago.

Well, if said critic deems eXistenZ David Cronenberg's worst movie until now, then I'm definitely looking forward to Maps to the Stars. While never bad, I've felt that Cosmopolis was the only film since then that's truly felt like Cronenberg, with A Dangerous Method feeling like a step back in the right direction. I'm completely interested in seeing where his new film goes.

CinemaScope is being way too uptight. Maps to the Stars is a lot of fun. If you take it too seriously as satire, you'll probably be disappointed. Actual Hollywood is pretty much self-satirizing at this point, so it's not as if a movie is likely to drop any bombshells, but at least it's not an affectionate satire. Just roll along and enjoy the actors enjoying themselves.

Gropius wrote:I was moderately optimistic about this until (the admittedly catty) Cinemascope poured cold water on it by describing it as 'David Cronenberg’s worst movie in fifteen years'. Hopefully that's hyperbole, although many of the reviews have criticised the script as a stale satire that misses the mark.

And with the good reviews calling it the movie THE CANYONS wanted to be.

I felt that this was an effective meshing of sensibilities. The Hollywood setting seems to be distracting many from what felt to me like a fun-house reimagining of elements from The Brood (with another [too spoiler-y to name] family dysfunction standing in for divorce, Cusack in the Ollie Reed role, Moore as Eggar, Wasikowska as the returned repressed, etc). A few too many poop jokes and inside celebrity references aside, this is a fine entry in Cronenberg's spare Cosmopolis mode, with, to my mind, a slightly more effective blend of pet themes and mordant humour present.

Jeff wrote:Focus Features' VOD dump label Focus World has picked up the film. They're holding it until 2015. Based on the Cannes reception, I was expecting some possible awards season traction for Julianne Moore.

Out of nowhere, Moore is back in Oscar contention this year, but for a different film, Still Alice. Sony's picked it up, so Focus may have known that was coming and steered clear for different reasons than I earlier guessed

I thought that this came close to greatness, but surprisingly it was Cronenberg that held it back. He seems so directionless here that when the shit hits the fan it isn't effective. There is also a CGI sequence that is laughably bad, when it should be the most intense scene of the film. The angle of the "ghost story", the characters losing reality and the more surrealist elements of the film are really poorly done and don't mix well with the raw satire on display. You will be able to guess the twist and turns a mile away. I'd agree that it's not Cronenberg's finest hour, but I still think that it comes close to something that could have been great. It's not a bad film and certainly worth a watch, it's just confusing what he is trying to say here, and not in a good way. I hope he does a commentary for the blu-ray per usual, I'd really like to hear his thoughts about this one.

kristophers wrote:I thought that this came close to greatness, but surprisingly it was Cronenberg that held it back. He seems so directionless here that when the shit hits the fan it isn't effective. There is also a CGI sequence that is laughably bad, when it should be the most intense scene of the film. The angle of the "ghost story", the characters losing reality and the more surrealist elements of the film are really poorly done and don't mix well with the raw satire on display. You will be able to guess the twist and turns a mile away. I'd agree that it's not Cronenberg's finest hour, but I still think that it comes close to something that could have been great. It's not a bad film and certainly worth a watch, it's just confusing what he is trying to say here, and not in a good way. I hope he does a commentary for the blu-ray per usual, I'd really like to hear his thoughts about this one.

I pretty much agree with all of this and think it's spot-on to my thoughts. The only part where I disagree, is that I don't share the same optimism for some possible magnum opus underneath.