Maps to the Stars

Maps to the Stars - Dir. David Cronenberg (2015)

David Cronenberg always held a fascination with body horror and psychosexual themes. Although his latest films lack the grotesqueries of early works such as Videodrome and The Fly, they still maintain the same thematic through lines. Maps to the Stars is no different with a screenplay by Bruce Wagner. Cronenberg finally turns his eye on Hollywood with this searing critique of celebrity culture that plays out like a modern day Greek tragedy.

Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) is a fading actress who was emotionally and physically abused by her late mother, screen legend Clarice Taggart (Sarah Gadon). Havana attempts to jumpstart her career by portraying her mother in a remake of her most celebrated picture, Stolen Waters. Havana is also haunted by hallucinations of Clarice in her youthful prime.

Benjie Weiss (Evan Bird) is a bad boy of Bieber proportions. At only 13 years of age, he’s been in and out of rehab. He’s not above lighting into his assistant with an anti-Semitic tirade for an embarrassing mistake. Benjie’s parents are no prizes either. His mother, Cristina (Olivia Williams), is a shark when it comes to managing her son’s career. His father, Dr. Stafford Weiss (John Cusack), is a celebrity psychologist with more interest in scoring talk show appearances than fixing his crumbling family.

Into their lives comes Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), fresh off the bus from Florida with long black gloves covering the scars from a childhood fire. Thanks to a connection from Carrie Fisher (in a cameo as herself), Agatha becomes Havana’s new personal assistant.

The usual sticking points about life in Los Angeles are all present. Young actors engaging in excessive drug use and inane conversations. Others opine about meeting the Dalai Lama, not as a spiritual awakening, but as a hip trend. One character talks about becoming a Scientologist as a “career move.”

Cronenberg has a tough time balancing the multiple storylines and characters. Robert Pattinson takes a supporting role as Jerome, a limo driver who aspires to be an actor and screenwriter. In a change of pace from Cosmopolis, Pattinson spends most of his time in the front of the limo instead of the back. However, his brief dalliance with Agatha could have easily been excised from the movie. None of the characters are particularly sympathetic, which may be a problem for those who want their films about likeable people.

Maps to the Stars succeeds due to Cronenberg’s interests into the macabre and a stellar cast. Julianne Moore won the Oscar for Still Alice, but it’s clear she didn’t get enough recognition for her less audience friendly role as Havana. Moore is absolutely fearless in portraying Havana as a flaming hot mess in yoga pants. During one scene, she runs down an ornate shopping list for Agatha while sitting on the toilet. Another scene sees Havana doing a celebratory dance when she learns she’s won a role because the previous actress’s son drowned.

It makes complete sense for David Cronenberg to turn his eye on Hollywood. The land of cosmetic surgery and Botox injections is a perfect fit for his brand of body horror. Shining the light on the dark side of Tinseltown isn’t anything new and the subject matter has been done better. You can take a look at Barton Fink, The Player or go all the way back to Sunset Boulevard. Maps to the Stars doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but Cronenberg’s unique vision makes for compelling drama.

Rating: *** (*****)

Non-Stop

Non-Stop - Dir. Jaume Collet-Serra (2014)

"If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it…But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."

"I'm Martin Harris…I didn't forget everything."

"I'm not hijacking this plane. I'm trying to save it!"

Despite entering into his 60's, Liam Neeson has remade himself into one of Hollywood's premier action heroes. Standing at 6'4, Neeson certainly possesses the physicality needed to be a believable ass kicking machine. Years of dramatic experience has given him the credibility and gravitas that many of his compatriots lack. He'll need every bit of those talents for Non-Stop, a movie every bit as ridiculous as Neeson's last couple efforts Unknown and Taken 2.

Neeson is Bill Marks, a Federal Air Marshal who has descended into alcoholism following the death of his daughter and the dissolution of his marriage. Marks is in the last place he wants to be, a non-stop international flight from New York to London. Things only get worse when he receives a threatening text message that someone on the plane will die every twenty minutes unless $150 million is transferred to their account. The mysterious mastermind has it all figured out to the point that for every step Marks takes to protect the passengers, the more it looks like he is the one hijacking the flight.

The screenplay, credited to John W. Richardson, Chris Roach, and Ryan Engle, is filled with plot twists, each one more unbelievable than the rest. In spite of all the plot holes and logic gaps, Non-Stop never experiences explosive decompression as director Jaume Collet-Serra (who previously teamed with Neeson on Unknown) knows how to ratchet up the tension. Collet-Serra frames his close-ups and medium shots to accentuate the claustrophobic feel of being trapped in a flying metal tube. Text messages appear as pop-up graphics to ensure the audience isn't just watching people stare at their phones. The action is perfectly adequate with Neeson bulldozing through opponents with the same martial arts blows he's previously employed. He doesn't leap into the air while firing two guns at once, but he does fly through the air and catches a gun as the plane rapidly descends.

This is a finely tuned whodunit and there is no shortage of suspects. The filmmakers wisely filled the supporting cast with tremendous ensemble and no single person stands out as the obvious villain. There's Julianne Moore as a friendly frequent flyer, Corey Stoll from House of Cards as an NYPD officer, Nate Parker as a tech expert, Scoot McNairy as a school teacher on his way to Amsterdam, Anson Mount as a fellow air marshal, supermodel Bar Paly, and Linus Roache as the captain. Plus, you have Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery fame and recent Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong'o as flight attendants though the latter only gets a handful of lines. Top it all off with a freckle faced little girl to really lay it on thick.

Non-Stop isn't exactly thought provoking cinema. It is an entertaining action flick and if you've enjoyed Liam Neeson's other offerings, this is an easy recommend.

Rating: *** (*****)

The Kids Are All Right

The Kids Are All Right - Dir. Lisa Chodolenko (2010)


”They fight just like real people.” - Seth Rogen, Zack & Miri Make a Porno

The Kids Are All Right isn’t a rallying point or an attempt to shift the social paradigm of the LGBT community. Co-written with Stuart Blumberg, Lisa Cholodenko’s film isn’t about lesbian marriage as much as it is about a marriage that just happens to be between two lesbians.

Annette Bening and Julianne Moore star as Nic and Jules, married with two kids they sired through an anonymous sperm donor. Nic is a successful doctor, something of a perfectionist, and a little controlling. Jules is a little more laid back, slightly flaky. She’s mainly stayed home to take care of the kids while bouncing from one failed business venture to another. She’s just now getting into the landscaping trade. The daughter, Joni, (Mia Wasikowska) has just turned 18 and is ready to move off to college. Her younger brother, Laser (Josh Hutcherson), is at that turbulent teenaged time where he needs a strong male role model, especially in a house full of women.

At his gentle nudging, Joni gets into contact with their sperm donor, Paul (Mark Ruffalo). Paul is a restaurateur with an organic, co-op farm and a motorcycle. He’s free-spirited and free of responsibility. His introduction into their family dynamic is initially awkward, but Jules and the children warm up to him while Nic is reticent. But, a second act plot twist veers the film into soap opera territory, taking the focus off of Paul’s budding relationship with Joni and Laser.

Unlike many indie films these days, the characters feel like fully realized human beings. So often you get movies about characters that are quirky or misanthropic for no real reason. With Kids Are All Right, we get genuine emotion and a tale about the difficulties of any relationship. Laser is noticeably embarrassed when his clingy moms ask for a hug. Nic and Jules engage in an incredibly clumsy attempt at sex while the kids are still at home. Little things like these that anyone, gay or straight, can relate to. Never does Chodolenko draw attention to the sexual orientation of her leads. You never feel the need to describe the film as, ”…but with lesbians.”

Not surprisingly, the performances are strong all around. Paul could have easily been vilified, but Ruffalo imbues him with an immature charm. You sympathize with him even if the other characters don’t. It’s a similar performance to his turn in Kenneth Lonergan’s You Can Count on Me. Julianne Moore gets to flex her comedic muscles which she rarely shows off. Bening absolutely nails it when a harsh revelation turns her world upside-down.

Rating: ***

A Single Man

A Single Man - Dir. Tom Ford (2009)


If A Single Man were to win any awards this year, it would definitely get one for Artsy Fartsy Trailer of the Year. Fashion designer Tom Ford makes his directorial debut with A Single Man, based on the acclaimed 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood. Ford, along with co-writer David Scearce, adapted the source material into a poetic portrait of loss while offering a glimmer of hope and a touch of humor at all the right moments.

Colin Firth (usually cast as the stiff love interest in almost every romantic comedy) plays the titular single man, George Falconer, an English professor who has not gotten over the death of his long-time lover, Jim (Matthew Goode). They had been together for sixteen years and he was killed in a car accident eight months ago. It is now November 30, 1962, a month into the Cuban Missile Crisis. As most of the country worries about nuclear annihilation, George simply stares into the mirror and wills himself to ”…get through the g-damned day.” He means to commit suicide once it’s over.

George goes to the university where a class on Aldous Huxley leads to a lecture about fear and thinly-veiled allusions to homophobia. It falls mostly on deaf and perplexed ears save for a handsome, young student Kenny (Nicholas Hoult) who can sense the deep seeded loneliness in his teacher. George stops at a liquor store and converses with a Spanish hustler (Jon Kortajarena) in front of a billboard for Hitchcock’s Psycho, the wide eyes of Janet Leigh upon them. The evening is spent dining and dancing with his best friend and former lover, Charley (Julianne Moore), a lush of a divorcee who yearns for the carefree days of the past in swinging London.

Ford directs the film with mechanical precision. He is immaculate in composing his shots and meticulous in the way he moves his actors through each frame. Ford certainly seems to have been inspired in his style by Wong Kar-Wai even bringing on Shigeru Umebayashi (who worked on In the Mood for Love and its pseudo-sequel 2046) to compose several tracks for the score. Ford has created an overly ordered world mirroring the structured, well-mannered lifestyle George lives within the rigid confines of 60’s suburbia. However, behind the stoic face he shows the world, he is heartbroken. George lives in a home that looks to have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is flawlessly made, a shelter ironically lined with large windows. A ”glass house,” as George jokes to Jim in a flashback.

The repressed despair is symbolized in the cold color palette Ford has chosen for the majority of the film. The gray tones warm from time to time reflecting George’s change in mood. Littered throughout the movie are extreme close-ups of lips and eyes, a slow motion pan up on a little girl in pig tails and blue dress. In the face of mortality, George finds new beauty in the tiniest of things.

The results are a striking picture though slightly artificial, sometimes bordering into the territory of a bad 80’s perfume commercial. A Single Man’s most memorable images occur at the beginning of the film as George floats naked in the water, a symbol of death and rebirth. It cuts to him walking across a snowy road towards an upturned vehicle with Jim’s body lying beside it, a dead fox terrier lying next to him. George calmly lies next to Jim, gently planting a kiss on his lips before waking in a start. And this is how his day starts.

Firth offers a sublime restraint in his performance as George. He is the centerpiece and it truly makes the film. He’s already received nominations for the SAG Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, and Golden Globes. He will surely receive a nomination at the Oscars. Julianne Moore provides strong support and television fans should watch out for Big Love’s Ginnifer Goodwin as George’s next-door neighbor, Pushing Daisies’ Lee Pace as a fellow professor, and the uncredited voice of Mad Men’s Jon Hamm.

Rating: *** ½

Blindness

Blindness - Dir. Fernando Meirellas (2008)

A mysterious epidemic has left humanity blind, except for Julianne Moore.

Blindness is tired allegory. Its symbolism is drummed home with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Unnamed citizens in an unnamed city (at an unnamed time) are rendered sightless and quarantined to a prison camp by the government. There, they fall prey to a former bartender who declares himself dictator. Just as the Joker predicted, "When the chips are down, these civilized people will eat each other."

The themes of Blindness are far too obvious to be effective. Society crumbles and eventually a few hopeful survivors must pick up the shattered pieces. An unsettling mass rape scene comes off as excessively exploitive. The characters are cardboard stock. There’s the wise, old man who dispenses sage advice and the precocious child the adults have to look after.

What Blindness does have going for it are an A-list cast who give it their all and strong direction from Meirellas. He brings the same visceral, bleached out look that he brought to City of God and The Constant Gardener.

Rating: **

Eagle Eye

Eagle Eye - Dir. D.J. Caruso (2008)


Shia LeBeouf is pegged as a terrorist and forced to jump through elaborate hoops by a mysterious Big Brother…er…Sister?

Eagle Eye is Hitchcock by way of Michael Bay. It’s a loud, overproduced, and movies a million miles a minute only stopping at brief, preordained moments to let out arbitrary scenes of emotion. A preposterous film that hopes you’ll buy into it with just enough technobabble and political preaching.

You know what? I did buy into it just a little. As a brainless popcorn movie, Eagle Eye works for its first two acts right up until an I, Robot-esque revelation in the villainous mastermind. I picked the Will Smith vehicle because I wouldn’t deign to write Eagle Eye in the same sentence as 2001.

Rating: ** 1/2