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: *** (*****)

Dracula Untold

Dracula Untold - Dir. Gary Shore (2014)

"Sometimes the world no longer needs a hero, it needs a monster."

Origin stories and reboots are all the rage in Hollywood. A shared cinematic universe has become the latest trend ever since Marvel Studios shattered box office records with the creation of their one that mimics the comic book source material. It's not surprising that movie producers would want to jump on the Marvel bandwagon. They essentially combined multiple franchises into one uber-franchise. This leads us into Universal's latest attempt to revive their classic monsters, which were hugely successful back in the 30's and 40's. The idea of bringing Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Invisible Man, the Mummy, and all the others together in a clash of the macabre certainly sounds amazing on paper. However, Universal hasn't exactly had the best of luck in bringing these characters to the modern era. The last time Universal teamed their monsters together was Van Helsing, which doesn't inspire a tremendous amount of confidence.

Dracula Untold mixes history with fiction in a story set long before the events of Bram Stoker's famed novel. Vlad Tepes (Luke Evans) is the prince of Wallachia in the region of what is now known as Romania. As a boy, Vlad was conscripted into the Ottoman Empire and trained as a ruthless soldier under the Turkish sultan. He slaughtered thousands, including women and children, to earn the nickname Vlad the Impaler due to his brutal method of dispatching victims.

Vlad has since left that life behind him to rule his land in peace with his wife, Mirena, and son, Ingeras (Art Parkinson). However, tranquility is not in the cards when the Turks and the sultan Mehmed II (Dominic Cooper), once Vlad's adopted brother, come stomping into Wallachia. The Sultan demands 1000 boys to be handed over to the Ottoman Empire along with Ingeras. Left with an impossible choice, sacrifice their sons or refuse and be slaughtered by a vastly superior army, Vlad seeks desperate help from a Master Vampire (Charles Dance) who dwells in a cave atop Broken Tooth Mountain.

Dracula Untold has an uphill battle remaking Dracula into a tragic hero. Let's face it, if a guy impales so many people that he becomes known as the Impaler, he might not be sympathetic. Screenwriters Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (the upcoming Gods of Egypt) conveniently gloss over this minor detail to craft Vlad into a brooding avenger in the mold of Batman. The bat analogy is apropos Vlad is able to transform into a flock of the nocturnal creatures as he tears through dozens of his enemies. Unfortunately, most of the film's action sequences occur at night and most of the set pieces are lost in the darkness. Not that we're missing much, a bloodless, PG-13 vampire flick isn't much fun and first-time director Gary Shore doesn't bring a lot of style to the proceedings.

Luke Evans has tremendous shoes to fill when it comes to inheriting the role of Count Dracula. There's Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Gary Oldman, and even Frank Langella. Evans is certainly suited for this version of Dracula the tortured, action hero though he never quite goes for the jugular. Current Cronenberg muse Sarah Gadon takes on the thankless role of Dracula's wife, whose transparent role is to spur her husband onto his path of vengeance with her death. Dominic Cooper doesn't convince as the power-hungry Mehmed. On the other hand, producers shamelessly cater to the Game of Thrones crowd with the additions of Art Parkinson, Paul Kaye, and a scene-chewing Charles Dance.

Drinking the creature's blood, Vlad will be given the powers of a vampire for three days. Should he stave off his thirst for human blood, his humanity will be restored. However, if he were to give in, then he would be cursed to live forever as a vampire.

Dracula Untold is a muddled mixture of horror, fantasy, and action while trying to take a Christopher Nolan approach to revamp (no pun intended) an iconic character. The film's final coda is a clumsy effort to set the stage for further franchises ala The Avengers. In the end, "Dracula Untold" was a tale not worth telling in the first place.

Rating: ** (*****)

Enemy

Enemy - Dir. Denis Villeneuve (2014)

"Chaos is order yet undeciphered."

2014 was a good year for fans of doppelganger cinema. Richard Ayoade featured Jesse Eisenberg in dual roles in The Double and Denis Villeneuve does the same with Jake Gyllenhaal in Enemy. Villeneuve earned rave reviews for Incendies, which earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. The notoriety caught Hollywood's attention and Villeneuve made a big debut with Prisoners, an epic thriller starring Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman.

Enemy is a much smaller and intimate drama, loosely based on a novel by Jose Saramago. Villeneuve transplants the action from Portugal to Toronto and casts Gyllenhaal as history professor Adam Bell. Bell leads an uneventful life. He rarely goes out and gives the same lectures (dictatorships, totalitarianism) again and again to a sparse group of students. Even sex with his girlfriend Mary (Mélanie Laurent) seems to be perfunctory. One day, a colleague recommends Adam check out a movie titled Where There's a Will, There's a Way. To his shock, Adam notices a background character that looks exactly like him. After much research, Adam learns his duplicate is Anthony Claire, an actor based in Toronto. After several awkward phone conversations, Adam and Anthony set a meeting.

Any further revelations of the plot would spoil the film. Suffice to say, the lookalikes switch places to see how the other lives. Let's just say, this isn't The Prince and the Pauper. There's no happy ending and nobody learns a valuable lesson.

If Prisoners was an extended episode of Law & Order, Enemy could be described as a lost episode of Twin Peaks with a dash of David Cronenberg to spice it up. "Enemy" is an enigmatic picture that offers plenty of questions and no answers. This is the type of film that is ripe for discussion and multiple interpretations. The movie opens with an unsettling scene in which Anthony attends an underground erotic club involving women crushing tarantulas with their stiletto heels. Imagery of spiders and webs is a recurring theme within Enemy, perhaps as a metaphor for the way in which the twins have been ensnared by the women in their lives. Or maybe it's a symbol for the totalitarian governments Adam lectures about. Again, Villeneuve never spells it out for you.

The connection between Adam and Anthony is never made clear either. Is it a cosmic fluke or are the two simply related by blood? A sit-down with Adam and his mother (Isabella Rossellini) almost points to the latter.

Gyllenhaal turns in a pair of great performances as Adam and Anthony. The dual roles are certainly reminiscent of Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers. Gyllenhaal is understated as Adam giving him a slight slouch and a subtle uneasiness. As Anthony, he's bolder and more confident. Sarah Gadon, who has been popping up in both David and Brandon Cronenberg's pictures, has the most substantial female role in Enemy as Anthony's pregnant wife Helen. She gives a quiet performance that conveys a world of sadness and desperation.

Enemy might not appeal to an audience seeking conventional cinema. This one is for the arthouse crowd. Villeneuve has crafted an eerie, thought-provoking thriller anchored by the engrossing performances of Gyllenhaal and Gadon.

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

The Nut Job

The Nut Job - Dir. Peter Lepeniotis (2014)

The first few months of the year are considered a dumping ground for studios who generally release subpar titles with very little fanfare. The winter can also be slim pickings when it comes to family friendly entertainment. In 2013, Dreamworks capitalized on the slow market with The Croods, a gorgeously animated picture that went on to do over $587 million at the box office. There's no such luck this year as parents would have to settle for taking their kids to see The Nut Job.

Set during the 1950's, The Nut Job follows one Surly (Will Arnett), a misanthropic squirrel who only looks out for himself. Surly's only friend is Buddy (Robert Tinkler), a rat who looks like a grungy and emaciated version of Remy from Ratatouille. None of the other animals in picturesque Liberty Park like him though Andie (Katherine Heigl) seems to be slightly sympathetic. Autumn is nearly over, but the food supply is short for the coming winter. Andie and the exceedingly heroic Grayson (Brendan Fraser) clash with Surly over the nuts from a vendor cart. Their argument accidentally ignites the propane tank and burns down the tree that everyone calls home. Under the stern leadership of Raccoon (Liam Neeson), the animals vote to banish Surly from the park.

Surly and Buddy are left to fend for themselves in the big city against pigeons and sewer rats. As luck would have it, they stumble upon a nut store with a bountiful supply to feed them for ages to come. The store happens to be the staging ground for a quartet of gangsters led by King (Stephen Lang). Their plan is to tunnel into the nearby bank and replace all the bags of money with sacks full of nuts so no one will notice the cash is missing. Surly and the other park animals forge an uneasy alliance to gather the nuts and avoid detection by the humans.

The Nut Job has a clever premise with a bank heist concurrent to the cute critters pulling off one of their own in the background. The filmmakers certainly aimed high by attempting to imbue the manic energy of the classic Looney Tunes shorts with an allegory straight out of Animal Farm. However, the movie never lives up to those lofty goals. The script suffers from the same lazy pitfalls of other second-rate animated flicks, riddled with fart jokes and contrived pop culture references. Angry Birds? Seriously? Despite being a period piece, The Nut Job prominently features the novelty hit "Gangnam Style." Its familiar techno beats play over a celebratory sequence during the film and an animated version of PSY pops up during the end credits for the requisite dance party. Perhaps, it was included because Nut Job was co-produced by a South Korean studio. In any event, the song's popularity died out long before "Nut Job" saw the light of day and was buried alongside other one-hit wonders like the Macarena and "Whoomp! (There It Is)."

It also seems like the writers couldn't be bothered with creating names for every character. Well, this squirrel is surly, so let's call him Surly. What about his buddy? Buddy. And the raccoon and mole? Raccoon and Mole. Job well done.

The Nut Job was budgeted at $42.8 million, which is a fraction of what Pixar works with, but other studios have done much better animation with not much more. Disney's knockoff Planes looks worlds better than Nut Job on a budget of $50, despite a screenplay that was just as uninspired. The movie is certainly colorful, but the designs and the movements appear to have been animated a decade ago.

If anyone was expecting the celebrity cast to bring some sparkle to the proceedings, you will be disappointed. Aside from the baritone voices of Will Arnett and Liam Neeson, none of them are recognizable and only Maya Rudolph as an affectionate pug has any charm.

The concept of The Nut Job is a bit similar to 2006's Over the Hedge, which shared a co-writer in Lorne Cameron. None of the furry fauna in either movie were all that memorable. Even the zany interludes of Scrat from the Ice Age series were more fun. As Pixar has done again and again, you can create an animated film with enough intelligence and heart to appeal to adults and children alike. The Nut Job might win over the youngest of age, but it will make others fall into an early hibernation.

Rating: * (*****)

Dream House

Dream House - Dir. Jim Sheridan (2011)

Dream House sure sounded like a dream project. At the helm was Jim Sheridan, the Academy Award nominated director of My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father and In America. The cast had serious star power with Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Naomi Watts in the lead roles. Yet, Dream House turned into a complete nightmare. Sheridan clashed frequently with producer James G. Robinson. Their disagreements centered on Sheridan employing an improvisational style that deviated heavily from the script by David Loucka. Response from test screenings was disastrous and extensive reshoots were required. Robinson and Morgan Creek Productions took control and edited the move themselves. A displeased Sheridan attempted to have his name removed from the credits. Dream House was eventually released with very little fanfare. There was no gala premiere, no press screenings, and the actors refused to promote the picture. It seemed the only good thing to come out of the film was the fact that Craig and Weisz fell in love on set and eventually married.

Craig is Will Atenton, a successful book editor in New York, who quits his job to spend more time with his family. He's just bought a new home in a sleepy, snow covered New England town. He hopes to live a quiet life with his wife, Libby (Weisz), and daughters Trish & Dee Dee (Taylor & Claire Geare). But, that doesn't appear to be in the cards. The townsfolk are on edge around Atenton, especially his next-door neighbor Ann Patterson (Watts), who is in a bitter custody dispute with her ex-husband Jack (Marton Csokas). After chasing off a group of goth teenagers partying in his basement, Will learns the previous owners of his happy house were brutally murdered. A man named Peter Ward allegedly killed his wife and daughters and was committed to an insane asylum. As Will digs further into the mystery, he may like what he finds.

It's difficult to discuss the plot of Dream House any further without spoiling everything. That's assuming you haven't seen the trailer, which revealed practically the entire movie. Not that it really matters; the story is so trite and unoriginal that you will see every twist coming. For one thing, Elias Koteas is in the movie. When has Elias Koteas ever been cast in a role where he wasn't a creepy guy?

Despite all the finger pointing, there's plenty of blame to go around. First there's the hacky screenplay by David Loucka, whose most notable credit was as a co-writer on the Whoopi Goldberg comedy, Eddie. It's a safe bet that A-list talent like Craig, Weisz, and Watts signed on to work with Jim Sheridan. However, I don't think his version would have been that much better than the final product.

Dream House seems like the Exorcist prequel all over again. Not surprisingly that was also produced by Morgan Creek. Paul Schrader directed the original picture before the studio hired Renny Harlin was brought on to direct a retooled version. They were both eventually released into theaters and were both critical and financial flops.

Sheridan's cut may have been incrementally better than the theatrical version, but it surely couldn't have been on par with his best work. This isn't the same Sheridan who directed In America. It's the Sheridan who directed Get Rich or Die Tryin.' Sheridan is more than capable of telling personal stories about Irish immigrants, but he's not up to handling slick Hollywood fare.

Dream House might be Daniel Craig's worst performance ever. Perhaps, Craig was less than enthused about returning for reshoots and couldn't be bothered to give it his all. Sort of like Harrison Ford being forced to read the stilted narration for the theatrical cut of Blade Runner.

Dream House consists of so many half-baked contrivances that you'd think it was made by someone who went through M. Night Shyamalan's dumpster. The backstage drama during the production was far more compelling than the actual movie. This is an ineptly made thriller lacking in atmosphere or suspense.

Rating: * (*****)