Search Results for: maps to the stars

Julianne Moore deserves to win her all-but-guaranteed Best Actress Oscar for her bravura performance in David Cronenberg‘s Maps to the Stars, and not so much for her earnestly skillful turn in Still Alice, which is basically slow-drip cyanide. Does anyone remember Maps? It broke last May in Cannes, played again in Toronto and then was … Read more

“I was amused when Maps to the Stars screenwriter Bruce Wagner claimed during the Cannes Film Festival that Evan Bird‘s Benjie Weiss character, a poisonous 13 year-old superstar who immediately summons thoughts of Justin Beiber, wasn’t written or cast with Beiber in mind. A friend told me he ran into Beiber at the AMFAR during … Read more

David Cronenberg‘s Map To The Stars (Weinstein Co., 9.26) is not just a brilliant, black-as-night satire of soul-less, impossibly fucked-up Hollywood players, although it’s certainly that in part. And it’s not just a film that will send Justin Beiber and his representatives into saliva-sputtering fits due to the fact that Beiber is clearly the model … Read more

We’re now three and a half months into ’15, and a glance at the calendar tells me that except for Alex Garland‘s Ex Machina (which I’ve seen and admired but have yet to review), there are no films of any real consequence opening between now and May 1st. So let’s call this a four-month assessment … Read more

In a David Cronenberg interview posted on 2.23, The Dissolve‘s Calum Marsh mentioned a quote from Mubi critic Miriam Bale: “Bruce Wagner wrote Maps to the Stars as a broad comedy, but it isn’t directed that way.” Cronenberg’s response: “It’s almost true. There are elements that are broad comedy, but I can quote [Maps star] … Read more

I said it last September and I’m saying it again: Paul Dano‘s performance as the youngish Brian Wilson in Bill Pohlad‘s Love and Mercy (Roadside, 6.5) is almost spookily great. I’m telling you straight and true this is 2015’s first must-nominate performance. “Wilson’s disturbed spirit hums and throbs in the 30 year-old Dano, who looks … Read more

I’ve re-posted my raves about David Cronenberg‘s Maps to the Stars once too often so here’s an excerpt from Peter Howell’s review: “Kicking at Hollywood foibles is as easy as booting an overripe Halloween pumpkin, [but] it’s a hoot to watch. Watching these appalling people brings to mind the exchange in All About Eve where … Read more

I’m so late to the discussion about the moderately miraculous Jenny Slate in Gillian Robespierre‘s Obvious Child that I feel a little foolish bringing it up. It took me two weeks to write this piece because I felt so conflicted about this. But Slate is so alive and extra-dimensional and spunky with the right blend … Read more

When did everyone decide that Julianne Moore was all-but-locked to win the Best Actress Oscar? Roughly two and half months ago, or just after Still Alice, a morose but affecting Lifetime movie about a brilliant college professor suffering from the progressive malice of Alzheimer’s disease, was picked up by Sony Classics out of Toronto on … Read more

Little did I know last September that in missing Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer‘s Still Alice at the Toronto Film Festival that I would be committing myself to being in the dark about Julianne Moore‘s Best Actress chances for nearly two months. I realize, of course, that her front-runner status is largely about her being … Read more

As usual the rankings are based on a mixture of real-world likelihood, pressure of colleagues and the eternal, rock-solid assessments of the Movie Godz. Birdman‘s Michael Keaton has been in the top Best Actor slot since Telluride and I don’t see that changing, but who knows? Special HE shout-outs to two guys no one is … Read more