Maps to the Stars

Movies to See Right Now

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Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine in BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT
Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine in BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT

Far from the Madding Crowd, which opens today, is satisfying choice for those looking for a bodice ripper. I haven’t yet seen the sci-fi Ex Machina, which has been engendering almost universal praise.  If you’re looking for a scare, try the inventive and non-gory horror gem It Follows.

I’m at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where I’ve written about four films so far (scroll down).  Two are among the year’s best films: the wonderfully weepy and funny coming of age film, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and the uncomfortable documentary on living with past genocide in the absence of truth and reconciliation, The Look of Silence.

Documentarian Alex Gibney now has TWO excellent films playing on HBO:

  • Going Clear: The Prison of Belief, a devastating expose of Scientology is playing on HBO; and
  • Sinatra: All or Nothing at All, an especially well-researched and revelatory biopic of Frank Sinatra.

Don’t bother with Clouds of Sils Maria – it’s a muddled mess. Insurgent, from the Divergent franchise is what it is – young adult sci-fi with some cool f/x. The romance 5 to 7 did NOT work for me, but I know smart women who enjoyed it. The biting Hollywood satire of Maps to the Stars wasn’t worth the disturbing story of a cursed family. I also didn’t like the Western Slow West, now out on video.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the funny and sentimental Canadian dramedy Cloudburst, available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix, Amazon Instant Video , iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

On May 4, Turner Classic Movies is playing two marvelous, gritty classics from 1958.

    • I Want to Live! features Susan Hayward’s Oscar-winning performance as a good hearted but very unlucky floozy; it has both a great jazz soundtrack and a dramatic walk to The Chair.
    • Beyond a Reasonable Doubt is another film noir from the great Fritz Lang: seeking to discredit capital punishment, a reporter (Dana Andrews) gets himself charged with and CONVICTED of a murder – but then the evidence of his innocence suddenly disappears! Crackerjack (and deeply noir) surprise ending.

Movies to See Right Now

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Gene Hackman in the 1975 NIGHT MOVES
Gene Hackman in the 1975 NIGHT MOVES

I’m at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and I haven’t caught up with the promising sci-fi Ex Machina or the rock doc Lambert & Stamp. Here are the movies that I know are good:

In theaters, I liked Ethan Hawke’s gentle documentary Seymour: An Introduction. If you’re looking for a scare, try the inventive and non-gory horror gem It Follows.

Documentarian Alex Gibney has TWO excellent films playing now on HBO:

  • Going Clear: The Prison of Belief, a devastating expose of Scientology is playing on HBO; and
  • Sinatra: All or Nothing at All, an especially well-researched and revelatory biopic of Frank Sinatra.

Don’t bother with Clouds of Sils Maria – it’s a muddled mess.  Insurgent, from the Divergent franchise is what it is – young adult sci-fi with some cool f/x. The romance 5 to 7 did NOT work for me, but I know smart women who enjoyed it.  The biting Hollywood satire of Maps to the Stars wasn’t worth the disturbing story of a cursed family. I also didn’t like the Western Slow West, now out on video.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the drama Wild, with its wonderful performances by Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and Flixter.

On April 27, Turner Classic Movies is airing the 1975 character-driven neo-noir Night Moves, with Gene Hackman as an LA private eye who follows a trail of evidence to steamy Florida. Hackman shines in the role – the detective is deeply in love with his estranged wife, but unsuited for marriage. Night Moves also features Melanie Griffith’s breakthrough role as the highly sexualized teen daughter in the Florida family; Griffith was eighteen or nineteen when this was filmed, and had already been living with Don Johnson for three years.

And TCM is also showing one of my very favorite films, the Sam Peckinpah 1973 Western Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (April 30), featuring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson in the title roles. Peckinpah takes us into a realistically dusty world of 1880s New Mexico and makes the story operatic in its sweep. Pat Garrett is a revisionist Western, with Billy representing the have-nots and his old pal Garrett hiring out to do the bidding of the capitalist one-percenters. It’s a near-great movie; if the unfortunate “Paco” story line were excised, it would rank among the greatest three or four Westerns of all time. (Another minor flaw: Richard Jaeckel has to wear a Paul Revere wig. )

Pat Garrett also features the Peckinpah repertory company of Luke Askew, Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Gene Evans, Dub Taylor, Emilio Fernandez and, in one his most memorable roles, R.G. Armstrong. The stellar cast also features Harry Dean Stanton, Jason Robards, Elisha Cook Jr., Chill Wills, Richard Jaeckel, Jack Elam, Barry Sullivan, Jack Dodson (Howard Sprague in The Andy Griffin Show), Richard Bright (Al Neri in The Godfather), and Charles Martin Smith (Terry the Toad in American Graffiti).

The sound track is by Bob Dylan, and Dylan has a small acting role, too; this is the origin of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, which perfectly underlines a heartbreaking scene with two greats of the Western genre, Slim Pickins and Katy Jurado.

Movies to See Right Now

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Victor Buono in THE STRANGLER
Victor Buono in THE STRANGLER

This week, most of your movie best bets are on TV and video.

In theaters, I liked Ethan Hawke’s gentle documentary Seymour: An Introduction. If you’re looking for a scare, try the inventive and non-gory horror gem It Follows.

Don’t bother with Clouds of Sils Maria – it’s a muddled mess.

Insurgent, from the Divergent franchise is what it is – young adult sci-fi with some cool f/x. The romance 5 to 7 did NOT work for me, but I know smart women who enjoyed it. I found Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter to be droll but tiresome. The biting Hollywood satire of Maps to the Stars wasn’t worth the disturbing story of a cursed family. I also didn’t like the Western Slow West, now out on video.

Documentarian Alex Gibney has TWO excellent films playing now on HBO:

  • Going Clear: The Prison of Belief, a devastating expose of Scientology is playing on HBO; and
  • Sinatra: All or Nothing at All, an especially well-researched and revelatory biopic of Frank Sinatra.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the hilarious Living in Oblivion, with Steve Buscemi and Peter Dinklage. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Xbox Video.

Don’t miss the 1964 serial killer movie The Strangler, playing on Turner Classic Movies on April 19. It’s the masterpiece of director Burt Topper, who specialized in low-budget exploitation movies. First, we see that lonely lab tech Otto Kroll (Victor Buono in an especially brilliant and eccentric performance) is twisted enough to murder random women and return to his lair and fondle his doll collection. Then we learn his motivation – he dutifully visits his hateful mother (Ellen Corby – later to play Grandma Walton) in her nursing room; she heaps abuse on him in every interaction. Pretty soon, even the audience wants to kill Mrs. Kroll, but Otto sneaks around taking out his hatred for his mom by strangling other women. Because Otto is outwardly genial to a fault, it takes a loooong time to fall under the suspicion of the cops. The character of Otto and Buono’s performance elevate The Strangler above its budget and launches it into the top rank of serial killer movies. (THE STRANGLER IS NOT AVAILABLE FOR RENT FROM NETFLIX OR STREAMING SERVICES. You can buy the DVD from Amazon or find a VHS tape on eBay.)

TCM will also show Murder, My Sweet (April 20), the 1944 film in which Dick Powell was able to escape his typecasting as boyish crooner in big musicals and immerse himself in a new career in grimy film noir. Powell proves himself right with the studio bosses, and Murder, My Sweet was just his first success in film noir. Powell, an actor from Hollywood’s Golden Age who would translate very well in today’s cinema, is very watchable as Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, an LA private dick who is hired by three clients, each seemingly more dangerous than the last. As Marlowe follows the mystery, he is knocked out multiple times, taken hostage, drugged and temporarily blinded. Oh, and Claire Trevor tries to seduce him. Pretty good stuff.

MAPS TO THE STARS: biting Hollywood satire and Original Sin

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Mia Wasikowska and Julianne Moore in MAPS TO THE STARS
MAPS TO THE STARS

David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars is funny, dark and disturbing, but is ultimately unsatisfying.  The disturbing part shouldn’t surprise us, Cronenberg having been responsible for the exploding heads in Scanners, the auto accident sexual fetishes of Crash (1996) and the nightmarish druggy hallucinations of Naked Lunch.  But Cronenberg’s most recent A History of Violence and Eastern Promises have been very accessible, albeit with striking violence.  Maps to the Stars lures us in with a brutally witty show biz satire, and then clubs us with the most twisted family violence.

John Cusack and Olivia Williams play a rich Hollywood couple who had unknowingly committed their unique form of Original Sin, which has resulted in two damaged and dangerous kids.   Julianne Moore plays a needy and neurotic movie star grappling with middle age and her own family heritage.  These are people who take astonishing privilege for granted and treat their minions in contempt.   They react to the most even the most horrific tragedies by assessing how it will affect a book tour.  Cusack’s faux-shaman-to-the-stars ponders fixing the worst possible PR disaster by going “on Oprah and pulling a Lance Armstrong”.

What makes this such a nasty show biz satire, is that the eveil doesn’t just come from the Hollywood suits.  Here, the talent and the creatives are just as biz-oriented – always focused on box office, their fees, and cut throat competition for the next career-enhancing and remunerative gig.  There is very smart humor and lines like, “You know, for a disfigured schizophrenic, you’ve got the town pretty wired”.

Brilliant as always, Julianne Moore is a very good sport here (even with a fart gag).  The most memorable performances are by the very underutilized Olivia Williams (The Ghost Writer, Hyde Park on Hudson) – always teetering with desperation just under the surface – and Evan Bird, a monstrous teen star who isn’t to blame for how he is.  Cusack and Mia Wasikowska are also very good.  I just can’t figure out the appeal of Robert Pattinson, who is in this move to be a love interest, and doesn’t add anything special.

Although there’s a lot to enjoy about Maps to the Stars, it just doesn’t pay off. There’s very disturbing violence, some involving children, and sending up Hollywood foibles with the level of sickness in these characters, just isn’t worth it.

Maps to the Stars, after a blink-and-you-missed-it theatrical release, is available streaming on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.