The latest film from a resurgent David Cronenberg played to great reviews at Cannes, where it debuted earlier this year. It is further evidence that Cronenberg is one of the most interesting directors working today.
Whether it is a keen choice of subject matter (Maps to the Stars centres on the black hole of celebrity) or his newly found muse (take another bow Mr. Pattison) there’s little doubt of his potency and relevance. Here’s the new trailer for Map to the Stars, a synopsis is below but check out the beautifully held images on show.
John Cusack, Olivia Williams and Mia Wasikowska complete the cast along with Pattison and the film’s lead Julianne Moore.
The 29th of September is when you can join in the fun.
Trailer go.
Synopsis go.
The Weiss family are an archetypical Hollywood dynasty – Dr Stafford Weiss (John Cusack) is a psychotherapist whose self-help books have made him a fortune. His wife Cristina (Olivia Williams) is the overbearing mom-ager of their thirteen-year old son, Benjie (Evan Bird), a prodigious child star fresh out of drug rehab and their estranged daughter Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) has recently been released from a psychiatric hospital. Agatha is now back in Hollywood making friends with a wannabe actor/writer limo driver named Jerome (Robert Pattinson) and with a new job as PA to one of Stafford’s clients – the neurotic and tempestuous actress Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore), whose dream of reprising her dead mother’s starring role from the 1960s is beginning to haunt her.
There’s nothing relevant or potent about Cronenberg’s films; maybe if you take the Hot Tub Time Machine back to the ’70s, then yeah, I could envision an argument. But at this point in time, no. I get that movie reviewers are almost 100% male, but it’s weird to me none has ever, ever brought up the role of women in his films (although more accurate would be the word ‘facade’ or ‘caricature’). The sex is all a form of rape. And it has the ring of personal fetish, which, yeah, disturbing. (Sex in a limo, 2 movies in a row? And not ONE reviewer comments on it? How lame is that?)
It’s obvious to every grown woman I know that Cronenberg hates women; his movies all seethe with it. Wanting to have sex with women and presenting them as objects-to-ogle does not mean that you actually like them — ask a rapist. Hostility toward women animates all his films, even more as he ages and faces challenges to, I guess, his own virility. Makes him even madder and in a greater need for women’s humiliation. Sigh. Hope some day I read a male movie reviewer with a clue. Until then, rock on dude.