Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

blanche-2 OMG - I don't know why I rented this film, but I didn't like it. Directed by David Cronenberg, "Maps to the Stars" from 2014 is about the seamier side of Hollywood. Believe me, after you see this, you'll have no interest in any side of Hollywood.The story deals with several different people. Stafford Weiss (John Cusack) is psychotherapist to the stars. He and his wife (Olivia Williams) share several secrets. Their teenage son, Benjie (Evan Bird), is a big star, totally obnoxious, and a drug addict, who refers to his assistant as a "Jew faggot." Now, someone on IMDb thought this kid was not totally unlikable. I did. Benjie has a sister, Agatha, who has been gone from the family for 7 years, under mysterious circumstances, after she set fire to the house. She actually is back in LA, at first unbeknownst to them, with a lot of burns on her body, working as a personal assistant to Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore). Havana's mother was a big star who died in a fire, so apparently, Havana feels connected to Agatha. Havana is an over-the-hill actress who wants to play her mother's role in a remake of one of her movies. Someone else is cast, but when that woman's little boy drowns, Agatha is thrilled. Agatha believes her mother abused her, and is in therapy with Stafford Weiss.Robert Pattinson plays an actor who works as a chauffeur. He's also writing a screenplay.After dealing with the drugs, the insults, the descriptions of what actresses let producers do to them to get roles, the threesome, the incest, the visions of dead children, etc., I was ready to slit my wrists.I'm sure Cronenberg fans will find plenty to enjoy here. I was left wondering why I watched it.

Leofwine_draca I know that a lot of the famous cult directors of the 1980s are now making less than impressive films in the new millennium (John Carpenter, Dario Argento, Brian De Palma, etc.) but Cronenberg's fall from grace is odd in a uniquely odd Cronenbergian way. This is the guy who made gutsy, cerebral, body horror pictures for most of his career, then made a couple of fantastic thrillers in the 2000s with A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and EASTERN PROMISES, and now out of nowhere makes near-unwatchable nonsense.COSMOPOLIS was the first of a double bill of terrible films looking at the cult of celebrity and the lives of the maladjusted in Hollywood. There's more going on in this one than COSMOPOLIS, but it's still awful: poorly written, badly acted, and mistaking bad taste for wit. Julianne Moore gives an awful and histrionic turn as a washed-up actress who spends the film screaming or having gratuitous sex. A bunch of other actors show up at times and do weird things like set themselves on fire or shoot family pets. It's supposed to be a satire but you wouldn't know it; this is poorly-conceived stuff indeed, with lots of dragged-out extraneous material and scenes which don't work. It has exactly one satisfying and brutal murder scene and one ridiculously awful-looking CGI fire, and that's about it.

brightsides I gave this film 3 stars for the earnestness of Julianne Moore and Mia Wasikowska, otherwise it was nothing short of an overwrought, self- indulgent mess. Maybe Hollywood insiders would find these characters intriguing, but for me I could not relate, nor care less about them and their family dramas. And I enjoyed several other Cronenberg films, just not this crap. Perhaps I'm being overly critical because I recently watched and thoroughly enjoyed the thought-provoking Clouds of Sils Maria with Juliette Binoche and Kristin Stewart. This film handled the subject of an actress having to come to grips with how age changes the game within the industry, particularly for women, with subtlety and finesse. Maps to the Stars hit you over the head with overacting, and everything-but-the-kitchen-sink situations including ghosts, threesomes, drug addictions, pyromania, etc, etc etc. Too much over-the-top craziness for my taste. And do I need to mention a completely ridiculous caricature performance from John Cusack? Ugggghhh, spare me.

nms1982 This is a twisted and quite dark movie and though in one scene I had a visual effects qualm it is well-executed and has a good cast. Julianne Moore in particular stands out, in a less common sort of a role for her: a pathetic, vacuous megabitch. A worst-of-the-worst past her prime movie star, who has sex with her emotionally unstable assistant's new boyfriend to momentarily feel better about herself and because she can. It is great to see her get her just desserts though shortly thereafter when said assistant (Mia Wasikowska) loses it. This film is a worthwhile and unique, no holds barred look at Hollywood scumbags/idiots. Mr. Cronenberg unsurprisingly is relevant and continuing to make solid pictures, in this case another disturbing one--which I was pleased about (my favorite of his movies are either disturbing, violent, or both; this is both, though mainly the former). Julianne Moore's character, the Benjie character, and others are quite hateable/reprehensible. You feel bad for Wasikowska's, in the milieu despite her not being soulless. This is the kind of film that, by the bleak end--which follows upon a not much less bleak beginning and middle--will leave the viewer likely feeling icky and depressed, and a bit worse about human beings, especially L.A.-based actors and other celebrities. It certainly has its place. I didn't feel there was anything gratuitous about the script. Cronenberg fans and cinephiles should give it a watch--maybe just one, ever--(even if only for Moore's performance) if they don't mind a serious downer.