ComedyFan2010 I haven't watched other movies by David Cronenberg but if people say that this one is the weakest one of his work then I have to watch more of his movies. This is a very bizarre look at Hollywood. Making the glamorous life look kind of miserable. The incest topic is pretty horrifying especially when we see how the characters are all dealing with it and the mental sickness that came with it.The cast is of very high class actors and they all do an amazing performance in the movie. Agatha Weiss is most impressive character and Mia Wasikowska does a great job portraying her with her vulnerability and mental problems. Julianne Moore also does an amazing job as an actress trying to make a comeback in a remake playing a role of her mother who molested her. Evan Bird does a very impressive performance for such a young actor portraying a teen star whose environment got him into being a nasty person and a drug abuser at a very young age yet we also see his pain that makes us feel for the young man.Glad I found this movie.

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.

Mike Tomano A slight departure for Cronenberg, but his unflinching style to delve into the darkness of psychosis is still prevalent. Intertwining stories revolving around the shallow lust for fame in Hollywood. Julianne Moore turns in her usual terrific performance as an actress looking to make a comeback in a biopic of her late cult-star mother. Other performances are solid, as well. The humor is cynical, the script is taut and brings out the depth...or lack of...in each character. Recommended.

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.