Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Let me preface this by saying that the only Star Wars movie I ever saw was the original when it came out. I was about 12 and I hated it. I never set foot on a theater showing Star Wars ever again. Until now.

But it is a testament to the pop culture power of the George Lucas franchise that one really doesn't have to sit through the movies to know about Yoda, princesses with names like limbic systems and even Jar Jar Binks. None of the reassuring psychological mumbo jumbo really matters except the grip that this convoluted yet simplistic tale has on the world's imagination. It has something to do with fathers (what else is new?). And with a "Force" that you can use either for good or evil, which is none other than a secularized version of the Christian concept of free will, a concept that grates on my nerves. I don't buy it, but this is grist for another post. Star Wars is like a salad of Christianity Lite and Taoism. To Lucas' credit and perhaps even genius, no one in it believes in God.

The current, long-awaited sequel by J.J. Abrams warrants attention, as Star Wars is a cultural phenomenon as far as I'm concerned, exaggeratedly beloved by huge swaths of the world's population.
The bad news is, I was mostly bored. The reason for this lies, I suspect, in the way scripts for this kind of blockbusters are written, which are mainly extended intergalactic chase scenes and endless shoot em ups, disconnected set pieces punctuated by short intervals of stale and expository dialog between characters played by actors who seem lost in the greenscreen. Every time I see these fanboy movies I always wish Steven Spielberg had directed them. At least he can put dazzling sequences together with a sense of playful mischief. And he is not as dishonest, or better at camouflaging the manipulative editing and lazy writing. Everyone else, including Abrams, is a clunky, distant wannabe.

I perked up when I saw Oscar Isaac, a charismatic actor who is excellent in every movie he's in except for this one. He's used to playing complicated, sometimes unsavory characters; here, he's a mere goody two shoes. They give him the most inane lines and no real reason for existing and for once, he does not know what to do. He looks like he doesn't belong.
I perked up every time the great Domnhall Gleeson shows up, as a general of the evil First Order, an empire controlled by a giant prune acted with his customary panache by Andy Serkis. Gleeson, who tends to play decent chaps, wisely decides to camp it up a bit. He brings a controlled yet intense sang-froid that's more riveting than anything happening around him. Adam Driver also delivers, since he happens to be the only interesting character of the lot. He is a tortured, insecure son. As for newcomers Daisy Ridley (Rey) and John Boyega (Finn), I wish they had been directed not to take themselves so seriously. Through no fault of their own, they are rather insufferable.
Ridley fares well. Her character is the only glimmer of hope not only in the story, but for the entire Hollywood blockbuster industry. Here's a girl who can survive on her own, drive a spaceship like the best of them, and has a firm grip on auto mechanics. She is a smart and resourceful fighter who does not rely on feminine wiles to carry the day. She uses her wits. Given the usual way in which women are portrayed in most Hollywood films (helpless, clueless, threatening, or simply afterthoughts) I do not exaggerate when I say that considering the worldwide cultural influence of Star Wars, this may be a watershed moment in which the rancid stereotypes of women begin to change in Hollywood, and hopefully, in the culture at large. I salute the filmmakers for making her the undisputed protagonist of the movie, and as compelling a hero as any guy. She is certainly way more compelling than the insipid Luke Skywalker. If only they hadn't given her a guy's name. I still wish these female heroines were not acting like guys in disguise, but baby steps. 

The audience cheered when Han Solo and Chewbacca arrived, and so did I. They provide some personality and comic relief, though not enough. Harrison Ford, who was the best thing in the original movie, seems to be on the fence as to whether he hates or loves being there. Bringing back Carrie Fisher, now as General Leia, and not taking advantage of her sense of humor is a waste. Nostalgia is put to good use with the original cast and C3PO and R2D2 but opportunities for real storytelling are as ignored as scrap metal in the dust.
Lupita Nyong'o is wonderful and unrecognizable as the nicely rendered little prune who owns the intergalactic cantina (the first cantina was much more fun than this one. This one is a downer).
Only Chewie is fun. Only Chewie is hip. I can't get over his messenger bag. It's the best thing in the movie.
Thanks to enormous advances on digital special effects there are some spectacular vistas. The production design and the costumes are cool. The First Order live in a cold white planet and their gatherings resemble Riefenstahlian Nuremberg rallies in space. They reminded me of the Nazis in terms of style, (including Gleeson's high boots and the troopers' Nazi salute) but also, and more au courant, of ISIS, as they are also bent on destroying anyone who doesn't think like them, for no good reason.
John Williams provides cascades of epic notes and bits of his famous musical themes for the movie. It's a good, yet busy score. In short: I expected it to be more fun.

Maps To The Stars

The evil sister to Birdman, this bitterly vicious satire by David Cronenberg, based on a novel by Bruce Wagner, is happily, and like Cronenberg's best films, a movie about human horror. Maps To The Stars is about the needy, insecure, monstrously warped egos inbred by Hollywood culture, but in contrast to the genial Birdman, which is a feel-good movie in which vanity motivates creativity, Maps To The Stars is about egos so selfish and diseased they sow nothing but destruction.
The movie is at times clunky, the story and its symbolism are heavy handed and not clearly mapped out. The script strains to organize the complicated plot, in which the central metaphor is incest. The writing (the script is adapted by Wagner from his novel) is uneven. The satire is sharp but the plot is fuzzy. Still, Cronenberg meanders down extremely dark, uncomfortable places and summons his formidable capacity to shock.
More than just a facile look at Hollywood's notorious nastiness, Maps To The Stars is like a Freudian funhouse. It's a labyrinth of selves untethered by decency, empathy or common sense, that leads back to what made them sick in the first place, a recurring nightmare. Fame + Money = Crazy. Maps To The Stars makes Birdman look like a kiddie ride at Disneyland. The ignorant filth that comes out of the mouths of teenage actors in this movie makes the hacked Sony emails sound like they were written by Emily Post.
A spectacular Julianne Moore, winner of the Best Actress prize at Cannes, plays Havana Segrand, a hilariously vapid, damaged, prematurely fading movie star. Havana is the product of a traumatic childhood, courtesy of her dead movie star mother, who she believes or fantasizes, it isn't clear which, sexually abused her as a child. This being Hollywood, a remake is being made of the movie that made her mother famous, and of course, Havana wants to play her mom like a cat chasing its tail.
A hot mess of insecurity and narcissism, Moore is pitch perfect as an emotionally tortured character who boasts the casual cruelty of the utterly self-involved, complete with perky boobs and a perfect L.A. accent. She is scarily good. Havana is not the main character in the movie, but Moore steals it, and you realize how much you miss her whenever she is not onscreen. I am kind of freaking out at the Jungian implications of the same actress playing the Alzheimer's ridden neurosurgeon of Still Alice the same year as this crazy Hollywood bimbo. In my humble opinion, she won the Oscar for the wrong movie. Those endearing journalists from the Golden Globes got it right when they nominated her for both films. Not to take anything away from her sensational work in Still Alice, but her turn as Havana Segrand is an equally brave tour de force. She goes through every feeling, genuine and fake, known to man. She is, as they say in this movie, beyond.
An excellent John Cusack plays Stafford Weiss, a wealthy self-help guru who, in true self-help guru fashion, only cares about his book tour, even as his family collapses around him. Cusack approaches the phony he plays with icily controlled glee. Stafford gives expensive and painful massages and whispers psycho-spiritual mumbo jumbo to clueless stars who confuse his shtick with therapy.
Weiss has spawned a little monster, Benjie (the creepily good Evan Bird), a Bieber-like bundle of nastiness; a rotten, entitled kid who makes millions for his incompetent parents by working in crappy sequels and sitcoms. In comes the mysterious Agatha (Mia Wasikowska, excellent, as usual) all the way from Florida, with burn scars in her face. She lands a job as Havana's personal assistant, thanks to her close Twitter "friend" Carrie Fisher, who appears as herself in a perversely funny cameo. Down this Tinseltown rabbit hole everyone is connected, not only through schmoozing, name-dropping and other, more sexual activities, but by virtue of sharing the same nightmares and stories; by virtue of the ongoing incest between the movies, the lives, rehabs and deaths of movie stars, and the starfucking of executives, wannabes and audiences.
Cronenberg pulls no punches satirizing low hanging fruit like these Hollywood types, but as a master of horror he is not content with just skewering a town that skewers everybody for a living. There is something visceral in his judgement. What to make of Benjie's mother (Olivia Williams), who both pimps out her child and lets him abuse her, refusing to set a single lousy boundary? And she is not alone. Every adult is powerless around Benjie. This kid is a cash cow, hence he can be vile to everyone.
As comical as Havana is, her life is painful, lonely, full of drugs and debasement, even as she goes on eighteen thousand dollar shopping sprees.  The kids in this movie are so beyond help, it's actually shocking. Hollywood is shown to be such a den of iniquity that only violent, vengeful purification is in order. Maps To The Stars is a welcome addition to the wonderful genre of acid movies about Hollywood like Sunset Blvd., The Player, and Mulholland Drive, and if it's not quite as polished as these movies, it is deliciously disturbing.