From ION Cinema:
8. Maps to the Stars – Dir. David Cronenberg
Why This Makes the Top 10: While it may not have been to everyone’s taste, Cronenberg’s 2012 pairing with Robert Pattinson, Cosmopolis, was odd, and more often that not, interesting. But it’s their next collaboration that really has our dander up, Maps to the Stars, scripted by Bruce Wagner (husband of Rebecca de Mornay) and set to star Pattinson, Viggo Mortenson and Rachel Weisz. Described as an acerbic and complex satire of Hollywood, but not along the lines of Altman’s The Player, assures Cronenberg, we’re excited about the simplistically cryptic description of the script as “very extreme.” Set to be the Canadian native’s first film shot on US soil (with Said Ben Said producing), production is set to start in May, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to see the finished product.
The Gist: While the synopsis is being kept under wraps, Cronenberg comments, “Hollywood is a world that is seductive and repellent at the same time, and it is the combination of the two that makes it so potent. I won’t fall back on some clichés or simplistic sloganeering, because the culture and what it reveals about Western culture and the rest of the world is very complex.”