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.
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.