have to disagree ya Lizard Noodle....
Michael Bay (just to take one example) is not making a product whose primary reason for existence is art...it's commerce and entertainment.
That's why his movies for the most part have the budgets they have....the financiers are betting they can make their 200 million back and then some. that speaks to the construction of the story, the genre, every element of the project is constructed for maximum profit. the movie must be fun and not overly dark, have "fun" or "relate-able" characters, flashy action scenes, a best selling novel as the source, etc...all the usual entertainment marketing elements. there's nothing wrong with any of that....but if you think Transformers, The Avengers, Batman part 8, even Gone Girl (which looks good) or whatever exists purely for art's sake...uh you might want to rethink that.
compare that to pretty much any Cronenberg film....extremely dark overall, maybe no relate-able character, completely nihilistic ending, strange intellectual surreal dialog, slow pacing, low budget, etc. it seems blatantly obvious to me that films like Crash, Spider, Naked Lunch, and yes Maps to the Stars only exist because the creator of them finds them interesting and of artistic merit....not primarily for the paycheck. He did not even get paid at all for Spider because financing was impossible....just did it for the art.
So you can like or hate any movie...but the distinction between commerce/entertainment and art films is one you can make pretty clearly.
I would also argue that i've seen numerous Hollywood themed movies (recently sunset blvd, also a fine movie except for the dead narrator trope which i didn't really like) and not ONE resembles this one on anything but the most superficial level (even mulholland drive, while related is quite distinct from this). The combination of characters, tone, strange mythological script, hallucinatory elements, use of music, etc....it's a unique film imo. again...you can totally hate it and prefer his his more crude earlier sci fi like scanners, rabid, etc or another movie about hollywood like The Player....i like that stuff as well. but to say that the film has already been done before and is not art is inaccurate imo. This movie could only exist after 10 years of attempting financing and even then with a terrible distribution deal and low budget with everyone getting paid scale....meaning that financiers did not see a large audience for it and the people involved could have been getting paid much more elsewhere but this is what they wanted to do. meaning they did it for the art.
dozens of actresses refused the starring role due to the "toilet scene" (among others)....meaning this has not been done before because it's unflattering, career dangerous, etc....like it or hate it...it's an art film. art does NOT equal GOOD...it just means it exists for a certain reason besides profit. go to any museum of modern art and you will surely see much that you like...and much that you don't (or think is "bad").
many critics think it's good art....many think it's bad...but it's clearly not the usual profit driven entertainment product. do you really consider Maps to the Stars "benign"? it may be many things including "bad art" but it surely is not bland or safe (i won't get into any spoilers here...but really?).
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