The Weekly Movie Watch Volume 46

This week I watched Maps to the Stars, Triad Election.

I watch movies every week and then write down my thoughts. Read my previous reviews!
My rating is simple, Watch It, It Depends, Skip it.

Maps to Our Stars -Interesting concept that never takes off.

Maps to the Stars (2014)
Watch Maps to the Stars
Written by: Bruce Wagner (screenplay)
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Starring: Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson
Rated: R

Plot: 
Agatha, mentally deluded and estranged from her family, returns to Hollywood to see her family and brother who is now a famous child actor just out of rehab.  She works as a personal assistant for a woman who is a client of her fathers and is desperate to act again despite lingering mommy issues.

Review:
It's not as funny as I anticipated and quickly subverted my expectations with a jump to something along the lines of The Sixth Sense. It seemed a clumsy addition that would later serve the climax. Maybe the ensemble cast impossibly linked adds to the joke, but the problem is that the joke never quite lands. The constant name dropping is in turn immersive and annoying. It's trying to satirize Hollywood, but comes across as pretentious. None of the jokes are that typical, it paints an extremely dark picture of Hollywood, which may be the point, but I never have a reason to care.
Skip it.

Triad Election - It's hard to be legit.

Triad Election (2006)
Watch Triad Election
Written by: Nai-Hoi Yau and Tin-Shing Yip (written by), Nai-Hoi Yau & Tin-Shing Yip (characters, uncredited)
Directed by: Johnnie To
Starring: Louis Koo, Simon Yam, Nick Cheung
Rated: --

Plot:
While Jimmy has become a successful businessman based on his Triad contacts, he now wants to go clean. He is pulled back into the fold when his peers push him to become the new Triad leader.

Review:
Indeed better than the original. It's brutal and ruthless. We want to root for the main character, and we hope he can make it out, but at every turn, he meets resistance. The conflict is that he wants to use his gang connections to help him get out of the life and that is what traps him.
It depends.