Four of Them

-Okay, I get why people hate Michael Pitt. He has one of those faces. But I like him. He's a decent actor, I don't know what he's like as a person (or as much of a person as an actor can be, because, y'know), as a veer away from interviews involving all famous, non-Stephen Fry entities, but he makes movies that go anywhere from loathsome to nerdgasm-tastic, depending on who you ask (Funny Games US, Last Days, The Dreamers, etc.), which I can respect. I'm done.

-Anyway, plot: A young homeless man, Toby (Pitt) gets involved with a self-obsessed paparazzi (Steve Buscemi, in all his sleazy glory) and a pop star (Alison Lohman). Pitt (oh, god, him again) is playing against type (or, at least, his most famous type), as in, Toby is, like, really nice. One of those doggedly well-meaning and slightly naive dudes who you can't help but like. Buscemi plays a preening narcissist, who insists he is a 'licensed professional', and first lets Toby bunk with him because he (Toby) offers to work for him for free, but then, they become (kinda) friends and shit. It's all very complicated, I could never tell what, exactly, Buscemi (right, his name's Les)'s motives were, whether he was doing half the shit he did because he cared about Toby or he just wanted to get his much-bragged about 'shot heard round the world', although you could tell he cared for Toby at least a little (because, y'know, he stared sadly at some boots Toby left behind).

-Right. What?

-Alison Lohman spends most of the movie in underwear and tight dresses and fake-fur coats, as K'harma (?), a popstar who's only song we hear is blandly catchy enough that one could believe she'd actually make it big. Everything about this movie is a satire on something--pretentious directors and vicious, sexpot agents and self-serving soap actors with charitable pet projects, asshole celebrity boyfriends with no discernible job in their own right, douchebag TV actors. Et cetera. What was I talking about?

-Who would you rather be: Paparazzi or pop star?