well it's not like those two received the critical enthusiasm of the previous three
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:36 (nine years ago) link
Cosmopolis is pretty bad.
I agree with Morbs about A Dangerous Method--it's excellent and not at all "stodgy". Aside from the setting it's very much of a piece with the rest of his ourvre. Also Viggo Mortenson is a lot of fun as Freud.
― Punny Names (latebloomer), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:36 (nine years ago) link
Cronenberg features ranked:
VideodromeDead RingersThe BroodeXistenZThe FlyThey Came From WithinA History of ViolenceNaked LunchScannersRabidThe Dead ZoneA Dangerous MethodMaps to the StarsSpiderEastern PromisesCrashCosmopolis
Have yet to see M. Butterfly.
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:39 (nine years ago) link
the blurb in Morbz link about M. Butterfly is v otm - it's totally inert
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:44 (nine years ago) link
The BroodThe FlyVideodromeCrashThe Dead ZoneCosmopolisDead RingersMaps to the StarsScannersThey Came From WithinSpiderA History of ViolenceRabid
Haven't seen or haven't seen recently enough to accurately judge: Stereo, Crimes of the Future, Fast Company, Naked Lunch, eXistenZ, Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method
― Eric H., Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:44 (nine years ago) link
it's strange that after a century+ of film and Freud, the two best portrayals are probably Viggo and Alan Arkin.
Shakes, don't call me physician, i'm a philologist as my movie clearly states.
Eric, always exaggerating our differences, u tease
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:45 (nine years ago) link
eg Crash car salesman: "This is very bad."
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:47 (nine years ago) link
Can you locate any common ground between us in this thread?
― Eric H., Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:56 (nine years ago) link
My ranking:
The BroodVideodromeThe FlyNaked LunchEastern PromisesA History of ViolenceDead RingersScannersThe Dead ZoneeXistenZRabidThey Came From Within
The bottom 5 are all kind of tied:
A Dangerous MethodM. ButterflySpider (hated this)Crash (walked out of the theater, but finished it years later)eXistenZ (one of the worst movies I've ever seen by anybody)
Haven't seen Stereo, Crimes of the Future, Fast Company or Cosmopolis.
― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 21:58 (nine years ago) link
Morbs/Eric/Shakey rifftrax-style comment podcast would be hysterical, at least for an episode or two.
― you make me feel like danzig (WilliamC), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:02 (nine years ago) link
top 5 on Slant list, i think. (haven't seen The Brood in long time)
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:04 (nine years ago) link
I mean aside from that!
― Eric H., Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:08 (nine years ago) link
take what you can get, Brundlefly.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:10 (nine years ago) link
誤訳侮辱 - how did eXistenZ end up in the first list too if it's one of the worst films by anybody?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:12 (nine years ago) link
You guys! Merchant-Ivory don't have "mise en scene": they have a camera, in front of which actors walk or get posed. No way on hell did Cronenberg aspire to their level of third-rate craft.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:17 (nine years ago) link
Some other funny bits that stick out.
Eastern Promises, "he looks like a fucking icecream".
I enjoyed Maps To The Stars but it didn't linger enough in my head, though the one thing I thought was really funny was how the boy was so threatened by the younger boy and said he was "chewing up scenery".
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:19 (nine years ago) link
Dead RingersThe FlyNaked LunchVideodromeThe BroodAHOFEastern PromisesThe Dead Zone
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:19 (nine years ago) link
I enjoyed A History Of Violence more after reading J.G Ballard's review of it : http://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/sep/23/jgballard
― めんどくさかった (Matt #2), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:21 (nine years ago) link
The 1983-1991 run is unfuckwithable.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:23 (nine years ago) link
you could stretch that back to '79 imo altho Scanners would be the weakest of the lot
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:25 (nine years ago) link
Naked Lunch, the first I saw in the theater, is my favorite cinematic gloss on a novel. He wrote good dry-as-sand dialogue that I can imagine Benway and Joan saying, Peter Weller and Roy Scheider are quite well cast, etc.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:28 (nine years ago) link
I keep coming back to Scanners remembering that cold, beige, terminally '70s look it has, but then getting disappointed it doesn't do as much with the material as the two films on either side of it.
― Eric H., Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:31 (nine years ago) link
v true
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:31 (nine years ago) link
it includes these rote action movie gestures (a car chase!) that just seem awkward
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:32 (nine years ago) link
Howard Shore saves large chunks of it by really clearing his throat.
― Eric H., Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:33 (nine years ago) link
NL also my intro to Ornette Coleman.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:34 (nine years ago) link
the brood does so much more with "cold, beige, terminally 70s".
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:34 (nine years ago) link
I'm gonna have to re-watch the Brood when the wife is out of town or something, cuz last time she made me turn it off cuz the murderous kids were "too disturbing"
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:35 (nine years ago) link
so do pics of Jimmy Carter
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:37 (nine years ago) link
I agree and disagree with that list in about equal measure. And I hated their #1 (found it the wrong kind of campy) at the time, although I've never taken a second look.
1. The Dead Zone2. The Fly3. Dead Ringers4. Videodrome5. The Brood
Haven't seen Fast Company, M. Butterfly, Eastern Promises, or the new one. I've seen at least one of Rabid and/or Shivers, possibly both--if only one, I'm not 100% sure which.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:38 (nine years ago) link
you guys mean the films of the era when u say "70s," right, cuz i was dere, Cholly.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:40 (nine years ago) link
did you get a senior citizen discount when watching Hopscotch?
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:41 (nine years ago) link
cold, beige, terminally '70s look it has
Yes! Especially love the shopping mall at the start of Scanners - a Canadian cousin to the mall in Dawn of the Dead.
I think my overwhelming preference for the early, gory ones - and my disappointment with pretty much everything after Dead Ringers - is tied up with seeing them for the first time as VHS 'video nasties' in the early 1980s, at just the right teenaged frame of mind. The visual dirt of degraded VHS rental tapes gave those films an ugly energy and illicit attraction; so something like Dangerous Method can't help but seem pallid in comparison.
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:45 (nine years ago) link
optometrists' convention in videodrome nails that same, dreary vibe
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:46 (nine years ago) link
one of my first solo R-rateds was a doublebill of Animal House/Putney Swope in my hometown, and i was even younger than some of your recent tricks! xxp
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:48 (nine years ago) link
one of the many things i like about the brood is how effectively it situates a cluster of dated-seeming 70s design artifacts (ferns, white wrought iron furniture, wood paneling, turtlenecks, geometrical desk accents, deep pile) as forward-thinking chic
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:49 (nine years ago) link
nothing dates like the future
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:50 (nine years ago) link
all serious films set in the future are about the present.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:52 (nine years ago) link
well yeah
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 22:54 (nine years ago) link
all serious films set in the past are about vietnam
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 23:00 (nine years ago) link
Cut 'n' pasted the list from an earlier poster, then reshuffled - forgot to delete eXistenZ after moving it.
― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Wednesday, 25 February 2015 23:43 (nine years ago) link
all serious films set in the present are about the internet
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 25 February 2015 23:45 (nine years ago) link
All serious films set in the internet are about me.
― Eric H., Wednesday, 25 February 2015 23:50 (nine years ago) link
eXistenZ Is great and not just because it's about Eric
― mh, Thursday, 26 February 2015 01:10 (nine years ago) link
Sometimes my fave Cronenberg is his "Camera" short. Like a modern sideways sequel to "Videodrome."
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 26 February 2015 02:24 (nine years ago) link
and my disappointment with pretty much everything after Dead Ringers - is tied up with seeing them for the first time as VHS 'video nasties' in the early 1980s, at just the right teenaged frame of mind.
My like of Crash might be tied up w/seeing stories of it being 'banned' in Westminster. Shit was hilarious.
Even so Crash is top five for me, although I need a retrospective to catch more of the earlier work.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 26 February 2015 11:01 (nine years ago) link
I saw Camera several years ago and couldn't make sense of it, I'd like to hear your interpretation Josh. I wondered if he would make that type of film more often if he could.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 26 February 2015 16:51 (nine years ago) link
Well, let's jog the ol' memory. I recall it as a monologue from Cronenberg regular Leslie Carlson, about the scary power of film, the way film essentially kills things as it preserves them. But of course, the monologue is filmed in conspicuous digital, as children rush around, setting up for an actual film shoot. Then the monologue stops and the movie suddenly shifts to actual startling film, and the monologue begins again. Only this time Carlson freaks out and it suddenly cuts, because he has been trapped in film and is therefore now ... dead? I dunno. It's on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cnenqvMEaI
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 26 February 2015 20:24 (nine years ago) link
'maps to the stars' is avail streaming/ondemand fyi
p good i thought, seems so obvious it would be written by bruce wagner once i saw his name come up @ the end, def does the satire of hollywood better than the family tragedy & weighty elements; juilianne moores part is a great role, and one that most actresses could prob not pull off
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 28 February 2015 15:53 (nine years ago) link
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― johnny crunch, Saturday, 28 February 2015 16:03 (nine years ago) link