The Cronenberg Thread

Also, they should have just tried to hire Adam Brody as the son rather than getting someone with the same mannerisms and the same hair.

This is true.

2) How the fuck did this POSSIBLY get an R rating?? Surely that's some of the most graphic violence ever seen onscreen (I lean towards the notion that the gore is dwelled on to emphasize the range of emotions that can be conjured by such extreme violence - horror, disgust, shock - then awed laughter - then back to disgust). I mean, "Ichi the Killer" is one thing, but I thought this was much more intense.

3) I was also sort of surprised by the first sex scene - is there another instance of two lead characters in a flagrant, fairly graphic 69 in a mainstream movie ever?

hardly

xp

HOTT

Ach, I was using a bit of poetic licence here. With some hindsight, I think the main problem is the family dynamic. I do think there is something in the use the use of a "smalltown America" construct. It is supposed to imply universality, even if the majority of the audience for this film will be childless people who live in major urban centers. There is nothing exceptional about these characters at the beginning of the film, and we're supposed to identify with them, but we're also asked to laugh at them as well as fear for them.. It's totally flawed.

On top of that, all of the characters who make up the family seem totally disparate, their reactions to each other follow no discernible pattern of emotional logic and our understanding/enjoyment of the film is key to seeing them as a family unit, even before we can see them as compromised or fragmented or in danger.

Sometimes a tear is just a tear!

the last scene reminded me of something but I can't remember what.

I don't think I really get Cronenberg as a director. Though I did love Spider. There's some kind of deliberate thinness or something to his style. In my head I think it's a Canadian thing.

but that doesn't explain Rush.

yes I know Egoyan is a vastly superior director; they get compared only because of their candian-ness.

OK, so let's say it was a "genre exercise" on Cronenberg's part. Something to be appreciated for its formal aspects. Well OK, thought that's never going to make for a very satisfying thriller. It makes it neither one thing nor the other. I dunno. I'm rambling now. I just know that my friend at work thught it was appalling and I realised that I'd have a hard time defending it by any criteria I am comfortable arguing for the use of.

Ha ha - x-post with all this Canadian talk.

This is only true until his last two movies which are just okay.

Although the bloody faces were cool.

-- @d@ml (nordicskilla@hotmail.com), April 1st, 2004.

I think we were stoned, though.

and Sarah Polley is! I think. Anyway I like that movie as well.

YOU LIKE EXISTENZ

If it had been eaxctly the same actors, set pieces, shots, etc then YES!

The only exceptions to this rule for me are Woody Allen and David Lynch, but I think I have a limit on how much I can watch ANY cinemtaic idea or concern recycled over and over by the same person.

I'M not arguing this for Existenz though.

Jude Law vs. James Woods!

I've seen Fast Company. It's okay. Some interesting shots, but the plot is a joke.