The Cronenberg Thread

coming in 2013/14, a TIFF-created touring exhibition, plus a "multi-platform augmented reality game."

http://twitchfilm.com/news/2012/05/david-cronenberg-to-infect-toronto-in-new-travelling-exhibition.php

― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, May 29, 2012 10:22 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the conservative gov't here slashed film production massively and put a shit ton of money into this video game

Through the presentation of artifacts, props, documentation and audio-visual interviews, as well as reconstructed set-pieces from Cronenberg's films, the exhibition parallels his growth as a filmmaker with his ongoing examination and interpretation of human evolutionary possibilities, tracing his work from a focus on biological change towards examinations of shifting psychological states. A parallel art project based on the same themes will be announced at a later date.

this all sounds very excessive, self-regarding, and absurd.

tbh i have no problem with them doing a cronie exhibit (makes way more sense than the tim burton one they launched the lightbox with) but this is getting ridic

tracing his work from a focus on biological change towards examinations of shifting psychological states

somehow framing it this systematically/schematic and making it the linchpin of a museum exhibit is just kind of embarrassing.

could just be the way the exhibit was written up, these kinds of things usually sound terrible

Ah, I get it now.

being young = being afraid of your body deteriorating
being old = being afraid of your mind deteriorating

actually both of those are really "being old"

I revise:

being young = loving movies about being afraid of your body deteriorating
being old = loving movies about being afraid of your mind deteriorating

being somewhere in between = writing program notes for museum exhibitions

press releases ain't program notes (we hope).

DC is as much about mutation as deterioration, no?

yeah, long live the new flesh and all that

I do often think of him when a smartphone with a selfish asshole attached is blocking the subway stairs.

iirc 'the smartphone with a selfish asshole' was one of the skits cut from naked lunch

watched cosmopolis at the w/end - never seen so many people walk out of a film, seriously. it is exceptionally boring, but somehow more Cronenbergian than the pallid heritage cinema of 'Dangerous Method'

hah

nooooooo

lol @ "exceptionally boring"

That's become my baseline expectation of new Cronenberg movies

I liked aspects of it, but it's probably his least accessible movie ever, and yes, *many* walkouts. Also, he doesn't handle digital very well.

what did he drop the camera or something?

From the never tedious IMDB message board:

"I haven't had this less fun since I watched Synecdoche New York!"

In other words, I'm sold!

Fowler and Eric, go sit in the corner

Synecdoche was great!

Synecdoche might still be the best film of the last 5 years.

lot of good stuff in it, but crazee talk

It's that or The Tree of Life, according to Ebert.

or prometheus

maybe Juno

what a guy.

half the time I love and appreciate Ebert, and then I just wonder what the hell he is thinking the other part

Gotta admit I was bummed when Ebert chose Tree of Life over Synecdoche for his S&S list, but if I'd been through what he'd been through lately perhaps new age hokum would be more appealing to me than something as beautifully miserable as Synecdoche.

Synechdoche kind of falls down in the last third (agree w Morbz, in general)

kind of want to punch anyone that refers to Tree of Life as "new age hokum" a hundred thousand times in the face.

BUT, different thread.

Take yr best shot :-)

In fairness, I *like* TOL on balance...I just woulda liked it better if it were just the 50's coming of age stuff without an introductory half hour of pretty screen-savers and the last half hour of dead people walking on a beach.

creation sequence is awes fuiud. more ambivalent about the ending, but interesting stuff there and hey it's only 15 or so minutes iirc.

even more psyched for Cosmopolis now tbh.

me too
i just expect to feel a certain kind of bored-but-not-bored feeling when watching cronenberg films, and i like it

i think most Canadian filmmakers are dealing in how to dramatize boredom/the boring on one level or another

but interesting stuff there and hey it's only 15 or so minutes iirc.

6 or 7 tops.

6 or 7 tops

Oooh. What are their names?

Chaz, Bo, Dunk, Tad, Bluto, Swain, and Tia

MY GOD this was tedious

Agonizing. A running stream of babble we're supposed to find profound, Twilight looks like he's struggling to remember his lines. JBinoche still hot, though.

I'm scared that Cronenberg's ability to slow burn has exceeded his film length. I'm sure there's tons of crazy action and violence in the 110th minute of A Dangerous Method but the movie was over by then.

Big shrug of the shoulders for Cosmopolis. Fun spotting Toronto locations, and that was about it. I was sort of with it for the first half, Giamatti's scene was interminable. Maybe the philosophizing on capitalism and greed might have seemed more immediate three years ago, but after so many documentaries on the subject, it was like a weak echo. (I should mention I haven't read the book.) My biggest problem was simply the lifelessness of just about everyone, the lead especially. I know, he's supposed to be lifeless. he's dead inside...which is rarely a good strategy. James Woods in Videodrome, Walken in The Dead Zone, Goldblum and Davis in The Fly, even Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers to a lesser degree--these are all engaging characters. When Cronenberg drifts way over to his clinical, austere side, he loses me.

I assume you're counting Crash as 'clinical, austere', which works fine for me.

I would, yeah...At the time, I was really proud of something I tacked onto my year-end music ballot, which was Crash reimagined as an SCTV parody. Edith Prickley got the Holly Hunter role, I think. Being a Canadian publication, they used it.

from NYT feature:

“I don’t think Rob’s face has ever been examined in such excruciating detail, from so many angles,” Mr. Cronenberg said. “That was part of the casting. You want a face that can take that.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/movies/cosmopolis-cronenbergs-take-on-don-delillo.html?ref=movies

Croney, Pattz ring NYSE opening bell. Thank God for meta-marketing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/celebritology/post/robert-pattinson-makes-sure-stocks-can-be-traded-today-by-ringing-bell/2012/08/14/56991bfe-e61d-11e1-8741-940e3f6dbf48_blog.html

That's ... kinda perfect.