The Cronenberg Thread

Is this a Cronenberg mug in the gift shop, mh (and if you're not in Toronto, how did you know about it)? If that's what you mean, I'll be there next week and could put one in the mail for you.

http://tiff.net/tiffshop

Long Live the New Flesh

btw the baby onesie is amazing but I don't think any of my child-having friends would love it as much

oh shit would totally put my baby boy in that

Okay--I looked at the gift shop page, but didn't get that far. If you do want something specific, click on my user name, follow the link, and we'll make arrangements.

the mug was pretty nice i was thinking about it but it didnt have a price on it which is annoying

anyway—the exhibit was great but i wished it wasnt $15

well, good thing I didn't book a flight to Toronto mostly for the exhibit :D

clemenza, I'll hit you up later today, thanks!

The Brood's quite something--conceptually, it's got to be one of the grimmest and most well thought out horror films ever. The performances are better than I remembered--Reed's a little portentous at times, but he's not bad--and the climactic scene is gross, but not unwatchably so (and I have a low threshold nowadays). I believe Robin Wood hated Cronenberg's work then because it didn't fit into his theory of what horror films should do--lay waste to patriarchy, the nuclear family, sexual repression, etc. Wood wrote some great stuff on the genre, but I don't think you should ever put a theory before the work itself. The final shot of The Brood leaves all those considerations behind. (I've argued before, especially as applied to Vertigo, that a film's autobiographical content is of limited interest to me. Inconsistent, but for The Brood's backstory--Cronenberg's Kramer vs. Kramer, as he would always say--does make it feel that much more audacious.)

oh geez, I completely spaced on my last message. thanks again for the offer, clemenza, but I'm good.

keep it up with the movie write-ups, though

Wise decision. I suspect postage would be more than the cost of the mug itself.

Can't find the shot I have in mind, but I think this is specifically meant to echo Night of the Living Dead (also a year before Nicholson punches his way through the wall in The Shining):

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mrMyvYI7S5E/TnkMcA9KNZI/AAAAAAAAAtY/buIU-jIGcoA/s640/brood.PNG

My recollection of Don't Look Now is very dim, but I was wondering if the visual conception of the brood was tied in with Roeg's film.

those are two of my favorite horror movies!
i love the creepy gnome/human concept

Actually thought of Sybil last night also, LL, for obvious reasons--it's like Cronenberg took everything there and, three years later, moved it wholly into the realm of horror.

Sisters is splashier, but fits in too imo.

The Brood has long been one of my favorites, if not my favorite Cronenberg film. Always loved that character actor, the one on the stationary bike. He was in Existenz too. Robert A. Silverman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Silverman

I recognized him from Scanners. He's funny in The Brood.

I was just watching Naked Lunch the other night - he's funny/weird/off-putting in that, too.

Well this looks weird. And not the good kind of weird

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAWi6i4cmpE

that just looks like a shitty thrown-together trailer

many of the simple shots in it seem very cronenbergian

he really has such a specific way of framing one-shots

i mean recognizable

not gonna watch it if it's that thrown-together

never saw Cosmopolis cuz of all the haterade (also not a DeLillo fan in general)

wish he would dip back into sci-fi or horror. Freud film was an acceptable detour, tho it felt like small stakes.

I can't get the page to load, but apparently Criterion's announced at least Scanners (hopefully The Brood as well) as part of their July lineup.

Just Scanners from what I saw.

It does include his first film, Stereo, though.

Oh, neat. Maybe Crimes of the Future is being saved for the Brood disc? Those two are available on the R1 blu-ray of Fast Company, but if Criterion have managed to get commentaries for them I'll be ecstatic. Cronenberg is one of the all-time commentary track champions IMO.

here are the extras:

The “Scanners” Way, a new documentary on the film’s special effects
New interview with actor Michael Ironside
The Ephemerol Diaries, a 2012 interview with actor and artist Stephen Lack
Excerpt from a 1981 interview with Cronenberg on the CBC’s The Bob McLean Show
Stereo (1969), Cronenberg’s first feature film
Trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kim Newman

Oh wow. That cover design!

http://www.diabolikdvd.com/imgproduct/dab365c12bf05e22e0eb5df3b75b2212.jpg

cover is better than the movie lol

brood is hilarious, would make a great double bill with possesion.

Les Carlson, who played Barry Convex, the evil head of the Spectacular Optical Corp., in David Cronenberg’s hallucinatory sci-fi classic Videodrome, died May 3 at his home in Toronto.... Carlson also appeared in three other Cronenberg projects—as an intimidated newspaper editor in The Dead Zone (1983); as a doctor in the Jeff Goldblum starrer The Fly (1986); and as an aging actor in Camera (2000), one of a series of short films produced for the 25th anniversary celebration of the Toronto International Film Festival.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/videodrome-actor-les-carlson-dies-703127

:(

camera was great.

RIP

super-creepy in Videodrome

:(

he really has such a specific way of framing one-shots

― socki (s1ocki), Tuesday, April 15, 2014 10:17 AM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and lighting them, i think

for sure

His death scene in Videodrome ranks near the top of Cronenberg's most horrifying visions.

so far the major dissenter on Maps to the Stars is the guy who wrote the 'Showgirls is great' book ... I'm seeing it tom'w.

http://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-nyff-2014-david-cronenbergs-maps-to-the-stars

He is definitely NOT the only dissenter.

uh, yeah.

i actually didn't like the book as much as i was hoping, but it is interesting and thoughtful. and adam nayman is very smart.

and the film does look terrible. but who knows?

yeah E i just meant in that roundup so far

im fine if everyone who likes Showgirls hates it

his last short was probably better than this

Anyone else read Cronenberg's new novel, Consumed? It is great -- and so, so classic Cronenberg -- and if the internet is to be believed, being filmed.

he wrote a novel?

yes; most reviews haven't been as kind as The Thnig's.

I tried to read a sample chapter online; it came off like a really up-its-own-ass airport thriller.

i have no idea whether i'll like this new film, but i am kind of glad that someone punctured the idea of latter-day cronenberg as artistically infallible, which i think has become dogma in some quarters. i think history of violence and to a slightly lesser extent eastern promises are masterpieces, but the delillo film just felt unforgivably smug somehow... the new one looks like it could go in the same direction, what with all the blasts at hollywood etc. but who knows! sometimes the saving grace of a film that would otherwise be heavy-handed is its strangeness. maybe cronenberg will come through on that score.

btw morbs adam nayman's take on showgirls is rather sophisticated and complex, by no means does he think it's without serious problems. his book is as ,much a reflection on what produced the varying reactions to the film as a defense of the film itself.

i still think the book reads like a first draft, though, and it needed more research as opposed to opinion. it was a disappointment, frankly, but his thoughts on the film are still worth taking srsly.