The Cronenberg Thread

i mean honestly "showgirls" is at least as interesting a film to write about as something more obviously packaged for critical exegesis like "safe" (to name a film that i think came out in the same year!)

Also, btw Morbs, the market is ready, ripe and set for a blistering un-revisionist take on the 'girls.

I haven't read any reviews of Consumed, but I thought it was pretty damn good. If it hadn't been written by Cronenberg, I think it would've gotten a lot of positive "hang on now what is THIS?" from the folks-who-like-disturbing-books crowds. As it is, though, it does run through his obsessions in a rather checklist-type fashion.

well, Maps is not a date movie. The Loved One turned up to 11.

About a third of the sick jokes land (which is a lot, actually) but by the last half-hour it just feels like a shock pileup, and you can see several of the final transgressions coming five miles away. JuMoore is very funny, and Mia Wasikwhatzki and the kid, Evan Bird, who plays the jaded rehabbed 13-yo child star are both very good too. I feel very much about it the way I did A History of Violence; brilliantly made but just too overdetermined and cartoonish.

and to get really Hollywood about it, omg Carrie Fisher's face.

I can probably handle it if it's someone like Moore acting batshit, and not William Hurt.

well her role's a lot bigger than Hurt's.

Pattinson glum aspirational actor-chauffeur is subsidiary, seems almost like he did it as a favor to Croney.

dangerous method is the real nadir of latter-day cronenberg, imho - so lifeless and cheap-looking

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'

― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, June 19, 2012 4:20 AM

no idea what heritage cinema is, but your opinion has been noted and thanx

no prob morbs, i take it you'll want notifying too when you next repeat an opinion

anything to keep me in the news of this hotpot of regurgitation

if you can't regurgitate on a cronenberg thread, etc

so Mortensen and Rachel Weisz were sposed to do this originally? I didn't recognize Olivia Williams at all.

this was the first time i heard applause for a deadly assault from (one member of) a Lincoln Center audience, so there's that.

Deadly assault is homicide, no?

i don't want to be specific

the body count in this, on and off screen, is fairly impressive

w/out cuts this also appears to be "unrated" or NC-17 to me, and even aside from that i don't see any industry awards for Moore w/out a level of disconnect that... belongs in this movie.

I've seen Olivia Williams in all kinds of stuff but the majority is probably television, so...

The awards bloggers have shifted onto a different Moore perf this year. The amount of relief they've displayed not having to pretend she had a shot with Maps is impressive.

I'd like to see a movie this hateful about awards bloggers.

My favorite line in Maps might be "Everything's stunt casting!"

For Your Consideration was a step in the right direction.

a better ending for maps to the stars would be if after the final scene the limo driver drives up, shakes his head, chuckles and says "only in 'Hollyweird'!"

"that's 'La-La Land' for ya!"

Something bout those little pills...

hopefully during next awards season, Mia Wasikowska grabs someone's trophy and proceeds to...

thank the Academy.

I liked it, it was much stranger than I expected. The boy being competitive with the younger kid was funny.

Is it just me or was the burning woman struggling with a ghost made of fire? Probably not but I kept thinking there was some extra figure in the scene.

no it was just the worst CGI ever put on film

That they bothered using cgi instead of a stunt person with real fire was part of what made me wonder.
That is part of the annoyance of so many bad cgi scenes, that they easily could have been avoided.

That had to have been deliberate

Not going to entirely dismiss the notion that it's a "commentary" on something but it's pretty jarring considering the rest of the film (including the ghosts/hallucinations) is presented in such a flat, realistic manner

I vaguely recall reading something about Croney getting pissed off when questioned about it at Cannes but I can't seem to find it

idk

"I really love CGI in the sense that it's another tool," he said. "When I made Naked Lunch, there was no such thing as computer generated graphics. Even in Maps to the Stars, which is relatively naturalistic, there's a lot of CG that's wonderful. It was set in Hollywood, but it was mostly shot in Toronto. We just shot five days in Hollywood. And yet I could put the Hollywood Hills in the background easily because of computer graphics. That's a fantastic tool for a director, and that's why I love digital. But because it's exciting, it does get overused, of course."

the freud-jung movie wasn't great but there were a few interesting stylistic choices. but yeah for a movie with that subject matter it was pretty uninvolving

there are one or two moments of flagrantly shoody CGI in moonrise kingdom, i sort of like it

I always wondered why in Naked Lunch when you see that big thing Julian Sands was stuck in, they created a fake Julian Sands instead of putting the real actor in it. Another case of what seems to me unnecessary effects.
That Giger looking humping thing looked pretty rough too but otherwise I thought the special effects were brilliant. I can only guess what he would have replaced with cgi if he could.

w/out cuts this also appears to be "unrated" or NC-17 to me

Surely this is because of the guy wanking and not any of the violence. Brightly lit full-on penis shots are begging for an MPAA panic attack.

This is really Bruce Wagner's movie - it's got bits and pieces from Force Majeure and I'm Losing You - and so much autobiographical stuff (he was a limo driver at the Beverly Hills Hotel; he is heavily involved in new age mysticism but is a raging cynic, etc. etc.)

Cronenberg had never filmed a single shot in Hollywood before this movie!

hoew in the world do you clowns suspend your disbelief over rear projection in old movies?

Brightly lit full-on penis shots are begging for an MPAA panic attack.

Wolf of Wall Street was rated R and featured a brightly lit full-on penis shot of Jonah Hill wanking it in a crowded party

hoew in the world do you clowns suspend your disbelief over rear projection in old movies?

heh Existenz features some of the worst - or most obvious - back projection ever (in the driving scenes) and I've always wondered if it was a deliberate stylistic choice

it is in Far from Heaven and prob a few Coen joints I am forgetting.

anyway i have a number complaints about this movie and the fire is nowhere close to the top 20.

figure all the fake-looking stuff in eXistenZ is v intentional

It could just be that Cronenberg makes sure effects look great when they're integral to the story but doesn't really care when they're not

Wolf of Wall Street was rated R and featured a brightly lit full-on penis shot of Jonah Hill wanking it in a crowded party

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, October 1, 2014 10:48 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did it? man, I must have blocked that out

it is in Far from Heaven and prob a few Coen joints I am forgetting.

election features an amusing rear projection as a kind of fellini pastiche; film is chock full of intentionally crickety analog effects

although that's not a coen joint

i was watching some 1960s richard fleischer movie (which one? I forget) and it had a rather amazingly seamless instance of rear projection in a car-ride scene

really; i wonder if Sophocles thought Jocasta's suicide was "non-integral." xxxxp

WotW cock scene was v different than this; also the MPAA cuts a break to bad big-budget comedies. (also this one is clearly not a fake johnson, but it is flaccid)

True, I haven't seen this one yet so I have no idea what's important

in general, or w/r/t this movie?

I always wondered why in Naked Lunch when you see that big thing Julian Sands was stuck in, they created a fake Julian Sands instead of putting the real actor in it. Another case of what seems to me unnecessary effects.

― Robert Adam Gilmour,

because it emphasizes the illusory nature of what Bill sees? It's the actor playing Kiki who's obv fake. Sands and Kiki are having sex; instead, he imagines a mugwump eviscerating Kiki.