The Cronenberg Thread

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Also too many scenes where people do everything sloooooooowly in order to allude to some sort of grand symbolic importance.

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

or emotional importance. or whatever.

Sometimes a tear is just a tear!

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:06 (twenty years ago)

Also, I really didn't go looking for the meta-textual layers-not-layers in this movie. I still know a straight-up genre film when I see one! (I hope)

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:09 (twenty years ago)

i didn't really see importance in the scenes where people did things slowly. in fact, I didn't notice anything very slow at all.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:13 (twenty years ago)

The scene where he had just ran back from the store and was waving the shotgun around and talking to the son played for way too long - we get the point about two minutes through it, and it seemed to go on for another ten. Also the last scene was excruciating.

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:17 (twenty years ago)

i disagree! although I still don't like the movie at all!

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

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:18 (twenty years ago)

I'll disagree with you until my arguing muscles atrophy and disintegrate!

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:20 (twenty years ago)

I'm not sure what I thought of it. But I can't remember the last time every single person I speak to seems to have just seen or be about to see a film. And I can't remember the last time I've left a cinema to feeling such a palpable (and often audible) consensus of "Errr... right.... O-kayyyy" from the audience.

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.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

all cronenberg films have slow moving scenes. it's part of his "thing". I think it's because he's Canadian.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

hahaha XPOST I swear I didn't see that

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:22 (twenty years ago)

"A Canadian Thing" = when everyone's face is sort of strange and the humour is kind of obtuse or confusing and things are familiar but only in the way things from dreams can sometimes seem familiar.

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:23 (twenty years ago)

and even though I sounded glib I really do think it's a canadian thing because Egoyans films are NOTHING BUT slow scenes that may or may not be loaded with import; they're easier to deal with when you decide it's stylistic and doesn't necessarily have any deep meaning.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:24 (twenty years ago)

I'm sure even Canadians have access to hundreds of resources that can teach them how to pace movies in order to get the maximum dramatic effect.

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:24 (twenty years ago)

YES (XPOST)

but that doesn't explain Rush.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:24 (twenty years ago)

Yeah but the difference is that Egoyan is WICKED at that and even his worst movie is still pretty good.

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:25 (twenty years ago)

Also, new Egoyan movie out soon so hold on to your hats.

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:25 (twenty years ago)

the other canadian thing is "this is weird looks all 80's and the trousers are the wrong length and the hair is feathered and wrong". INSTANT CANADIAN INDICATOR.

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

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:28 (twenty years ago)

I mean, as people have said, there were some nice touches to it, and I do like the idea of not being able to keep a lid on a history of violence, to start a new life without your unresolved past crimes catching up with you. But the cartoonishness I didn't really understand. I'm not so much talking about the violence. I mean the way the plot develops in the final third. The scene where she confronts him in the hospital was the start of the weirdness, really. They acted it fine, I think. It was the script. Unnaturalistic and I don't know what the lack of naturalism achieved, if it was deliberate.

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.

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:30 (twenty years ago)

"Yeah but the difference is that Egoyan is WICKED at that and even his worst movie is still pretty good."

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

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:32 (twenty years ago)

The Cronenberg film it reminded me of the most was the Dead Zone, I guess. The pacing is similar and thematically it even seemed to resonate. And once I had that in my head I kept comparing them and it just kept falling short.

Although the bloody faces were cool.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:33 (twenty years ago)

Felicia's Journey is just okay, Ararat is pretty good. Neither of them are Exotica. Or even the Sweethereafter, which I jsut saw again the other day. There are so many WTF? moments in that film.... A HOV could have used some WTF? moments instead of being so obvious all the time.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:34 (twenty years ago)

We were watching My Life Without Me the other night and I got up in the middle, turned to my wife and said "IS THIS CANADIAN OR SOMETHING?".
All my Canadian friends on ILX r gonna hate me now. but I called it, didn't I?

-- @d@ml (nordi [email protected]), April 1st, 2004.

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:35 (twenty years ago)

Ararat is meh.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:36 (twenty years ago)

I watched The Dead Zone with Kyle last Halloween and I forgot how hilarious it is!

I think we were stoned, though.

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:37 (twenty years ago)

We were watching My Life Without Me the other night and I got up in the middle, turned to my wife and said "IS THIS CANADIAN OR SOMETHING?".

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

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:37 (twenty years ago)

You do???????

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:38 (twenty years ago)

Ararat is meh.
-- Alex in SF

YOU LIKE EXISTENZ

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:38 (twenty years ago)

Existenz is so bad it would actually have been improved by the presence of Ice Cube.

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:39 (twenty years ago)

And Jeremey Piven.

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:39 (twenty years ago)

You people are strange. Existenz is throughly entertaining. How can you sing the praises of Videodrome and not like what's basically an updated version of it with better acting.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:41 (twenty years ago)

because Videodrome is good and didn't need to be updated?

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:41 (twenty years ago)

Oh please. Every good director revisits the same damn ideas over and over. Do you wish that Hitchcock had only made his "Wrong Man" movie just once or something?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:43 (twenty years ago)

This is my vote for Shivers.

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:44 (twenty years ago)

Has anyone seen Cronenberg's race-car movie, Fast Company? I've had the DVD on my shelf for a while but never gotten around to watching it.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:45 (twenty years ago)

Do you wish that Hitchcock had only made his "Wrong Man" movie just once or something?

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!

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:47 (twenty years ago)

Existenz did remind me how glad I am that I have not ever wasted my time reading bad cyberpunk fiction.

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:49 (twenty years ago)

Wait are you saying that Cronenberg used "eaxctly the same actors, set pieces, shots, etc" in Existenz as Videodrome? Did you even watch the movie? Plus Jennifer Jason Leigh vs. Debbie Harry, please!

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

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:50 (twenty years ago)

Wait are you saying that Cronenberg used "eaxctly the same actors, set pieces, shots, etc" in Existenz as Videodrome?

No, not at all. I was arguing the need for SOME diversity in a filmmaker's body of work. Non-specific.

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:52 (twenty years ago)

Have you seen M. Buterfly?

― 400% Nice (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:52 (twenty years ago)

No, I haven't. But Cronenberg can hardly be accused of being a non-diverse filmmaker. This isn't John Ford or anything.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 21:55 (twenty years ago)

Jennifer Jason Leigh vs. Debbie Harry, please!

IN WHAT FUCKED UP WORLD DOES THE FORMER TRUMP THE LATTER?

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 22:13 (twenty years ago)

Uh the one where you give a shit about acting.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 22:18 (twenty years ago)

In what fucked up world does Atom Egoyan even begin to approach the brilliance of Cronenberg? You people are all bonkers!

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 22:18 (twenty years ago)

walter, if you've seen Family Viewing and don't think Egoyan's brilliant, then you're bonkers

― milton parker (Jon L), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 22:23 (twenty years ago)

Yeah Egoyan through Exotica is a nearly perfect filmmaker. Calender is one of the my favorite films ever.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 22:28 (twenty years ago)

they aren't really comparable so I'm sorry for even bringing him up now.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 22:30 (twenty years ago)

they're not comparable beyond both being good, weird filmmakers

yeah Calendar just kills me.

― milton parker (Jon L), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 22:33 (twenty years ago)

I think both are comparable to Lodge Kerrigan, who isn't Canadian, but ought to be.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 23:09 (twenty years ago)

ign interview with cronenberg

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 23:26 (twenty years ago)

"Surely that's some of the most graphic violence ever seen onscreen

hardly
-- kyle (akmonda...), October 4th, 2005."

Kyle, name another mainstream film that has such unrepentantly gory, generally unstylized (a'la not "Sin City") violence. I'm genuinely curious - "Irreversible" had that vicious fire-extinguisher-to-the-face scene, but I can't think of anything else that had me that truly shocked.

Also, why was Viggo's ass so shiny in the stairs scene? It seemed almost buffed and waxed. I was prepared to notify the Gaffe Squad if I caught a glimpse of Cronenberg in the reflection somewhere.

― Stuck to a Seat in the New Beverly (Bent Over at the Arclight), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 23:37 (twenty years ago)

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