Agreed. You know what would make a great movie? War Fever.
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 03:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 03:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 03:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 03:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sasha (sgh), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 03:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sasha (sgh), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 03:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― franken-vader, Tuesday, 24 May 2005 03:51 (eighteen years ago) link
i think it is the best film formally he has made
― anthony, Tuesday, 24 May 2005 03:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 03:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 04:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Just Kidding (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 04:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― anthony, Tuesday, 24 May 2005 04:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 04:08 (eighteen years ago) link
So, yes. Ebert liked it way more than I did, though.
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 04:12 (eighteen years ago) link
POV:Dead RingersDead ZoneScannersVideodromeThe Fly
I really want to see Shivers.
― miccio (miccio), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 04:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 04:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sasha (sgh), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:09 (eighteen years ago) link
Not that I find his style starchy -- more like gooey (ha) -- but as the Star Wars threads (and esp. movies) have reminded me, it doesn't just take a good actor to be a good actor. It takes a relatively decent filmmaker as well. Th fact that Cronenberg consistently gets such good actors and such good stuff out of them is a testament to his ability to work with actors, and that's a laudable talent. Makes the movies better for all of us. A round of applause, please, for Goldblum in The Fly and Irons in Dead Ringers and even Jude Law in eXistenZ. Cronenberg doesn't always give these guys top-shelf material to work with, I won't argue that, but he apparently gives them the room to actually *act* in movies that are not perfect, and that's good direction.
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:47 (eighteen years ago) link
It COULD be, depending on many, many things. At least the very thought doesn't make me want to die like pretty much any other director on this shit would.
― box of socks, Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:50 (eighteen years ago) link
I always feel compelled to compare Cronenberg to David Lynch and as much as I admire Lynch, I think Cronenberg is much more successful at doing the same types of things Lynch attempts. For example while Lynch flirts with bad acting, camp, b-movie conventions, and general awkwardness, Cronenberg seems to operate in that territory quite naturally. He kind of skirts a thin line between the arthouse and schlocky failure that I find very exciting. Where other directors working in a similar vein might come across as too clever and knowing, Cronenberg manages to make movies that can be truly confounding and get the most intense reactions out of people.
So anyway, I think he's very underrated. Crash and Naked Lunch in particular are quite underrated. Total classic.
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:56 (eighteen years ago) link
Really? Unintentionally?
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 05:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 06:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 06:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 06:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 06:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 07:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 07:40 (eighteen years ago) link
ShiversNaked LunchVideodromeExistenZDead Ringers
I like Crash and The Fly, too, and Scanners (although I was anticipating the head-blowing-up scene too much to really appreciate much else of the film).
― emil.y (emil.y), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 10:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 10:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 14:51 (eighteen years ago) link
I'm not the biggest fan of Crash, but I think a lot of that has to do w/ the subject matter (and the portrayal of it) (the fierce unyielding atavistic obsession the characters have re: the fetish), so I'm thinking the movie worked really well. I'm thinking "atavistic obsession" could summarize DC's career succinctly.
― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 14:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 16:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 16:07 (eighteen years ago) link
the only other director who can finesse some of the same essence out of a scenario the way that he can is nicolas roeg. they're working in two different arenas, in general, but both are adept at channeling the anxiety of being an awkward fleshy thing with a brittle skeleton beneath, and i very much like the endings in their films. and the beginnings middles and rests too.
ok, strike the only out of that sentence. i hate that kinda talk.
― firstworldman (firstworldman), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 16:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― latebloomer: B Minus Time Traveler (latebloomer), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 16:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― latebloomer: B Minus Time Traveler (latebloomer), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 16:53 (eighteen years ago) link
* Commentary by Jeremy Irons * Behind-the-scenes featurette * Cast/filmmaker interviews and filmographies * Dead Ringers Psychological Profiler (menu-based quiz) * Theatrical trailer
ok, i see. still im not gonna need to buy this. the criterion edition from a few years back has much better features.
― latebloomer: B Minus Time Traveler (latebloomer), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 17:01 (eighteen years ago) link
[THE FLY] It's like a B horror movie given new weight by Cronenberg, and for what it is it's very well done...Yet on its own it has no real vision—nothing that lifts it out of the horror-shock category. (1986)— pauline kael bot (@paulinekaelbot) September 11, 2022
― Bait Kush (Eric H.), Sunday, 11 September 2022 20:52 (one year ago) link
A timely bump; I finally saw Dead Ringers (presented in association with the National Gallery of Art exhibition "The Double: Identity and Difference in Art since 1900"). The audience was full of giggles; I don't know whether it was an attempt to cope with the tension or because the film looks so supremely lol 80s.
Two women of a certain age right behind me could not stop talking about their gynecologic histories. I'm wondering if there's a story in generations of women whose medical issues doctors denied and dismissed somehow rebounding on them.
― Infanta Terrible (j.lu), Monday, 12 September 2022 00:38 (one year ago) link
From Danielle Burgos' Screen Slate write-up of Greenaway's A Zed & Two Noughts (which I love)
"Greenaway claims after he presented A Zed & Two Noughts at TIFF, David Cronenberg “sat me down in a hamburger bar and questioned me for two hours. . . . Eight months later he made a film called Dead Ringers (1988), which is about twinship, mutilated females, and human mutation.” Evolution and mutation are two sides of the same coin, it comes down to whether the change proves advantageous. Despite their commonalities, there’s no mistaking the films. Though Cronenberg isn’t traditional by Hollywood standards, his codependent character study spiced with taboo is a straightforward three-act narrative using the same visual grammar as D. W. Griffith. A Zed & Two Noughts is as much a film as “a film”, the first embrace of cinema qua cinema from a self-professed fine artist stepping beyond his early-career formalism to explore the medium on its own terms."
― dan selzer, Monday, 12 September 2022 05:01 (one year ago) link
Just seen Crimes Of The Future and liked it a lot. Barely anyone there and... a general question about cinema releases. The buzz about this film was months ago and I thought I had missed it until my brother spotted it in the "currently showing" listings. I feel like films have had fairly uniform worldwide releases for over a decade and it wasn't until Green Knight that I started noticing films being months apart in different countries. Is this a recent change or has nothing changed really? Just seems like a really bad idea to start showing a film in some countries well after all the American screenings buzz is gone, because I don't think I'm alone in missing films because I don't know if or when it's coming around here. There's never enough films I want to see to keep up with the weekly local cinema listings.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 17 September 2022 19:23 (one year ago) link
Just saw Crimes of the Future. I thought it was fascinating (and at times weirdly funny). Lots to think about. Kind of reminded me of Naked Lunch, in some ways, at least in passing. Or at least how I remember it.Great score
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 1 October 2022 02:25 (one year ago) link
I started noticing films being months apart in different countries.
Of course, in the 70s, a film might open over a few months in different parts of the same country, slowly accumulating word-of-mouth. I don't know why this practice would return in the digital/home viewing era, but I suppose the exhibitors think that the people who would go out to see a new Cronenberg movie on the big screen will show up whenever it appears, buzz or no buzz.
― Halfway there but for you, Saturday, 1 October 2022 02:50 (one year ago) link
I could be wrong, but I think the slow-build, word-of-mouth opening was dead by the late '70s, killed off either by Jaws or Star Wars.
― clemenza, Saturday, 1 October 2022 15:45 (one year ago) link
Wasn't the slow release thing also because of the cost of making 35 mm prints? They wanted to test the market before committing to hundreds of prints. Digital projection gets rid of that factor.
― nickn, Saturday, 1 October 2022 16:51 (one year ago) link
Watched CRIMES OF THE FUTURE last night (it's on Hulu). It's pretty much a note-perfect parody of a David Cronenberg movie. If only it was funny. (OK, the guy with ears all over his body dancing to shitty techno was a little funny.) But the more I think about it this morning, the more it feels like an empty, hollow rehash. So many things are lifted from previous Cronenberg movies, from Mortensen's character being an undercover cop (EASTERN PROMISES) to the insectile surgical instruments (DEAD RINGERS) to Lea Seydoux having Judy Davis's haircut from NAKED LUNCH. And every line of dialogue sounded like the characters were reading it off a sign on an art gallery wall. Really disappointing. I'm having a REPO MAN-ish "I can't believe I used to like this guy" moment.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Sunday, 6 November 2022 14:20 (one year ago) link
That was my feeling when I saw Existenz.
“Hey Cronenberg, you need to make a Cronenberg movie.”
“But all of my movies are Cronenberg movies?”
“No no, you need to make more movies with the gross weird stuff.”
“Fine, let’s do it.”
― Cow_Art, Sunday, 6 November 2022 14:27 (one year ago) link
I thought Existenz was pretty self-aware, almost to the point of parody, but as I remember it it paid off. Crimes of the Future (which I enjoyed) was almost like a Cronenberg stage production. I suppose a lot of whatever enjoyment one gets out of it boils down to whether one feels it is funny/ridiculous on purpose or funny/ridiculous inadvertently. It's so ridiculous (and sometimes funny) that I lean the former.
Coincidence re: Existenz, I believe Crimes is the first of his films to feature an original screenplay by Cronenberg that was not an adaptation since Existenz.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 6 November 2022 14:46 (one year ago) link
it's a synthesis of ideas he's been turning over for his whole career but doesn't feel exactly like any of them. and it is hilarious
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Sunday, 6 November 2022 14:48 (one year ago) link
We watched Crimes of the Future last night too, but we all basically liked it and/or were fascinated by it. It was the kids' first Cronenberg so they were just kind of amazed that this existed as a movie. And the philosophical explorations were broken up frequently enough by weird gross stuff that they didn't get bored. I also thought it was funny on purpose at several moments. I wouldn't call it so much a rehash as kind of a summing up of a lot of his core obsessions. (That he recycled the title from his first film adds to that impression.)
I also had the thought that if you showed this at a Qanon movie night (if Qanon people have movie nights) as a Hollywood insider's knowing nod to child mutilation rituals, it go over big.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Sunday, 6 November 2022 14:52 (one year ago) link
I'll get right on that.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 6 November 2022 14:57 (one year ago) link
I also thought it was funny on purpose at several moments.
The scene with Kristen Stewart chasing Viggo around the office was the funniest thing I'd seen in a long time.
― DPRK in Cincinnati (WmC), Sunday, 6 November 2022 15:11 (one year ago) link
yes
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 6 November 2022 15:13 (one year ago) link
Yes, that was really good, and Viggo's "Sorry; I'm not very good at the old sex" after the world's most off-putting kiss was a great punch line.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Sunday, 6 November 2022 15:18 (one year ago) link
I think Cosmopolis has become my favorite of his movies
― ex-McKinsey wonk who looks like a human version of a rat (Eric H.), Sunday, 6 November 2022 19:42 (one year ago) link
Or Crash ... one of those two, for sure
― ex-McKinsey wonk who looks like a human version of a rat (Eric H.), Sunday, 6 November 2022 19:45 (one year ago) link
don't think I'm alone in missing films because I don't know if or when it's coming around here. There's never enough films I want to see to keep up with the weekly local cinema listings.🤔
― Vance Vance Devolution (sic), Monday, 7 November 2022 07:58 (one year ago) link
huh, Crimes is on hulu now. hope that there are some fun online “what the hell was that?” responses
― mh, Tuesday, 8 November 2022 00:34 (one year ago) link
I still convulse & uncontrollably shudder to myself when remembering Keira Knightley's performance in A Dangerous Method
― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, 8 November 2022 00:41 (one year ago) link
just feel lucky it was her and not ornaldo bloomps
― mh, Tuesday, 8 November 2022 00:58 (one year ago) link
I really like the dialogue in Crimes, I wish more taken this approach
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 November 2022 20:48 (one year ago) link
Just saw that Caitlin (daughter of David) Cronenberg has her debut on its way.
“'Humane' takes place over a single day months after a global environmental collapse has forced world leaders to take extreme measures to reduce the earth’s population. In a wealthy enclave, a recently retired newsman invites his four grown children to dinner to announce his intentions to enlist in the nation’s new euthanasia program. But when the father’s plan goes horribly awry, tensions flare and chaos erupts among his children.”
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 22 November 2022 17:53 (one year ago) link
I liked his son Brandon's recent one. Sure, give me more Cronenbergs!
― mh, Tuesday, 22 November 2022 18:49 (one year ago) link
long live the new flesh indeed
― Vance Vance Devolution (sic), Tuesday, 22 November 2022 18:53 (one year ago) link
Crimes was good and I enjoyed it well enough, but the final shot is what stuck with me. I love a movie that ends at the climax.
― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Tuesday, 22 November 2022 19:09 (one year ago) link
I finished processing the plot about five minutes after the end of Crimes
at which point I was thinking "ooh, that was good"
― mh, Tuesday, 22 November 2022 19:16 (one year ago) link
I missed the news that Amazon is making a tv series of Dead Ringers starring Rachel Weisz as Beverly and Elliot:
https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/14130930/DDRG_S1_FG_106_00505514_Still001.jpg
― ArchCarrier, Wednesday, 15 February 2023 18:38 (one year ago) link
More pictures here
― ArchCarrier, Wednesday, 15 February 2023 18:41 (one year ago) link
Every David Cronenberg film summarised by dril— ☭ Daydream of Hell 🏳️⚧️ (@hellsdaydream) May 21, 2023
― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.), Sunday, 21 May 2023 19:18 (ten months ago) link
they're on private, looks like :(
― mh, Tuesday, 23 May 2023 20:01 (ten months ago) link