MY GOD this was tedious
― Number None, Tuesday, 19 June 2012 16:56 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― SongOfSam, Tuesday, 19 June 2012 19:00 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― mh, Tuesday, 19 June 2012 21:20 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 11 July 2012 04:55 (eleven years ago) link
I assume you're counting Crash as 'clinical, austere', which works fine for me.
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 11 July 2012 11:41 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 11 July 2012 11:58 (eleven years ago) link
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
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 5 August 2012 12:00 (eleven years ago) link
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
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 19:45 (eleven years ago) link
That's ... kinda perfect.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 14 August 2012 19:48 (eleven years ago) link
is this movie as bad as everyone said? I always get excited about cronenberg movies, then get depressed by bad reviews, then eventually watch them on demand or whatever and end up loving them.
― dan selzer, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 19:52 (eleven years ago) link
I kinda liked this one, or at least admired its arrogance.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 14 August 2012 19:55 (eleven years ago) link
Ending will make a lot of people want to hurt someone, tho.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 14 August 2012 19:56 (eleven years ago) link
trailer for new (brandon) cronenberg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcJTd69dMyQ
― just sayin, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 19:59 (eleven years ago) link
Glenn Kenny gave it five stars. I haven't looked at a lot of reviews, but my general impression from festival-time was people were at best muted and at worst severely disappointed. GK isn't at all credible though because he's a pretty hardcore Cronenberg stan, but I sort-of am as well so I'm still pumped.
― Legendary General Cypher Raige (Gukbe), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 20:02 (eleven years ago) link
This is a pretentious Cronenberg stylez I can get behind.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 14 August 2012 20:03 (eleven years ago) link
A Dangerous Method was the only Cronenberg film where I've felt unenthused, but I think that was a glitch.
― your native bacon (mh), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 20:04 (eleven years ago) link
Agree with crix that call Giamatti's segment (or, rather, his performance) a miscalculation, but it was still kind of riveting after all that android pseudo-conversation.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 14 August 2012 20:08 (eleven years ago) link
Haven't bought the issue yet, but Amy Taubin has Cosmopolis on her S&S list. She always has a Cronenberg film on there. I think she may second-guess that one.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 20:25 (eleven years ago) link
?!
I guess that's no stranger than putting Spider on her '02 list, tho I still haven't managed to sit through that one.
― Eric H., Tuesday, 14 August 2012 20:30 (eleven years ago) link
wonder if this means Cronenberg will get *another* Film Comment cover
― Legendary General Cypher Raige (Gukbe), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 20:31 (eleven years ago) link
― clemenza, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 21:25 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i read her repping for it somewhere - film comment's cannes review i think - & it made me really want to see it. i like taubz & i think it's probably in some ways as honourable to include something super current as to just co-sign potemkin or w/e.
― , Blogger (schlump), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 22:00 (eleven years ago) link
spider sucks iirc
― WheatusVEVO (Hungry4Ass), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:06 (eleven years ago) link
^^^
― contenderizer, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:12 (eleven years ago) link
Spider's pretty good, cert'ly tons better than A History of Graphic Novel Violence.
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:28 (eleven years ago) link
you're replacing one graphic-novel-level approach with another?
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:37 (eleven years ago) link
still love HoV, but I guess it did come from that inferior art form
― Legendary General Cypher Raige (Gukbe), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:38 (eleven years ago) link
M. Butterfly, Crash, existenZ, and Spider are the duds of the last twenty years, although I'd watch the last one again. Funny how no one has ever made a case for the first on this list. I saw in the theatre after loving Naked Lunch -- one of my first disappointments as an Adult Film Watcher.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:39 (eleven years ago) link
lol, art form. i liked it cuz it was fun to think about, appealingly heightened and quite strange. spider was just a drag.
― contenderizer, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:40 (eleven years ago) link
alfred otm, except that i genuinely love about 90% of existenz. falls apart towards the end cuz the dreamlike oddity is much more interesting than the espionage plotting behind it, but up to that point, i've got no complaints.
― contenderizer, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:42 (eleven years ago) link
"cuz"
alfred OTM about all those EXCEPT eXistenZ imho, which is awesome
― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:43 (eleven years ago) link
on the other hand I don't like them all but he went from strength to strength in the Videodrome-The Fly-Dead Ringers-Naked Lunch sequence.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:45 (eleven years ago) link
Alfred all wet cept for M Butterfly
Naked Lunch is an interesting failure, and I bet we've all said these fucking things upthread.
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:53 (eleven years ago) link
we're improving as we age, appearances to the contrary
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:53 (eleven years ago) link
no, I still look good but have otherwise gone to shit.
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:55 (eleven years ago) link
Another existenz lover here.
― dan selzer, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 01:56 (eleven years ago) link
"new ports are tight"
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 02:00 (eleven years ago) link
so is Jude Law in that fillum
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 02:01 (eleven years ago) link
I thought M Butterfly a bit of a damp squib but Existenz and Spider were both good.
― EZ Snappin, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 02:16 (eleven years ago) link
Crash is his last great movie, among the ones I've seen.
― Eric H., Wednesday, 15 August 2012 02:31 (eleven years ago) link
it's good but not the last great, sheesh
― your native bacon (mh), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 03:05 (eleven years ago) link
When I first saw it Spider was one of the most depressing things I'd ever seen, being forced into such intimacy with a guy who writes an illegible diary and barely utters anything coherent. It was a genuinely uncomfortable, despairing psychological space to occupy. Admittedly the film didn't impress me quite as much when I saw it again a few years later, but I'd still probably it's still my favorite Cronenberg since, oh, Videodrome. I'm not quite sure on what level it's deemed a failure, what it should offer that it doesn't.
― eatandoph (Neue Jesse Schule), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 03:17 (eleven years ago) link
i wasn't terribly interested in the film's surface, well detailed though it was. it seemed to depend for tension on the unraveling of a mystery whose solution seemed fairly obvious from early on, and on the similarly predictable parallel disintegration of the protagonist's mental health.
i've never read the mcgrath novel on which the film is based, but others have suggested that it was a risky choice to begin with, given how much the original story depends on the protagonist's subjectivity. despite cronenberg's attempts to depict interior states visually, i felt as though i were observing only the shell of a narrative inside which something potentially interesting was happening.
― contenderizer, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 03:32 (eleven years ago) link
The book is better than the film, but Spider is as good a film as one could make from it and have it still be watchable.
― EZ Snappin, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 03:36 (eleven years ago) link
existenz is one of his best, but you may need to be steeped in canadian content to really get it i think
― Author ~ Coach ~ Goddess (s1ocki), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 04:35 (eleven years ago) link
I don't know--I know lots about The Trouble with Tracy and the Poppy Family and Joey McLaughlin, and it didn't really help.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 04:40 (eleven years ago) link
Well, here's one rave anyway:
http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/cosmopolis/6446
― Eric H., Wednesday, 15 August 2012 17:38 (eleven years ago) link
that doesn't really say much
― Number None, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 17:43 (eleven years ago) link
'rizer, that novel's style has a certain amount in common with the one he adapted here, so bevare perhaps.
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 17:43 (eleven years ago) link
"darkly comic" is a phrase i'm always wary of seeing in reviews. It basically means "not funny"
― Number None, Wednesday, 15 August 2012 17:50 (eleven years ago) link