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
I'm going to shock everyone by saying that Existenz is probably the one I enjoy the most.
I adore eXistenZ, it's incredibly funny! Poor Jude Law's excessive uptightness really makes it.
I like just about everything Cronenberg's ever done, including Crash. When I lived in Paris the Cahiers du Cinema people did a big retrospective, they screened all his films and brought Cronenberg there to give a few talks & such. He is super nice and seemed rather surprised by all the attention from that realm, i.e. the film scholar/auteur worshipping contingent instead of, you know, Fangoria. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
As part of the retrospective they had an exhibition of various props and plans and things from his films.. This turned out to be extremely hilarious, because on the ground floor of the same building there happened to be an exhibition of a century's worth of advertising art for Lu, the dessert company. So you'd walk in and it was all bright sunlight and cheery vintage Art Nouveau posters and candy and cookies, and then you got to go downstairs to this gloomy, dark basement (really!) and look at tools for operating on mutant women. I wonder if Cronenberg ever made it over there to see what they'd done, I think he would have been amused.
xpostHoly shit, "psychological profiler"? That's messed up. Awesome.
― daria g (daria g), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 17:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― robertw, Tuesday, 24 May 2005 18:52 (eighteen years ago) link
Personally, I think I like Crash and The Dead Zone the best.
― L'Histoire d'Eric H. (Eric H.), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 18:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 19:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 19:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― daria g (daria g), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 21:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Sensational Sulk (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 21:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― daria g (daria g), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 21:35 (eighteen years ago) link
Dead Ringers, the Dead Zone, Scanners, videodrome: all great. I LOVE his Naked Lunch adaptation; again, adapting this was a thankless job and he got a lot of flak for not doing the book (like he could really film the book) and instead focusing on Burroughs biography, but I think he made a real masterpiece here, his best and most emotional film.
I liked the fish gun in Existenz and that was all.
― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 21:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 21:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― daria g (daria g), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 22:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 24 May 2005 22:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― daria g (daria g), Wednesday, 25 May 2005 00:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Wednesday, 25 May 2005 01:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Friday, 23 September 2005 08:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ste (Fuzzy), Friday, 23 September 2005 08:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Friday, 23 September 2005 08:33 (eighteen years ago) link
i think anyway, i switched over in protest at this botch up.
― Ste (Fuzzy), Friday, 23 September 2005 08:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Friday, 23 September 2005 08:39 (eighteen years 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