The Cronenberg Thread

There was actually a lot of laughing at the press screening I went to, but probably of a few different varieties. There was also some yelling at the screen.

i may have emitted an anguished moan at some point

I may have launched an ironic belch.

Prostate exam was a crowd pleaser.

^when aint it

I did laugh a fair bit at the funny bits in Crash when I saw again a few months ago, as I did at much of Viggo's Freud in ADM.

However, the only great film I've seen from DC is The Fly.

I can settle on that as his best. (That or The Brood.)

I tried reading the novel several years ago.

can't decide between The Fly and Dead Ringers.

I'm also usually one of the only ones laughing at some moments.

Apparently a few friends are still wondering why I was giggling throughout a lot of Barry Lyndon

I like Dead Zone too

Dead Zone, the one time I saw it, was super.

A superhero movie, by definition, you know, it's comic book. It's for kids. It's adolescent in its core. That has always been its appeal, and I think people who are saying Dark Knight Rises is 'supreme cinema art,' I don't think they know what the fuck they're talking about.

http://www.nextmovie.com/blog/robert-pattinson-david-cronenberg-cosmopolis-interview/

As an actor, I would play Batman.

hell, who wouldn't? but with Adam West's rhythms.

with Heath Ledger's rhythms

^also adolescent in its core

checked Cosmopolis out of the library; it reads like a script.

Some dick is remaking Videodrome.

http://twitchfilm.com/news/2012/08/videodrome-remake-cronenberg-berg.php

script by the guy who wrote the Transformers movies.

They are the new flesh.

it's not even just that semi-talented people are remaking once-untouchable movies now, it's also that they're remaking movies to look more like video games, yet we can't even play our way through the emotionally bereft slickness, so, seriously, they should just fuck off with this

if there's no market for a Total Recall remake and I don't see why anyone would think there would be one for Videodrome.

Still: Who is today's Debbie Harry equivalent that they should cast for the role?

I would play a Videodrome point and click adventure

point and squick

if there's no market for a Total Recall remake and I don't see why anyone would think there would be one for Videodrome.

― Legendary General Cypher Raige (Gukbe), Wednesday, August 22, 2012 5:12 PM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark

there sort of is a market for a total recall remake... just not a $200 million one.

They'd probably swap Debbie Harry for Lady Gaga or Nicki Minaj or other misc pop singer that likes to give crazy wide eyes in front of fish eye lenses.

saw Cosmopolis today, and may have been too tired and distracted to really get into it, but it was certainly compelling at points. I felt like the claustrophobic style was obviously motivated but it sure was exhausting and even a little boring. I was even spacing off during the final bit before the credits! (again that's probably my fault)

I did like the sense that it was about a guy having a total mental/life breakdown and keeping this odd composure through it all. I liked the dialogues...i liked how they portrayed how people talk when they are over-consuming information. they sorta talk AT each other.

i was sorta hoping for a movie of impending doom and dread and pessimism, but for all that certainly being there i didn't feel it much. maybe that makes it that much more despairing?

Crash is his last great movie, among the ones I've seen.

― Eric H., Tuesday, August 14, 2012 10:31 PM (1 week ago)

yah, up until crash I had seen all his films save m butterfly, and crash felt like the logical end to what he was doing - science fiction made not with technology but with actual human behavior. one of my favorite directors, and I practically ignored him after that, have only seen a history of violence. I'm glad he's been able to build a successful career making movies that would end the careers of others, tho.

You're in a good spot, though, now. You're in the Woody Allen zone – you keep your budgets low, you get enough dough back in Europe, the people in the US that dig it dig it and then you make the next one.

That's true, and every time I've tried to play with the studios it's never worked out. I don't blame them or me, it's the mix of sensibilities is not there, we don't fit. Listen, I see some big movies and I think “Oh, it would be fun to make that, challenging.” Then reality sets in and it's not going to happen. Your estimation of where I'm at with filmmaking is pretty accurate....

I'm usually reluctant to include deleted scenes. They're deleted for a reason....

Have you seen the new High Frame Rate that Peter Jackson used for The Hobbit?

No, though you see it on television all the time. Sports shows are 60 frames. Those flawless slo-mo playbacks with no smearing. I haven't seen The Hobbit yet, but I do believe it would be nice to get away from 24 frames per second — even just to 30 frames per second. I don't have a nostalgic longing to stick with the smearing or strobing you get when you pan with a film camera. It's not nice. It comes from ancient technology that we don't need anymore. Even upping to 30 might get rid of that, I don't know why 48 as opposed to 50 or 60, frankly. In a weird way, 48, as double of 24, is still clinging to the old technology.

http://movieline.com/2012/12/31/david-cronenberg-talks-cosmopolis-high-frame-rates-and-bullshit-oscars/

OW! Oh, crap, the cat just jumped on me.

I like cats.

Yeah, he's adorable, but very heavy.

quality journalism here

I like cats too

it's so strange how journalism keeps getting worse as journalists' paychecks and job prospects keep getting smaller

oh no... 3 senteneces about cats... journalisms dead... stfu

no... please DON'T stfu. i'm talkin to you, Poliopolice!

tell me more about the state of journalism in 2013, damn it!

so I hafta quit film threads for the year too, huh

can't believe you guys hate cats like that

next one w/ Weisz, Viggo, Pattinson

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/rachel-weisz-joins-david-cronenbergs-maps-to-the-stars-with-robert-pattinson-viggo-mortensen-20121107

so I hafta quit film threads for the year too, huh

― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 2, 2013 6:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Don't get us excited if you don't mean really it

try to get shakey to do it

Thanks to the Red Sox, I was able to see Dead Ringers last night. Cronenberg was there to introduce it (with Jeremy Irons), and Irons stayed for a Q&A afterwards--very funny. (First comment: "That's a strange film, isn't it?")

I've always thought it a masterful film--I checked upthread, and I named it as one of my two or three favourites--and I still do. Very sad, too--I was really struck by the sadness of the opening credits this time. I will say, though, that it's the beginning of a certain hollowness that made so many of the Cronenberg films that came after a disappointment for me. I prefer The Dead Zone and The Fly. I'd have to take some time to find the right words to explain that, because the tone of Dead Ringers is perfect throughout.

I am ashamed it took me so long, but I watched Dead Ringers for the first time last night.

Any Toronto people going to the Cronenberg exhibit at TIFF? http://tiff.net/cronenberg

I am not a Toronto person but that looks really tempting

Man, would I love to smoke some crack with Rob Ford and go to that.

A friend came across this Twitter photo (not sure if it will embed):

http://twitter.com/PhilNobileJr/status/409872028406018048/photo/1/large

Kid on the left is great.

No, it will not embed--here's the link:

twitter.com/PhilNobileJr/status/409872028406018048/photo/1/large

has anyone been to that exhibit at TIFF that Dan mentioned?

faces on those children: excellent

Hadn't seen Scanners in eons (not right when it came out, but no more than a few years later). I remembered some of the gross stuff, so I wasn't expecting to like it much; there's actually wasn't all that much gore, though, and it's impressive in other ways. Probably a key film for him--here, The Dead Zone, Dead Ringers, Spider, others, Cronenberg would have fit comfortably into that Robert Kolker book A Cinema of Loneliness. Had completely forgotten about Jennifer O'Neill--think it's the only film of hers I've ever seen other than Summer of '42.