I see eXistenZ as a sort of updated/alternate version of Videodrome.
Spider was his most recent, and man, that’s a dread Oedipal mess if ever there was one.
*Spider *was VASTLY overrated. Not good at all.
Uh, actually, it was talking asshole beetles, not vaginas. If it makes you feel any better, William S. Burroughs did accidentally blow his wife’s brains out and it was the guilt over that which caused him to become a writer.
I guess I have to be the one to say it…
“Naked Lunch… there are two things wrong with that title.”
Oh, talking anuses, well, why didn’t somebody tell me? That just completely changes my entire impression of the film. Had I only known it was anuses puckering at me on a massive screen, I wouldn’t have wanted to go home and scrub my eyeballs out after seeing the flick, oh no.
I was aware of Burroughs’ tragedy. I guess, on the day I saw the film, I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was to wallow in quite the oozingly surreal manner in which Cronenberg portrayed the story.
i just saw “dead ringers” the other night and it was a lot less, ummm, overtly disgusting than what i expected. i think there was only one scene with a creepy tumor-like appendage. i’m a guy, but i can imagine that the “gynecological tools for mutant women” couldn’t be very comfortable.
it was very creepy, though. slow in places, but a pretty decent movie.
i’d like to see “videodrome” again, though. all i remember is the vaginal vcr in james woods’ stomach.
I loved the movie, although I haven’t seen it in years…
I should prob’ly rent it now on DVD.
My most lasting memory was watching a red-headed Debby Harry beg for porno…
I was making jewelry when I first saw that movie, so my focus was inordinately drawn to those beautifully designed and forged tools. Shoulda gotta Oscar for Tools.
I found that movie very predictable, I had even figured out the twist at the end… although I’m not pretending the forshadowing was very subtle, either.
The main thing I took away from eXistenZ was that Jennifer Jason Leigh has awesome legs.
Somehow I never noticed that before. Not for lack of evidence, though.
I don’t think much of David Cronenberg’s work. The only movie of his I’ve liked is “The Dead Zone,” in which re respected the source material and used very few of his characteristic, personal touches. Every other Cronenberg flick I’ve seen has been annoyingly pretentious crap.
BUT… while his work is often mighty weird, by most accounts, he’s an amazingly normal man with a normal middle-class home and a normal middle-class family in a normal suburb of Toronto. He makes movies about the perverse and the dark side of life, but his own life is surprisingly wholesome.
Somebody did a book on this. The Shape Of Rage- The Films Of David Cronenberg.
May contain spoilers. Read at your own risk. Welcome To Interzone.
I haven’t seen any of his work in a while. I have no cable and am too cheap to rent. This means that I also haven’t seen any of his films made in the past decade or so.
I saw Videodrome back when I was in a single digits. I keep meaning to see it again. The terror and nausea faded in time. Some things from that film are still with me- the bizarre mixture of man and machine as disease, evolution, and erotic fulfilment, the image of a breathing videocassette.
The Fly only really became clear for me when a friend corrected my description of Brundle’s reaction to his transformation. He described it as “glee”. He starts out sad, frightened and disgusted by the changes. He ends up putting body parts in a museum in his medicine cabinet. (I’ve never watched the film on dvd, but I believe his penis is in one of the jars).
I love Dead Ringers. When I first saw it, the ads had made me expect a film about twin mad scientists who perform bizarre experiments on patients. Hoo boy. Irons’ delivery of the line “I want some ice cream!” is one of the most depressing things I’ve ever seen on film.
M Butterfly. I still can’t get over this one. Despite what comes later, the love story is told in glowing, romantic fashion. Most of the film is warm and gentle. I was stunned when I read Cronenberg’s name in the credits.
Cronenberg appears in Nightbreed as Decker, a psychiatrist who is rather disturbed himself.
I’ve noticed the same thing about Clive Barker’s horror fiction.
Imagine if Cronenberg adapted some Barker stories . . . say, a vignette compilation of the Books of Blood . . .