The Cronenberg Thread

His best? I dunno. Discuss.

I bet he did say that. I love the romance angle of The Fly as well.

shivers
videodrome
scanners
fast company
dead ringers

Existenz
Naked Lunch
The Fly
Scanners/Brood (tied)
Spider
Dead Zone
Rabid
Shivers
Dead Ringers
Crash

Never seen Fast Company so that's excluded. Crash is the only actual real bad movie of the lot, but he's also never made a truly great film either.

Thank you. Not to mention the storyline is just a re-hash of Videodrome.

Scanners is his best, and Crash is underrated. Okay, so it's not a great film, but I can't think of any better way for the translation from the book.

Dead Ringers -- has its probnlems, sure, but also has Jeremy Irons.
Naked Lunch -- it's a rare horror/sci-fi director that gets the kind of performances from his actors that he gets out of Peter Weller in this. Spot-on, funny, and... just fuckin' great.
The Fly -- See above.
The Dead Zone -- Walken!
Spider -- I loved this movie. Also had the pleasure of seeing it in a theater with a fussy five-year-old, upon which others in the theater started shouting at the mother. "This is not a movie for kids!" Beautiful.

Agreed. You know what would make a great movie? War Fever.

i think it is the best film formally he has made

So, yes. Ebert liked it way more than I did, though.

POV:
Dead Ringers
Dead Zone
Scanners
Videodrome
The Fly

I really want to see Shivers.

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.

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.

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.

Really? Unintentionally?

this is excellent, poo to the h8as

lol the grotto scene

good movie

[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

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.

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."

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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

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.

I'll get right on that.

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.

yes

The scene with Kristen Stewart chasing Viggo around the office was the funniest thing I'd seen in a long time.

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.

I think Cosmopolis has become my favorite of his movies

Or Crash ... one of those two, for sure

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.

🤔

huh, Crimes is on hulu now. hope that there are some fun online “what the hell was that?” responses

I still convulse & uncontrollably shudder to myself when remembering Keira Knightley's performance in A Dangerous Method

just feel lucky it was her and not ornaldo bloomps

I really like the dialogue in Crimes, I wish more taken this approach

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.”

I liked his son Brandon's recent one. Sure, give me more Cronenbergs!

long live the new flesh indeed

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.

I finished processing the plot about five minutes after the end of Crimes

at which point I was thinking "ooh, that was good"

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

More pictures here

Every David Cronenberg film summarised by dril

— ☭ Daydream of Hell 🏳️‍⚧️ (@hellsdaydream) May 21, 2023

they're on private, looks like :(

Saw a preview announcement last night for Humane: "From the mind of Caitlin Cronenberg." That seems very premature for her first feature film--you have to make at least three or four ponderous vanity films before you've earned a "from the mind of." Must be genetic.

I think that's too judgy, and that the last name is enough of a CV.

Shows sufficient humility by not characterising said mind as twisted imo.

going to provisionally allow it based on her family's name

Brandon's gotten pretty good at this movie thing. I'm willing to check it out

I think that's too judgy, and that the last name is enough of a CV.

"From the nepo baby of David Cronenberg"

nepo brood

From the bowels of

"From the nepo baby of David Cronenberg"

absolutely, I'll see that movie (when it hits streaming)

Looking forward to the new Cronenberg…mind you really looked forward to his last one and that was a major disappointment

Some late style clunkiness aside, The Shrouds is a typically excellent and thought provoking Cronenberg movie.

It was possibly my favorite film last year that wasn't a documentary. Not perfect and it may not be among his very best, but it was wonderful all the same.

Should add, I saw it at a festival. It opens in mid-April in NY and LA then expands the following week.

all the real cronenberg heads who haven't made it to a festival are in envy right now

Gonna watch it in an hour.