The Cronenberg Thread

i seem to make some connection btwn star wars and empire strikes back but i may be rong

Yeah but SW isn't as visually striking as Empire can be.

And Blade Runner was the first thing I'd thought of, except the year's wrong

SW can be pretty striking - the opening scene for one but imo every shot is a work of art. Does have more limited environments though, just desert or spaceships.

Also

shivers is great, like if romero directed an orgy flick

haaaaa I wish Blount was still around.

I watched Empire again quite recently and was surprised by how well shot it is. Thinking especially of the stuff on Dagobah and almost everything on Bespin - the final battle between Luke and Vader is so atmospheric and powerful, esp the shadows, smoke and neon opening in the carbonite chamber.

Apropos of nothing, the 1980 Oscar nominees for cinematography:

The Blue Lagoon (1980) - Néstor Almendros
Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) - Ralf D. Bode
The Formula (1980) - James Crabe
Raging Bull (1980) - Michael Chapman (I)
Tess (1979) - Geoffrey Unsworth; Ghislain Cloquet

(Sort of retrospectively shocking that The Shining was snubbed in favor of those first three nods, but I guess the movie's stature wasn't particularly high back in 1980.)

yeah, seems amazing that it would miss out, especially to tat like The Blue Lagoon.

Apparently, the cinematography branch in the '70s was possibly the most insular of all academy branches, hence repeated nominations for, say, Owen Roizman for generally ruddy-looking movies.

Ghislain Cloquet, btw, lensed Bresson films AND Woody Allen's Love and Death.

The Shining just utilized late Kubrick's usual, what is the word? Glare.

that's a challop for the ages...

In fact, I think it was his first (and least) glare movie.
The challops in 1980 was that The Shining didn't fucking suck.

so Croney doesn't have a new project ready to go?

topic for the aged, perhaps.

eh except i agree with morbs totally there.

The challops in 1980 was that The Shining didn't fucking suck.

Yeah, I did say that already. Happily, time has been especially kind to that, Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut (i.e. Kubrick's three best films).

I think you mean Paths of Glory, 2001 and Barry Lyndon <3

I think you should go to bed.

good idea! maybe i'll put that Hal Holbrook movie on again...

Rituals, I hope?

no, That Evening Sun to make me sleepy.

Shining was marketed like a slasher so it wasn't taken all that seriously at the time? Probably wasn't seen by a lot of academy voters anyway...

so Croney doesn't have a new project ready to go?

thought he was doing that Philip Roth adaptation

He was working on an opera of "The Fly," no foolin'. Don't know if that's still in progress, done, abandoned, or what.

thought that was over. Roth thing was posted here somewhere, something about a day-long cross-town journey of NY. I've never been able to stomach more than 10 pages of Roth so I dunno what book this was...

daylong crosstown journey of ny sounds like delillo 'cosmopolis'

^^^that's it. mixed up Roth and Delillo, my bad.

Cronenberg is currently attached to direct an adaptation of The Talking Cure, set to star Keira Knightley, Christoph Waltz, and Michael Fassbender.[8]. He also plans to write and direct a film adaptation of Don Delillo's Cosmopolis.[9] He was also recently set to direct the film version of The Matarese Circle with Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise until Cruise backed out.

Keira Fucking Knightley!

May she be lucky enough to get one of the squishier body-mod roles

Cronenberg + Fassbender, fuck yeah.

She's just such a *nothing* in every role she plays, a charisma vacuum. Some balance might be achieved by Fassbender, who is ace and likely a perfect fit with C'berg's approach. I've only seen Waltz in IB, but he totally owned that.

ha! you beat me to it for the F/bender love Simon!

I can't wait to see how he messes with Knightley - there's something Hitchcockian about the way he treats women in his movies.

The Talking Cure,

is this a freud biopic or something? wasn't somebody else working on a freud film? malick maybe?

btw cronenberg is really on a roll lately.

tonight's flicks are Rabid and Naked Lunch

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l2f4q1iYBR1qz7gtqo1_500.jpg

pretty amped for this

i think i saw the fly as a little kid but just saw it again and HOLY SHIT IS IT A GOOD MOVIE

Interesting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jun/23/david-cronenberg-jonathan-lethem

Oh and I had no idea he was filming Cosmopolis. Hope it's better than the book!

All I know for sure is that the pic they chose for that article is awesome and a half.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_image_group/2010/6/23/1277301017096/Rome-Film-Festival-2008-D-006.jpg

I'd have desaturated it a bit, though. Sinister is good vibe for the pic, but evil Oompah-Loompah is... a different vibe. Like if the movie Elf was made by Cronenberg.

The family wakes up to find him eating a bowl of vaginas for breakfast.

not too jazzed about cosmopolis, but i am thrilled to hear that somebody's gonna take a shot at and she crawled across the table. fact that it's cronenberg is just icing.

and, as, whatever

I saw the trailer for A Dangerous Method tonight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ7JKmcLTsI

I haven't liked a Cronenberg film since Dead Ringers, but this one looks good. "From the director of A History of Violence and Eastern Promises," though--ouch. What next, "From the director of Shutter's Island and The Aviator"?

"From the director of his last two movies..."

Nice!

stooooked for this

This looks ace.

"From the director of A History of Violence and Eastern Promises,"

I really like them both, and coming after a long run of commercial failures it doesn't surprise me that this trailer plays on them. I suspect there's plenty of people who saw them that know next to nothing about Cronenberg's earlier stuff (except maybe The Fly), and in box-office terms there cannot be any harm in reminding people about his previous work with Viggo; I've a co-worker who I'd never have taken for a C'berg viewer who stans for both of these primarily because of "that lovely man"!

From a commercial standpoint, you're right. I'm just such a fan of his '80s work and so indifferent to the later films that it hit a discordant note. Maybe they could split the difference and at least mention The Fly, which was a big hit at the time and probably known to most everyone through TV or video.