The Cronenberg Thread

I read your post! I was just responding to a question which wasn't asked! The same way you did! ;)

i think what cronenberg always tries to acheieve is an unsettled mood. he's not aiming to be naturalistic and criticising scenes for being cliched (esp the cheerleader scene) implies that they were played straight when they were riddled with discomfort.

the sex and violence shots linger too long on purpose - very self-referentially saying 'here's something you don't normally see which i'm going to show you'.

rambling, but i just think cronenbeg's expert at unsettling an audience in a way few other directors can. return to the form of dead ringers, for me.

DING DING!!

Really though it's not as if anything in this film is even vaguely controversial. I mean every single man on the planet WISHES his secret, hidden problem that he tries to keep secret from his family was that he has an incredible knack for brutally sending evil gangsters to oblivion. "Baby, I have to tell you something about myself. It might be hard to understand and if you want to leave me after I tell you this I can't blame you. I spent my formative years as The Punisher." Oh yeah FACE THE MUSIC MOTHERFUCKER. YOU GANGSTER-MURDERING... JERKFACE, I can't BELIEVE you would just have this QUASI-SUPERNATURAL ABILITY to just y'know KILL BADGUYS with near impunity and not TELL YOUR FAMILY?!?!?

During the vaguely unnecessary staircase fuck, I actually thought for a minute "She smells the killer gene!" etc. etc. obv badguy slayers give off a pheromone which is irresistable to ladies who never wash their hair.

Actually I think a lot of things in this movie could be described as "vaguely unnecessary" but you could say that about Kung-Fu Hustle, too, and that's the best film I've seen this year.

Haha, it's strange, everyone in Canada I've spoken to loves Cronenberg, but tend to think Egoyan's movies are overrated and sucky.

But History of Violence: it's not very good, is it? If it's a Dahl-type genre thriller, it's not really exciting enough; if it's a Hitchcockian identity movie, there's no real mystery; and if it's an examination of suburban mores (yawn), it has absolutely nothing to say that wasn't said (better) in the first series if Six Feet Under (and a MILLION other movies.)

As it is, it's this weird kind of halfway house, with a silly-as-hell noir copout ending. Hurt's performance is terrific, but it's wrong for the movie.

That said, "(adopts wiseguy voice)I shoulda killed yew in Philly" is my new catchphrase.

"Unbreakable" was honestly more interesting by a long shot, too. Except I much prefer the son shooting Ed Harris in the back with a double-barrelled shotgun than I do the son pointing a revolver at his own pops followed by painfully awful dialogue for five neverending minutes.

I'm glad I saw this movie and I thought it was entertaining, but not entertaining enough to excuse the lack of anything really gripping on offer. I will be purchasing "I, Robot" and "The Island" on DVD long before I ever think of purchasing this. But you all already knew that.

(I think Kung Fu Hustle was my favorite movie this year too!)

(Should I join the military and marry Ally?)

Apparently the new Egoyan movie is TERRIBLE.

There's still time to delete this whole thread.

I found AHOV kind of...ok. That's about it. It was kind of OK. I don't even remember it being gory or shockingly violent at all!! I mean I had to think pretty hard, when Tom said "destroyed faces," to remember that there was those scenes were people got punched and their noses disappeared. I don't really remember much of this movie.

my film geek red telephone ran in the middle of night.

when william hurt's standing there in the door frame, a woman sitting up behind me starts going "kill him! KILL HIM!" -- and every time we wanted that, we got it .. with the kid in the high school .. with everyone who crosses viggo.. and every time, it's like YEAH!!! URK!!!!!!

i really like the things madchen noticed. they're things that i either didn't notice, or didn't noticed that i noticed.

All references to Joey mention how he was crazy or angry. Tom's unsettlingly sane and calm! Even in sex, he shows some motivation but never agression. There are as many people like this as there are superhuman hyper-violent people like Joey. You've got this unbelievable character, with the approximation of a real person stuck somewhere in-between. There's this visual tic that showed up on Mortensen's face in the transitions. There's an outright denial that there's a multiple personality situation in play, which is kind of true: everything that constituted Joey dropped off the face of the planet when Tom came into being, and it's a conscious effort to bring Joey back. It's Joey that slaps her on the staircase, etc.

Videodrome/eXistenZ are about people who are "normal" but are pursuing something they think is deviant or subversive for sexual pleasure. Lately, Cronenberg is kind of on a roll lately with characters that deny part of their pasts. With Spider you ended up with a man who was insane, but with AHOV you end up with a walking caricature of all that's good and right that contrasts with the "evil" past...

Weird audience reaction when I saw it as well. Some people walking out trying to puzzle out something about the plot, others going "OMG that was awful," others kind of stunned. Nervous laughter as well as laughter with the movie (more of that toward the end).

That was my favorite scene in the movie by as many miles as the drive to Philadelphia.

I guess what amazes me about the critical reaction is that so many reviews are working angles of this - 'oh, he's undermining our societal attitude toward violence'/'violence comes back to haunt you'/etc. - like this message isn't just as much of a cliche as anything Hollywood produces.

And if I'm not enthralled by the concept (which I'm not), then all I've got are some relatively ungruesome fights/shootings, bad performances and weak humor.

That's what the Lord of the Rings movie was about?

The son scenes work on basically the same level, but without anything quite as psychologically rewarding. Basically he seems to harbor latent Michael Corleone-ism. And whoever mentioned Adam Brody upthread OTM!

I like how he always has some decompressed (omg am I some film auteur bullshit artist for using this word?) scenes in his films and they seem to go on a while, but Cronenberg usually barely breaks the 90 minute standard.

The quality of the performances, the skillful editing, grounding the tale in a believable if overstated reality...I can go on. All these things redeem his "ideas"; I mean, who cares about IDEAS anyway? It's the execution. You think the film sucks, I think it's marvelous. If we can't disagree about movies, the world's in dire shape. Let's have a drink.

I don't want to sound like a dick, but I'd honestly like to know how it was effective as a thriller, jaymc. The end was never in doubt to me - there was no question that Viggo would settle his Philly business and wind up back on the farm.

I'm just referring to much of the commentary and praise surrounding the film, esp. from daily and mag critics, who seem to think that the 'violence comes back to bite you on the ass'/'never outrun your past'/etc. is something new and innovative. I wouldn't care if the film had been otherwise successful.