The Cronenberg Thread

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.

yeah saw this preview awhile ago - looks promising

I do kinda wish he would return to horror/sci-fi at some point tho

"from the director of shivers and videodrome" did not test well

I don't think he needs the gross stuff anymore, though. For me, The Dead Zone and Dead Ringers are my ideal for a Cronenberg film (there's a bit of gore in each).

ugh Dead Ringers fuck that movie

Dead Zone is aces tho

and it's not the gross-out stuff I pine for (there's plenty of that in his last few!) it's the conceptual audacity, the ideas that go beyond the psychodramas of criminals and neurotics

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

I love The Dead Zone. I distinctly remember that a lot of Cronenberg fans at the time thought it was tepid, even a sell-out--those who loved Rabid and [i]Shivers and The Brood--but for me it's close to perfect, with Walken's performance the best found in any Cronenberg film. I'm surprised you're so down on Dead Ringers; if nothing else, I'd say it's conceptually audacious.

PTT just posted one of my favourite line readings in any film ever.

better title: Hunks of Psychoanalysis

^^

lol

i am stoked for this but then i will watch anything he does at least once. (and many of them i will watch many, many times.)

there's a thread for it btw

A Dangerous Method -- David Cronenberg/Viggo Mortensen's latest

i can't see why they didn't go with something simple like spanking miss knightley

― And the piano, it sounds like a carnivore (contenderizer), Tuesday, June 21, 2011

My post up there comes across as a bit more pro box-office than I really mean; I absolutely love his earlier stuff (esp. The Dead Zone and Videodrome), but also dig how he's maintained a lot of the weirdness yet managed to make money since he and Viggo's bromance took root. I remember the first time I saw AHoV and the rasping shot-away jawbone bit just felt like a *pure* Cronenberg moment.

I can see I already gave her both barrels way upthread, but it still seems a shame that he's bought into the Keira Knightley hype for this, when the male cast is so stellar in comparison. Again though, she will get tickets sold, despite what sounds like the best "russian" accent this side of Malkovich in Rounders.

I'm surprised you're so down on Dead Ringers; if nothing else, I'd say it's conceptually audacious.

I'm just don't find the central conceit - TWO Jeremy Irons'! - all that interesting. I can see how it must have been fun/challenging to make given the technology at the time, but I don't find anything particularly interesting about the symbiotic, self-destructive relationship of two twins, it kind of goes nowhere.

xp

like I get it, they're different, but they're also THE SAME DO U SEE *snore*

would watch any movie where viggo plays freud tbh, cronenberg or no

is there a thread of missing contenderizer

i think keira knightley's a good actress and also i'm excited to see her get spanked *old italian guy leer*

xposts: yeah i mean there were parts of eastern promises (which i loved) that coulda been any gangster drama but then there were the close-ups of viggo snipping a corpse's fingers off with a pair of garden shears. plus one of the most brutal and literally balls-out fight scenes of the last couple years, so it's not as if dude's gone all genteel on us.

he got the only diverting performance out of both JIs that i've ever seen, plus genevieve b is always watchable -- but DR's arc "story arc" is just \

i kinda felt like the camera regarded the baby at the end of EP like some kind of special effects monster too

actually the fly and DR have the same story: "the flies"

yeah I can kinda see that

re: The Dead Zone, am yearning for a blu-ray release of this. Totally agree with clemenza and others who are repping for it, prob my favourite Walken performance too. At least its relative lack of cred means I was able to pick up a lovely 1-sheet of the original poster for about £10, although to get it framed (in the UK) will cost 10x that.

And yeah, re: EP baby etc, no matter how much his style matures there's that very distinct looming-dread feeling in everything he does. Which is obviously a very good thing.

btw i dunno if this has been posted itt or not, but it's a pretty entertaining (and sometimes lolz-y) four-part tv doc from around the fly era (i'd guess). kind of a snapshot given how differently he's positioned (himself) for the last twenty years or so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zCZMjWuNY0

another one from around the same time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2wk8ZI_8Co

^^ that one's definitely more interesting. though lol @ the squeamishness of almost everyone interviewed.

Dead Ringers is my favorite but I don't rewatch it often.

I like most of his work through 1991 in varying degrees, even Naked Lunch.

every time i am reminded that this freud trailer exists its like being given a candy bar

still too traumatized by Dead Ringers to ever revisit it.

Naked Lunch doesn't totally work but I enjoy it, it nails a unique smacked-out sci-fi noir vibe. which is Burroughs in a nutshell really

xp

even Eastern Promises, which was just okay, had such a lived-in texture: the smell of the upholstery in the restaurant, Armin Mueller-Stahl's face, the borscht, the hospital.

Viggo's Oscar nod was one of the few genuinely surprising moments the Academy's given us in recent years.

Quite by accident, I found out a few days ago that a friend of mine worked on The Dead Zone. From a Facebook post: "Next time you see Christopher Walken's Volkswagen crash into that truck, think of me holding off traffic." Naked Lunch was where he started to lose me; never saw M. Butterfly or Eastern Promises (yes, I know, I should see the latter--that's how much I disliked A History of Violence).

I'm laughing looking at my last post--okay, "worked on" is a stretch.

Eastern Promises is better than a History of Violence imho

never liked M Butterfly. or Crash for that matter.

Those two are awful. Crash generated more walkouts than any movie I've attended.

Any movie named "Crash" is doomed to ignominy.

gtfo

Cronenberg's awful Crash better then Haggis' even more awful Crash.

I've lived my whole live waiting for a sex scene between Holly Hunter and an Oldsmobile.

I hated Crash too; at the time, I tried envisioning an SCTV parody with Edith Prickley in the Holly Hunter role..

Anyway I like most of Cronenberg's films and his recent track record is fine by me as both HoV and EP are well worth watching (as is Spider.)

i seriously loved ahov, and liked ep a good deal - i think with the latter it was a much livelier movie than maybe it had any right to be. kinda like inside man, which was undoubtedly garbage on the page but had all these spike lee moments stuffed into the margins that kept you watching.

i dont love crash, but i appreciate some scenes in it. i dont really 'get' whatever he was doing with that movie, but i dig how detached and minimalist it is. but it makes for a pretty dry viewing experience

I liked Inside Man too.

Inside Man is like the best movie Spike Lee has made in 20 years or so

its not better than malcom x mate...