The Cronenberg Thread

xp - I think the supporting cast in Naked Lunch was probably the best of all of his, usually there are only one or two standouts.

Eastern Promises is the first Cronenberg in a while that I've really loved. I think Viggo Mortensen gave one of the best performences I've ever seen.

So funny this got revived. We just finished watching Videodrome 10 minutes ago.

He is apparently re-remaking the Fly. After already adapting it into an Opera.

This is either depressing or Next Level Shit on the order of Herzog doing a Bad Lietennant movie with Nic Cage.

the fly is def one of those movies where there's no way the CGI fx are gonna be nearly as gruesome and effective as the old-school latex and karo syrup gore was.

for sure. though i doubt senor c-bergo would over-rely on cgi.

i don't know if it's gonna be a straight-up remake or some other new thing. a cinematic adaptation of the opera would be kind of hilarious.

Just like Michael Mann and Miami Vice, I guess.

flyami vice

Where's that JBR names thread.

Watching 'The Brood' now. Saw 'The Dead Zone' and 'eXistenZ' two days ago.

Thoughts?

Also, I didn't know Oliver Reed was in this.

Long long time but I used to love The Brood. It feels like a big step towards his Dead Ringers mature ease-up-on-the-splatter phase. Which is not a wholly good thing but in the case of this movie it works big time. Thinking back on it now it occurs to me that he's quoting The Birds during that whole big lab full of babies bit?

Had you seen The Dead Zone before? That is a great film, easily one of C'berg's best I reckon.

I'd never actually seen it, except for the later SNL parody of it, and that I always remember early-80s Walken from seeing 'Brainstorm' too many times on HBO growing up.

It's been part of my recent effort to view every single Stephen King adaption I can find for my 'Stephen King's Cavalcade of Terribleness' movie night that I'm planning. So far, I only have Sleepwalkers & Pet Sematary, and I need one more...

tommyknockers

Dead Zone is the second best King adaptation by a country mile, probly the best straight King adaptation.

kingfish what did you think of existenz?

I liked it. I remember when it was playing on campus the same summer that the Matrix came out and plenty of reviewers drew explicit comparisons between the two.

It reminded me of Cronenberg's standard weird-shaped-flesh-fetish from the bits of Naked Lunch I'd seen, along with the Fly and Dead Ringers.

xpost - Not Cronenberg but The Mist is the most surprisingly good King adaptation in a long long time. Maximum Overdrive and Creepshow are great too.

Tommyknockers is way too long to watch with two other movies, and it's only kinda enh rather than outright hilariously horrid.

Also, the melodramatic strings soundtrack to The Brood really does remind me of peak-era Hitchcock

Hey, I didn't know this, from his wiki:

Since 1988's Dead Ringers, Cronenberg has worked with cinematographer Peter Suschitzky on each of his films (see List of noted film director and cinematographer collaborations). Suschitzky was the director of photography for The Empire Strikes Back, and Cronenberg has repeatedly said that Suschitzky's work in that film made it the most beautiful sci-fi film he had ever seen, which was a motivating factor to work with him on Dead Ringers.

wow david crononberg don't watch much sci fi huh

Well, I'm trying to think of other 1980-or-before sci-fi flicks that the dude would find that striking. Kubrick's stuff? Solaris? Alien? Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind?

Blade Runner

not pre-80 but certainly pre 88

Star Wars duh

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'