We reported earlier in the week that Breck Eisner, director of the impressive looking remake of George Romero’s The Crazies, had jumped the Creature From the Black Lagoon ship. Where did he jump to? Seemingly to another remake, this time of David Cronenberg’s 1979 The Brood. Cory Goodman (Priest) is on the script.

The Brood as we currently know it, is kind of uniquely Cronenberg (Cronenbergian?). [Spoilers ahead] It features Oliver Reed as a professor of ‘psychoplasmics”: a psychotherapy that causes its subjects to physically manifest their traumas. One patient with an abusive father develops welts on his body, while Samantha Eggar asexually gestates mutant children from the outside of her body, that telepathically act out her anger. One of the film’s most famous and lingering images is that of Eggar licking clean a newborn foetus. Cronenberg wrote the film during a custody battle with his ex-wife.

by Owen Williams – EmpireOnline.com     Source: LA Times

eXistenZ [1999]

1. Country Gas Station.
2. Jennifer Jason Leigh’s peculiar hair-weave.
3. He wraps up the package of frog organs and seals it neatly with a strip of brown tape. He places it on a conveyor belt.

The main reason I started this blog was to catalogue everything I wanted to remember. Primarily, I needed a way to remember my opinions on certain things such as why I did or didn’t like certain movies. I’ve been bad about it the last year or so, but I’m going to start doing quick micro-reviews of movies and books I’ve read each month. If you care, here are my opinions for the month of November.

As a prelude, these reviews are written in reverse order of being consumed. This is because I only started to write them up at the end of the month when I was already forgetting what I did and didn’t like about them!

Books
The Thin Man
I’ve been reading a lot of pulp noir recently, and have been working my way through the complete Dashiell Hammett. The Thin Man is Hammett’s fifth and final book, which is a pity. He was on a great run, almost all of his five novels being classics in hardboiled fiction – and then he just stops.

Anyway, The Thin Man is the story of a wisecracking (what else?) former detective on vacation in his old stomping grounds, New York City. Due to old acquantinces, he quickly gets caught up in the middle of a murder case. It doesn’t really fall to him to crack the case, but in between evening shows on Broadway, large dinners, and even larger numbers of drinks, the case is solved.

This is tied for my favorite of Hammett’s books (the other being Red Harvest). It displays all his greatest strengths – wit, pacing, and a complex but interesting story – without his weaknesses – the appearances of supercriminals, for instance. It’s worth a quick read through, though I’m not sure how “deep” it would be on rereading. But we don’t always need that, do we?

Oryx and Crake
When I started reading this book, I was a little wary. The only other book by Margaret Atwood that I have read is The Handmaid’s Tale which I considered badly written scifi trying it’s hardest to be deep – just amateurish, really, easily corrected had she read more scifi before writing it.

Oryx and Crake, however, is nothing of the sort. It’s a book that will grip you and leave you unable to put it down, with a complex and interesting (though not incredibly original) world. The novel follows one character – Snowman – as he lives in the shattered remains of a postapocalyptic world. Snowman was unfortunate to have been close to the events that caused the end of the world, and is the shepherd of a flock of humans genetically engineered to be, well, naive (although they quickly show signs of overcoming this). The world from before is one of rampant genetic manipulations, constant cyber attachments, and literal walls between the well-to-do scientists and the “pleeblands” (yes, they’re actually called that).

As I said, the book is gripping and interesting – definitely something I recommend reading. This leaves the flaws all the more unfortunate. I think Atwood aims for something loftier than plotboiler fiction, so the incredibly unsubtle ways she goes about that is irritating (see: pleeblands.) She also seems to forget about the possibility of evolution; the ‘genius scientist’ at the center of everything genetically designs creatures to survive after the apocalypse – which would work great, in a vacuum. Surely a genius scientist should know better than that? The book also sometimes felt like it was written straight through, leaving the continuity feeling a bit off (heightened by the next book). So overall: great to read, just don’t think too deeply about it.

The Flood
Captivated by Oryx and Crake, I quickly picked up the sequel only to be cruelly dissapointed. There’s nothing worse you can do in a sequel than change characters and past events. See, in this book you go through the same time period as in Oryx and Crake but seen through the eyes of other characters. And they manage to be intertwined with the characters in the previous book – but somehow never really mentioned there…

Anyway, the book suffers from a brief and infuriatingly boring character section written in a way to ensure the reader skips the passages. Atwood also changes major events and characters from the previous book, making a world previously devoid of people now suspiciously filled with them. And gone is the gripping read: even the characters that are non-boring are kind of uninteresting, and exploring the least interesting part of the world. I definitely would have liked it had Atwood stopped at the end of the last book, leaving the cliffhanger never to be resolved.

The Road
Last on the postapocalyptic novel extravaganza is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I’ve never read McCarthy before, but I started this book just after reading The Reader’s Manifesto. One of the main targets in the Manifesto is McCarthy, so I was all set to dislike The Road (note: I love Paul Auster, so the Manifesto doesn’t carry that much weight with me.)

But hey, I’m a convert. McCarthy has a poetic prose that manages to evoke a feeling of the scene with a brutal directness. I don’t know how else you’d write this book without his prose – as the movie disastrously tried to do and failed (see below). The Road is about a father and a son heading south for warmth in a dying world, encountering barbarism and canibalism and worse. But primarily, the story is about survival in a harsh world and the strained relationship between a dying father and a distant yet captivated son. Seriously every paragraph is dedicated to either searching for food, hiding, running, and attempting to bond, practically in that order of frequency.

What’s best about the book is what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say what happened to the world. It doesn’t say where they are most of the time. It doesn’t say what happened to them in the past. It’s just a story in the here-and-now, managing to communicate the feelings and emotions and sense of the situation these people are in. In case you can’t tell, this is really a great, great book. Which leads to…

Movies
The Road
I saw this movie the most recently but don’t have much to say about it. I’d read The Road the novel in the 24 hours before seeing the movie which created too much dissonance when I watched it; I just couldn’t get in to it. I will say, though, that everything I liked about the book wasn’t here. As I said, the book told a lot through what wasn’t said – the movie was pretty blunt. Also, I don’t know if this is a consequence of the difference in forms but there was a noticeable departure from the themes of the book. McCarthy emphasized the relationship of the father and son, as well as the struggle for survival. The movie emphasized the post-apocalyptic setting, which was not nearly as interesting.

A Serious Man
After watching this movie, my friends and I were taking the parking garage elevator when we overheard someone say, “You know, it was all about the story of Job.” Cue glances between me and my friends and a silent ooooh. Remember that when you go to see it and everything will make more sense. That’s not to say the movie doesn’t make sense when you watch it – you’ll just understand it on a deeper level if you do.

The movie is basically about being middle-class and Jewish in 1970s suburbia. You follow the main character as his life goes from normal to crap, dragging everyone else down with him. The Coen brothers bring their normal sense of dark humor to the absurdity of everyday life, while keeping everything somehow serious. The whole movie is a stylistic continuation of No Country For Old Men, which comes off in a very positive way. You can easily compare this to their earlier dark comedies (Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou, etc.) and see a definite progression; I’m unable to say how it’s progressing expect everything felt tighter and better placed together. Maybe they just got a better editor?

Fear(s) of the Dark
A French collection of short films by graphic artists from around the world, the theme here is, obviously, fear. Every short film is in black and white (with some splashes of red in one segment – cheater) and some are chopped up and woven between the others. Overall, it’s pretty good but it’s really uneven in quality.

Quickly, the highlights and lowlights: Charles Burns does his usual style, both in terms of illustrations and theme. I love the art, the rest was meh. Blutch has an amazing series of vignettes; his art really conveys the mood better than anyone else. Richard McGuire was the standout, both in terms of story and in terms of using pure blackness and whiteness to convey a story. Finally, Pierre Di Sciullo has a series of uninspired 2D animations combined with dumb, banal monologues.

Solaris
Solaris is one of my favorite books, and on my list of Greatest Science Fiction Ever. I’d heard that the Russian movie was supposed to be a masterpiece, and that the author of the book (Stanislaw Lem) derogatively labeled it ‘erotica in space’. Which it kind of is.

Solaris the book was one of the most creative and original descriptions of alien intelligence and environment that I’ve ever read, and is a meditation on man’s place in nature and the cosmos. Solaris the movie is a meditation on scientists as people, and does well at making the science fiction seem unartificial. Be prepared for a slow and fairly dry movie, but one well worth it. This is one of those intellectual pieces that can only be experienced, not really explained.

The Fly
Luckily, this movie has nothing to do with the original 1958 version of The Fly beyond the idea of a man’s transmutation into a human-fly hybrid. Cronenberg did a great job updating the concept using his signature 1980’s biohorror, with Jeff Goldblum giving a terrifyingly amazing portrayal of the descent from man to (brundle-)fly. Unfortunately, Jeff Goldblum’s meaningless incantations to his computer are typical of early movies that assumed their audience was ignorant of computers – something no longer true today. Overall, a great movie with minor flaws.

American Psycho
I don’t remember much of what I liked or disliked about this movie, honestly. I do remember that Christian Bale managed to bring a lot of character to the movie, even though the whole thing slightly bored me. Also, William Defoe was a detective who repeatedly interviewed Bale; each scene was filmed three times, where Defoe was supposed to either be sure that Bale was a killer, sure he wasn’t, or unsure. It added a lot of real-life uncertainty and unease to each interview, which worked wonderfully.

The Virgin Spring
A simple, solid tale of medieval Norway. I haven’t been sold on some Bergman in the past, but this was worth watching. I suppose what drew me in was the realistic feeling – people wore crappy clothes, lived far apart, and life generally sucked for everyone involved. The nihilistic and psychological undertones throughout the movie were what completed the sense of it being a really good movie.

The Company
The Company is essentially a faux-documentary of a theater company through a few performances. I get bored watching dance for more than a few minutes at a time, so the small dance scenes interspersed with dialogue kept my attention.

New York, I Love You
This is a collection of short films about New York; really, though, it should have been named, “Manhattan, I love you (and Coney Island is alright for old people)”. Some gems, a lot of meh films. It didn’t flow great and didn’t really convey a sense of the character of the city.

“George, I wish you’d look at the nursery” begins Ray Bradbury’s cautionary tale of childhood imagination, The Veldt. In true Bradbury fashion, technology runs amok at the mercy of the children’s subconscious, manifesting virtually everything they wish for and horrifyingly, more than the parents bargained for.  Although the story left me a bit scarred and ironically, a sucker for Cronenberg films, it also reflected my more optimistic belief in the thin slip of reality where a blank bedroom wall could easily dissolve into a technicolor world of fantasy.

Artist and muralist, Ami Suma, also transforms blank canvases into candy-colored dimensions with her kawaii-style menagerie. Suma enlivens kids’ bedrooms with vibrant creatures that, thankfully would sooner cuddle with you than cobble you up under a hot, savannah sun. Ami is also a freelance fashion writer living in New York City. Inspired by the likes of animator, Hayao Miyazaki, Ami also assures me (and other children) that what lies beyond your walls is really a welcoming wonderland.

Danielle Waters

Sugared Glamour - Danielle Waters

Danielle Waters is a recent graduate from Staffordshire University whose work scrutinizes the female form. Her sculptures reference the narrow-mindedness of the fashion industry’s beauty ideal, they are made out of sugar, which is both fragile and durable and their edible qualities are a comment on the vicious cannabalism of body facism. Her forms could be eroded statues, crygenically frozen, gross pastiches or simply a fresh take on an oft used and abused aesthetic. The St Pancras Crypt damp could be problematic for Danielle’s sculptures, but they would make a fascinating visual when illuminated in the gloom.

James Roper

The Ecstasy of Sophia Rossi - James Roper

Mancunian James Roper draws heavily on the concept of ‘peak shift’ to create his carnivalesque, bombastic drawings and sculptures. Peak shift, examines the relationship between art and the viewer where the viewer is neurologically attracted to exaggeration and extremes. His work certainly isn’t the norm, his drawings of ecstatic porn stars, orgasming supernovas through their chests; his comic book paintings of writhing galaxies, which look suspiciously phallic and breasty; and his sprawling sculptures of toys, which arouse the kind of playful desire in Takashi Muradami’s drawings; are the stuff of dreams, nightmares and uncomfortable sensations in unmentionable places. His work also screams of the willful freedom of a baby face-hugger busting out of John Hurt. Our exhibition is not only about restriction, but also about breaking free, and the chaotic, anarchic, joyful messiness that can occur when you throw off these bonds.

Klarita Pandolfi

First Love - Klarita Pandolfi

 If Klarita Pandolfi’s work isn’t spouting a red, blood-like substances,  it’s spreading under her work’s skin into dark bruises. Pandolfi has exhibited extensively (including a show in the ever-fantastic Sartorial Contemporary Art gallery) and worked in a variety of media including photography and sound. Religion, gender, life cycles, environment and chaos are her inspirations, themes which inflect her work with a distinctly gothic flavour. Her bloody re-enactment of Michaelangelo’s Pieta and her victim series, which features an uncomfortable series of photographs of a woman being drowned – commenting on the inherent voyeurism and rubbernecking in our culture, and societies’ innate ability to stand by and let things happen – are some of her strongest works, but her vast scope and the emotional magnanimity of her projects make her portfolio a fresh and lively one. Her visuals are strong, powerful and raw and deal with the alternately boxed-in and unmoored mindsets of religion, violence and sexuality.   

Anetka Zakrzewska

Living Space - Anetka Zakrzewska

Anetka Zakrzewska’s photographs are the telling ephemera of a colourful globetrot. Polish Zakrzewska is interested in the insightful minutiae of the road less travelled. A figurine, the soles of a pair of flip-flops, or a pair of wrought hands give a CSI-style scrutinisation of specific cultural traits. There is a sense of melancholy and whimsy through her work – her Spread Love project, which involved treks in a pair of flip-flops with the word ‘love’ carved into the sole, is an indulgent, slightly cheesy and emotional project, but one which examines the internal and external, working on connections and re-igniting a universal idea. Her work is highly emotional, imprinting her thoughts on the viewer through subtle and quiet means. Her photography may at first appear kitsch, but when you look closer, a souvenir, a black doll or a headdress becomes a legitimate and weighty symbol of a reinforced and persistent stereotype. Zakrzewska’s art also spills over into her life, for Vice Magazine she spent some time in a juvenile detention hall for girls teaching photography. Her interest in cultural restrictions and freedoms, and her fascination with the seemingly unimportant makes her a perfect candidate for the show.

Victoria Graham

Photo - Victoria Graham

Victoria Graham’s photography examines the stigma of mental illness and the marginalisation of the mentally ill in society. Graham uses blindfolds and gags to represent the unheard voices and restricted freedoms of the mentally ill. Psychologist Lacan believed that madness was the closest thing to true freedom because the mentally ill lived by their own set of rules and did not adhere to those imposed by society; however the mentally ill are some of the most marginalised, misunderstood and repressed in our society, even with care in the community programmes in place. It’s an area I would be interested to expand upon in the exhibition as it is an area which has been covered to a much lesser extent than racist or sexist boundaries.  

Frederick Higginson

Exploding Man - Frederick Higginson

Frederick Higginson’s hanging sculptures are like a scene out of Watchmen, when Dr Jon Osterman shatters into atom confetti, or a Cronenbergian nightmare His sci-fi characters appear to have burst in a frenzy of rage or frustration, embattled by internal and external forces. There’s an energetic violence to Higginson’s work. In direct contrast to James Roper (see above), his characters are embittered and worn down, shattered by the oppressive atmosphere they survive in or blowing their brains out in a brutal and final attempt to find freedom. There is no sense of elation or wonder, merely the fragments of what was once human floating through the air like specks of dust. The contrasting kinesis and nihilism of Higginson’s work conjures up the lawless urban realms of superhero comics, with a hint of fantastic realism to lift it’s weary message. It would be interesting to see how the work would travel to the space, and how it would hang in the crypt, but it would definitely be worth the effort to have something so striking on show.

Kate Atkinson

Crossing the Border (fragment) - Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson’s work is the most abstract and conceptual of the artists we have picked so far. Her Crossing the Border series looks at the hidden desires and motives of the self using furniture, with its puntastic metaphors about ’skeletons’ in the closet; with bulbs, ceramic and electrical cables to represent our deepest darkest secrets. It is interesting how Atkinson chooses to illuminate the work, as if the reveal is the release of a burden, a quite literal enlightening. The light also elicits a moth to a flame reaction, our deepest mysteries are the ones which appeal and repel the most and linger in a no man’s land, hesitant to be revealed, unwilling to remain hidden. Atkinson’s work is quite lo-fi and would maybe work better in a lighter, less fussy gallery space, but her tangible representation of restriction contrasts quite nicely with the literal and figurative drawings and paintings. It remains to be seen however if a cupboard placed in the corner of the crypt would make it look a bit Stepford and Sons.

John Middleton

Photo - John Middleton

I could write some high-falutin’ diatribe about John Middeton’s photographs, but well, it’s men, tied up with leather straps…plus homoeroticism…nuff said I believe…

Sarah Misselbrook

Inside Me - Sarah Misselbrook

Sarah Misselbrook’s work concerns the body, the female body in particular. Her sculptures, drawings and paintings turn the body inside out, exaggerate and distort the bone, sinew and muscle of the body into forms which are recognisable as human, but with the internal pain and mental struggles externalised. Misselbrook works with materials such as fat and chocolate, addressing the issues of feminism through the language of food, which women and the media have a highly developed and complex relationship with. The substances break down naturally, as an organic body erodes and disintegrates, meaning that the work’s meaning shifts and changes over time. Misselbrook’s sculptures feature spinal cords made of spikes, devices which restrict and deform the body, translucent sheaths which both reveal and conceal and body parts set adrift and recontextualised as objects, ephemera. Her use of space, the dramatic styling of her work, and her rendering of recognisable yet alien anatomy makes a profound comment on the mind’s relation to the body and the distorted way in which we view ourselves.

Maristella Colombo

Io Ascolto in Silenzio (fragment) - Maristella Colombo

Maristella Colombo’s project I’m listening in the silence is a solitary quest for perfection. A visual expression of the vacuum your thoughts echo through when loneliness strikes. The dummy in the piece is placed on a bed and bound with bits of ribbon and pairs of tights. There is a quiet beatitude to the piece, it’s more a contemplation of the body than an outright statement of the ongoing battle against perfection. The ties are delicate, like octopus ink calligraphy or suibokuga (Japanese line drawings), and placed in patterns across the body, as if the anxieties and insecurities of the mind are slowly wrapping their tendrils around the physical being. The way the dummy is placed, and the disembodied hands conjure up images of Nabokov’s Lolita with her hand ‘idly dreaming’. The piece is not auspicious, it captures a fleeting moment of doubt, the butterfly wing flap before the hurricane hits – and in this way it addresses the complex mental traits of eating disorders. Colombo’s projects are varied, mixing the human and the exterior, her projects range from Nowhere – a series of pictures of ‘nowhere’ places which have no attributes to link them to a specific place or time; to My Body Landscapes, where she superimposes pictures of herself on trees and natural scenes to reaffirm her place in and as a part of nature.

Jason Thielke

Don't Be Afraid - Jason Thielke

The philosopher Baudrillard poses in Simula and Simulacram that our commoditized urban spaces, designed to adhere to a capitalist market, to enhance the flow of wealth and to keep the restless public in motion, are merely simulacra and shield us from the real, natural world. Urban architecture has a specific impact on its inhabitants, they become used to cramped spaces, loud noises, crowds and concrete; they are closed off, compartmentalised into units which contain the essentials; and as a result they become disillusioned, disenfranchised and subservient to the palliative thrall of the city’s heart. As much as our urban landscapes rely on our foot traffic and our patronage, we rely on their constant promise of a wider selection of ever more useful goods; easier, more glamorous lives and bigger better thrills and adventures. Like it or not, the psychological ramifications of urban living are as indelibly inked on us as the grime and graffiti; and graphic artist Jason Thielke is clearly inspired by this idea. His work superimposes architectural drawings on paintings of unmistakable city dwellers, linking them with the deliberate style and sprawl of urban planning. It’s surprisingly affective, using relatable characters and scenarios, Thielke manages to conjure up some urban myths of his own. His characters are an ideal mix of wide-eyed naifs and streetwise punks, made possible by his contrasting styles of hard and soft lines, creating an emotive picture with a steely edge. I was interested to use Thielke in the show because modern living is often full of restrictions, especially city living which has its own set of values and rules imposed upon homogenous spaces. Apartment blocks, schools, shops, theatres, bars, clubs and many more all have target customers, an unattainably average person who is rubber stamped as the control subject for all city projects, but when real emotions and reactions are factored in, some explosive and melancholic alchemy occurs. 

Patty Levey

Church - Patty Levey

Patty Levey’s photographs are folkloric and serene. Her heroines roam the plains and are pictured in barns, lounging on rusted cars and being sacrilegious in tiny chapels. Her Awakening series is like a countrified version of Miru Kim’s urban explorations in Naked Spleen City. They are naked and frail against harsh climes and yet they are pioneering, conquistadors of sexual freedom. Her sepia-toned images are chock full of Southern Gothic and bitter nostalgia. If Proust’s memories came flooding back after eating a madeleine, Levey’s memories are scented with oil and burning wood. Her female figures are vulnerable but powerful, strange but natural and emerge as sorceresses of a kind in the uncanny environments. Signifiers of witchcraft, heathenism and supernatural powers are rife in her imagery, in Goddess a woman’s arms grow into antlers, in Faith a woman evaporates into a wraith and in Door With Cross and woman throws a ‘crucifixion’ pose under a cross drawn in blood. Levey also examines the cost of liberty in her fascinating series of images referencing the ‘war on terror’, Taking Liberty. Levey’s work is a razor sharp social commentary with a raw poetic soul and would make a stunning photographic addition to our exhibition.

Susannah Benjamin

Saskia - Susannah Benjamin

Susannah Benjamin doesn’t just take beautiful photographs; she lives breathes and – perhaps – eats the narratives she commits to celluloid. A (15 year old!) photographer with a startlingly sophisticated eye and a passion for creative writing, her projects cover her many travels ( the stunning A Million Miles); the transition between childhood and adulthood; and the natural world. Susannah’s muses are her friends (a whole photo set on Flickr is devoted to her friend Saskia above), whom she places into a variety of supernatural poses and situations, from curling up in bushes to being tied together in the middle of a road. Benjamin’s pictures enter a realm of imagination which photography aspires to, merely by thinking outside the box and using her props like a wunderkind; the kind of phenomena only made possible by those truly in love with the medium. Her projects venture into so much more than restriction, but she has some fine images suitable for the theme, both literally (as in her Saskia series) and psychologically (via the use of cocoons, bedsheets and jumpropes). A formidable talent who can only go on the up.

Alison Brady

Untitled - Alison Brady

Alison Brady’s photographs are bizarrely enjoyable, theatrical set pieces. Her work very often references trauma and the psyche’s reaction to trauma.  Brady refers to Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle and how the mind, in an incomprehensible act of sado-masochism, replays traumatic events over and over until they become ‘enjoyable’. Brady’s characters are found with their heads in clothes-dryers or suitcases; their bodies are fighting against them, becoming alien by developing varicose veins (represented by balloons inserted into tights) or ageing; and they are sprouting strange and unusual substances and growths through their mouths. The imagination in Brady’s work is just jaw-dropping; the uncanny thrill of Brady’s body-splooging antics is limitless and entirely unique. She finds many of her volunteers on craigslist, and it’s surpirising quite how many utter strangers are willing to be coated in chocolate or stick their head inside an oven in the name of art; however this is also a testament to Brady’s crystal-clear and potent vision, one look at her work and surely anyone would disrobe and bury their head in the sand to be a part of something so enthralling. Her images of people assuming a condensed identity by hiding themselves or obscuring themselves within their environment are a perfect mix of visual and psychological restriction and some of the most bizarre and beguiling wall candy in the exhibition.  

Vlad Gansovsky

Bondage Photography - Vlad Gansovsky

reż. David Cronenberg

Zacząłem się poważnie niepokoić – David zawsze był twórcą konsekwentnym, a teraz konsekwentnie robi filmy o niczym.

2 / 5

obejrzane kolejno w 2009 r. i 2008 r.

reż. David Cronenberg

Body horror w filmach Kanadyjczyka jest straszny nie dlatego, że rozlicza nasze fobie dotyczące deformacji i zniekształcenia ciała – to wybieg estetyczny. Fizyczność jest tu ledwie symptomem choroby, projekcją zdeformowanej świadomości, której treści można dostrzec u zdrowej jednostki. Bo o czym mówi nam Cronenberg? O fetyszu, o technicyzacji życia, o niezaspokojonej żądzy, o przekraczaniu konwencji. W “Crash” reżyser jest bliżej pozornej normalności niż kiedykolwiek, a jednocześnie udaje mu się tę normalność w naszych oczach przewartościować. Oto wniosek naprawdę straszny: trawi nas ta sama choroba.

5 / 5

obejrzane zimą 2009 r.

reż. David Cronenberg

“Głód jest więzieniem ciała, ale nie może uwięzić umysłu” na początku swej ekranizacji Burroughsa sugeruje Cronenberg. To rozwinięcie idei powieści, której tytuł oznacza zastygłą chwilę, stan zawieszenia z oczyma utkwionymi w wędrującym do ust widelcu. O ile jednak “Brazil” Gilliama, było apologią tej ucieczki do wewnątrz, w “Naked Lunch” pointa jest gorzka. Zgodnie z opowieścią o dupie, oczy w końcu blakną, a mózg umiera.

3.5 / 5

obejrzane w 2009 r.

reż. David Cronenberg

Cronenberg o niebezpieczeństwie psychostymulacji za pomocą drugiej osoby opowiada używając historii bliźniaków-ginekologów sypiających z jedną kobietą. Kobieta ma zmutowaną macicę, bliźniacy wpadają paralelnie w uzależnienie od leków, a hasło filmu brzmi: Separation can be a terrifying thing. Zdaje się, że to zostało zrobione Łukaszowi Błaszczykowi ku przestrodze .

4 / 5

obejrzane ostatnio we wrześniu 2009 r.

reż. David Cronenberg

Na poziomie “Videodrome” Cronenberg dopiero flirtował z tematyką późniejszej “poważnej” twórczości. To, co stanowi clue “Crash”, “Dead Ringers” czy “Naked Lunch” – obsesja i fizyczne zaspokojenie – tutaj wymieszane jest z sensacyjną fabułą jego wczesnych slasherów. O politycznym spisku, z którym walczy lokalny operator kablówki należy zapomnieć; w pamięci zostają obrazy okaleczonej Debbie Harry, zdeformowanego Jamesa Woodsa. Long live the new flesh!

3/5

obejrzane wiosną 2009 r.

I had difficulty selecting a single film for some directors; therefore I selected more than one. These are all directors who have consecutively put out great films; I'm not going to list any directors who have only made a single good film (there are lots of those unfortunately).

Anyway, here are my favorite directors and their best film(s) (in my opinion):

Steven Spielberg:

Best film(s) – Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Martin Scorsese:

Best film(s) – Taxi Driver

Nicolas Roeg:

Best film(s) – Walkabout

Ridley Scott:

Best film(s) – Alien/Blade Runner

Gus Van Sant:

Best film – Drugstore Cowboy

Stanley Kubrick:

Best film(s) – A Clockwork Orange

Werner Herzog:

Best film(s) – Stroszek/Aguirre, the Wrath of God

George A. Romero:

Best film(s) – Martin

David Cronenberg:

Best film(s) – The Dead Zone/Videodrome

Krzysztof Kieslowski:

Best film(s) – Dekalog (TV series)

Tim Burton:

Best film(s) – Ed Wood/Edward Scissorhands

Quentin Tarantino:

Best film(s) – Reservoir Dogs

Jean-Pierre Melville:

Best film(s) – Le samouraï

Frank Darabont:

Best film(s) – The Shawshank Redemption

Hayao Miyazaki:

Best film(s) – Spirited Away

George Lucas:

Best film(s) – Star Wars (episodes IV, V and VI)

Roman Polanski:

Best film(s) – The Tenant

(*NOTE* This blog-post was extracted from this thread of mine on the HikiCulture forums.)

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This week has some interesting elements involving how a narratively starved culture is ripe for visual/physical over-stimulation and hungry for distraction. As explored in Gamer (Neveldine-Taylor, 2009), eXistenZ (Cronenberg, 1999), and The Matrix (Wachowski, 1999), the level of engagement with cyberspace causes the physical body to atrophy and become weakened. Gamer presents game-users diets as a white-bread and sugar spread regime, which also shows us a womb-like setting as the environment of game-console interaction. The absence of nutrition and exercise makes it easy for apathy to set-in and like a drug addict’s chase for the next ‘high’, as in eXistenZ, the game-users have to find a cheap hotel to setup-in for a few days to ‘plug-in’. All three of these films, and Videodrome (Cronenberg, 1983), associate female reproductive organs to game-console interaction. This level of external forces, penetrating or surrounding the user, allows for outside forces to easily influence and control the flesh/mind of users. Gamer shows us a humorous dance sequence where the creator of the ‘nano-technology’, which is how remote control is possible,  acts as a puppet-master over his dance/fighting troop which seeks to prevent the protagonist from reuniting with his family and exposing the truth about the unbridled use of the ‘nano-bots’. The line between game-environment and real life is blurred and incites us to consider — as Lia M. Hotchkiss’s book “Still in the Game’: Cybertransformations of the “New Flesh” in David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ — that the connection to the cyber-medium goes beyond formal perceptions of an ‘on/off’ button.

http://www.vimeo.com/5204772

Hotchkiss explores “the transformation of human experience: on the one hand, they seem attracted to the capabilities of new communications technologies but, on the other, evince suspicion of the corporate interests being served by the promulgation of those new technologies.” (p. 18) The naive positivist, of technological advance, fall prey to manipulation too easily and yet I still believe that grass-roots approach of communication technologies wins — over the narratively starved,  apathetic, spectacle junkie. Interesting how Hotchkiss uses the 1995 Cronenberg interview, with Salmon Rushdie, to parallel video game design creation with religious doctrine creation as a fictional endeavor. Notions of divine inspiration are put into doubt and the “divine word becomes a human construction”, which works to destabilize any interpretations, for that matter, surrounding the real and the virtual as “life itself is a hybrid of the real and the representational” (p. 29). Technophobes and tech-addicts both are shackled to their ideologies just as any religious sects or secular mindsets defend theirs. However, the corporate agenda preys on all divisive environments and sells to both sides. The ultimate distraction is one that lives inside or wholly surrounds the subject and impregnates its ideology into the host, just as the films discussed above make it difficult to see the line — the actual cable connection and the dividing line: real/representational.

After dark I masturbate to Naked Lunch and drink Ten High whiskey while the cat looks at me with an accusing glare.  He knows I ate his brother. What did Cronenberg learn making The Fly? Did he carry those insect politics on to his other films?  The bastard is going to re-make The Fly. Who does he think he is, Howard Hawks? You can’t just run around redoing what you’ve already done. Then again, maybe he can.

The foxes are coming closer each day. They have hungry eyes.

Will anyone pay me to ridicule them? Seriously, I need a new job and I think I’d be really good at it. Like if you pay me I will say snide things about you (custom tailored, of course) and insist on calling you “Kyle” or “Dan” no matter what your name really is. If you are interested, give me a buzz.

At 17, Videodrome shocked me. In the first few minutes a talk show host asks if violence and stimulation on television are linked to violence in social culture, an idea which gets James Woods’ Max Renn so hot for his co-interviewee that he asks her out on national television.  Nicki brand, played by the surprisingly sublime Debbie “Blondie” Harry, in turn, is turned on by everything from being pierced mid-intercourse to hanging out watching snuff porn while being cut with a knife.  Watching these tender moments of the first fifteen minutes with my father was certainly one of the more uncomfortable experiences of my moviegoing adulthood.

David Cronenberg directs this fantastic tale of 80’s media obsession with all the surreal mania one would expect from him.  He has a very peculair love of the physicality of media, allowing videotapes to turn into human flesh on the one hand and controlling one’s mind on the other.  The characters slip in and out of multiple layers of reality, through the permeable membrane of the television screen.  Hallucination is reality after watching Videodrome, and ideas take hold and turn your stomach into an oriface; these extreme metaphors provoke some seriously stimulating cinema.  It foresaw the rise of media culture looming a decade over the horizon.  While it seems oblivious of the digital transformation about to take hold, it starkly predicts the advent of the internet / YouTube video craze.  Investigating the elusive hints of a “pirate signal” broadcasting extreme snuff videos  through cable lines, James Woods slowly becomes obsessed with the feed, searching for the creators of what is essentially a webisode, existing as short snippets of poorly produced, handheld, amateur video.  It blurs the lines between fiction and reality, and simultaneously, it anticipates the national craving for reality television which still grips the airwaves with its slimy claws.

Nicki Brand is a self-help talk-radio host by day, and a sex-craved femme fatale by night.  Debbie Harry plays her so sensuously, she makes burning oneself with a cigarette look sexy.  Seeing the movie for the third or fourth time with a lesbian friend of mine my final year in college, we both became so enamored of her gauzy beauty and sexual energy that it provoked – quite literally – a brief, but spicy erotic encounter between us.  This is the power of videodrome for true movie lovers, to turn even gay men and lesbians onto each other; it crosses my wires and fries my circuits, so boldly linking violence and film and media and sexuality as only Cronenberg could convinvingly do.  Long live the new flesh.

The Ring

The Ring introduced a generation of American moviegoers to J-Horror, a new genre of horror cinema from Japan. In reaction to the gore-driven American horror movies of the eighties, diverse influences across Japan, China and Korea began forging an artistic aesthetic for pitch-black horror films, at once minimalistic and deeply psychological, produced with an ominous mood and understated acting, eschewing torrents of fake blood and plastic face masks for sinister appliances and the iconic cloak of long, black hair. The industry was, and still is, extremely prolific, with surprisingly derivative themes, plots, and characters, but it wasn’t until The Ring that mainstream American audiences could catch a taste of this uniquely Eastern cinema. While The Ring does pay homage to the original, Ringu, it also updates it through and for American eyes. Without a doubt, screenwriter Erin Krugher does a better job of reinterpreting the genre than we have seen of an American remake since.

I think what’s especially memorable about The Ring is it’s iconography. The updates Gore Verbinski and crew made to the short film-within-the-film (the one that kills you!) really tighten its’ brief, but powerful emotional resonance – it possesses a fantastic subconscious logic, even just as a threatening series of overlapping images … Bees, horses, flies, and endless rings – it feels like we’re watching a pirate video, hacked from one of Satan’s more random nightmares, or maybe something David Lynch could have cooked up in his earlier years. Sunara, the psychic progeny of criminally negligent parents, is just as horrifying a villain as Freddy or Jason, with her chique backwards walk and mask of soggy black hair. Who cares that what she represents is now completely cliche? At the time she was certainly scary. Coughing up hair, horses like deranged lemmings, warped photographic images — these are extremely memorable visuals that ramp up the disturbing atmosphere J-Horror excels at. The cinematography, and editing, are particularly effective at creating a distance from the characters, isolating Rachel and Aiden from everyone around them cinematographically, as the narrative drives them further and further from humanity.

I’m not going to make the case that Ring 2 is nearly as fantastic a movie as the first, but the short film Rings (included with the DVD) is certainly worth watching, if nothing else but to simulate the effect of what watching all four original Ringu movies might be like. Rings is a prequel to The Ring 2 and meant to be played right before watching it. It expands on the most horrifying part of Sunara’s videotape madness, that in order to save yourself, you must make a copy of her tape and have another person watch it; in this way, you are forced to perpetuate the murder in order to save yourself. Rings takes this idea to the logical extreme, and explores a fictional community that has developed online to track the effects and spread of the tape. Given that the debilitating insanity that ensues in the 7 days after you watch the tape is much like a hallucination, teenagers have become addicted to the thrill the tape provides, pushing themselves to see how far they can go before having their “backup” watch their copy of the tape. It’s an interesting take on the idea of viral media, how an idea can spread from one person to another in the culture, and ties in a provocative metaphor about drug addiction and overdosing.

Overall, Ringu is far from the most powerful Asian horror film of recent years, but I do find it fitting that, for a horror film whose most obsessive anxiety is the spread of media as a kind of lethal disease, an American remake of it just might be.

The Dead Zone is a 1983 science fiction-thriller film based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. Directed by David Cronenberg, the film stars Christopher Walken, Tom Skerritt, Martin Sheen, Herbert Lom, Brooke Adams, Anthony Zerbe, Ken Pogue, and Colleen Dewhurst. The plot revolves around a schoolteacher, Johnny Smith (Walken), who awakens from a coma to find he has psychic powers.

Tagline:  In his mind, he has the power to see the future. In his hands, he has the power to change it.

Trivia:

• Director David Cronenberg had to re-shoot the scene in which John Smith has his first premonition. It showed a little girl’s room burning and a small E.T. doll could be seen on one of the shelves. The scene had to be re-shot when Universal Pictures threatened to sue.
• Cronenberg fired a .357 Magnum loaded with blanks just off camera to make Smith’s flinches seem more involuntary; this was Christopher Walken’s own idea.
• Before the accident, Johnny instructs his class to read “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. Christopher Walken would later go on to appear in Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999).
• Martin Sheen’s character says he has had a vision that he will be the President of the United States. Sheen went on to play the President of the United States in the mini series “Kennedy” (1983) and in “The West Wing” (1999).
• Greg Stillson, played by Martin Sheen (né Ramon Estevez), has damning pictures taken of him by a photographer, played by Ramon Estevez, Sheen’s son.
• A stuntman was severely burned around the legs and groin when a squib went off too near him during the shooting of the WWII flashback sequence.
• The “sweat” on Christopher Walken’s face during the “burning bedroom” sequence was in fact a flame-retardant chemical that had been sprayed onto him. The resulting effect, which hadn’t been anticipated, looked surprisingly dramatic on film.
• David Cronenberg wanted to change the name of Christopher Walken’s character: “I’d never name someone ‘Johnny Smith’”, he quipped, but in the end it was left as is.
• One of only three David Cronenberg films that do not have a score by his friend, composer Howard Shore. This was due to studio politics in which Paramount wanted a more familiar composer to write the music for the film. Michael Kamen, who had written the music for the film Venom (1981) for the studio, was chosen instead.
• During the time Michael Kamen was composing the music for the film in London, he would play the score on the piano in his home. He received several complaints by his neighbors who asked, “Can you please stop playing that music? I can’t sleep and it’s giving my family nightmares.”
• This film (and Stephen King’s novel) are both loosely based upon the life of famous psychic Peter Hurkos. Hurkos claimed to have acquired his alleged powers after falling off a ladder and hitting his head.
• The poem Johnny reads in the beginning of the film is the end of “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe.
• There are several deleted scenes that were filmed and completed but have never been seen publicly and are thought to have been discarded prior to the films release. Among them: – A prologue showing John Smith as a boy (played by Stephen Flynn) who sustains a head injury during an ice hockey match. The scene features actor Sean Sullivan as John’s father. – An alternate scene of John Smith’s vision of the Camp David scene (featuring Martin Sheen) in which John himself appears in the vision as a helpless spectator. Photos of these scenes appeared in the December 1983 issue of Cinefantastique.
• Hal Holbrook was Cronenberg’s original choice to play Sherrif Bannerman, but Dino De Laurentiis rejected this idea as he had never heard of Holbrook at the time.
• In the WWII scene, civilians in the burning city are speaking Polish.
• Three people were involved in the James Bond franchise. Anthony Zerbe (Roger Stuart) would later appear in Licence to Kill (1989), while Christopher Walken (Johnny Smith) would later appear in A View to a Kill (1985). Michael Kamen, who did the music for this film, would later do the music for Licence to Kill (1989).
• Before his accident, Johnny Smith is an English teacher. Stephen King was also an English teacher before becoming a full-time writer.
• The Dead Zone was the first of several Stephen King novels and short stories that took place in the small town of Castle Rock. Others include Stand by Me (1986), Cujo (1983), The Dark Half (1993), and Needful Things (1993).

Amigos, andei um pouco ausente aqui do blog, pois estive envolvido em algumas coisas, e uma delas foi a soma das notas de uma enquete que fizemos entre os usuários do fórum Cinema em Cena. Tal votação teve o intuito de eleger os melhores filmes da década que vivemos. Bom, completado o trabalho duro, compartilho com vocês o resultado:

1. Onde os Fracos Não Têm Vez (Irmãos Coen)
2. Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino)
3. Cidade dos Sonhos (David Lynch)
4. Marcas da Violência (David Cronenberg)
5. Antes do Pôr-do-Sol (Richard Linklater)
6. Encontros e Desencontros (Sofia Coppola)
7. Dogville (Lars Von Trier)
8. Brilho Eterno de uma Mente sem Lembranças (Michel Gondry)
9. Sangue Negro (Paul Thomas Anderson)
10. Ratatouille (Brad Bird)
11. Wall-E (Andrew Stanton)
12. O Senhor dos Anéis (Peter Jackson)
13. Oldboy (Chan-wook Park)
14. O Pianista (Roman Polanski)
15. Amor à Flor da Pele (Wong kar-wai)
16. Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood)
17. Bastardos Inglórios (Quentin Tarantino)
18. O Novo Mundo (Terrence Malick)
19. Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma)
20. Amnésia (Christopher Nolan)
Match Point (Woody Allen)
Cidade de Deus (Fernando Meireles)

Os últimos três empataram em pontos. Trinta e uma pessoas participaram da elaboração dessa lista. Desses 22 filmes, só não vi Amor à Flor da Pele. Tem coisas que eu mudaria, claro, não colocaria Sangue Negro de forma alguma, também não colocaria Wall-E, entre outras mudanças, mas em geral acho que ficou uma lista bem forte. Vocês concordam?

Every six months or so, there’s a season of Cronenberg films at home, we could be said die hard fans although it’s true we have our preferences. 

As I explain whenever I talk about Cronenberg, sometimes it’s hard to understand his stories at the first time, thus I strongly recommend to watch each film a least twice, not immediately one after the other but taking some time between each session, then I think you can really enjoy them and understand details and shades of meaning. 

Dead Ringers is one of my personal favorite, I find the story of the twin brothers amazing, and the decadent rhythm used for the development of the story is simply perfect. 

Elliot and Beverly (Jeremy Irons) are identical twin brothers whose interest for female inner body is beyond pure sex since their early childhood. In fact, so focused they devote themselves to research and investigation of female reproductive system, inventing a device with which still at college, they are awarded. 

Thus the Mantle twins become established gynecologists, combining research and practice. 

Elly and Bev are physically identical, actually Elly is few millimeters taller, however the difference in personalities and atittudes is huge. Elly is the public relations, the spokesman in events, he’s very outgoing and has a taste for women. Bev is just the opposite, he’s a nerd, the brain of the two brothers, he’s shy and quiet, and tastes the remaining of his brother’s sexual conquests. They complement each other perfectly, and are very close. 

Nevertheless the suddenly interference of the actress Claire Niveau (Geneviève Bujold) changes everything.The actress, who is currently working in Vancouver, asks for an appointment at Mantle’s in order to get pregnant with their modern and innovative techniques. When examining her, Bev discovers she’s trifurcate, a very weird mutation, and quickly informs his brother about the case. 

Menage-a-trois

At this point a bizarre game starts, for Elly, pretending to be Bev, takes Claire for dinner and seduces her, forcing his brother to keep on playing. However Bev falls in love with the actress. 

Trouble will follow, as she’ll ask for drug prescriptions and Bev, the weakest, will develop a serious and self-destructive drug habit as his relationship with Claire becomes more serious, and his relationship with his brother almost reduced to non-existent. 

When the actress has to leave Vancouver for work, Bev will cling to his brother seeking for help and relief against loneliness, strengthening bonds to an unhealthy point with bizarre consequences. 

I’ve always found relationship among twins very appealing and interesting. It is fascinating how close they are to each other, and despite the few physical and unnoticeable differences the way their personalities complement so much is a mystery to me. 

Many studies have been unable to determine telepathic like senses, and among many, Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death, was obsessed about twins. 

I really like the way Cronenberg, taking the story from the novel Twins, tells the story about the Mantle’s, and just with one actor covering the role of the brothers, something we had seen before, of course, but carefully not to seem that obvious nor shitty as in The Parent Trap, with Hayley Mills. 

 The brotherly relationship is very dark and sinister, featuring sex, obsession, drugs, gynecology, and bizarre medical devices. They are meant to share everything, from passion for work to women, and this is the cause for their lives falling apart, they are not able to have their private experiences or relationships without excluding the other. 

They relate themselves to the very first Siamese twins, Eng and Chang Baker, and their tragic end, one from a brain clot and the other just from fear three hours later. 

I’m particularly impressed by the treatment of the drug addiction suffered by Bev. Initially is Claire the one taking drugs, in fact Elly is the one prescribing her the uppers and downers, however, Bev, in a moment of disappointment, starts taking them, and get hooked up on them. It is funny how easy is to get hooked on something, it’s not necessary to be illegal to be fucked up, and they’re not necessarily bad for human health as cocaine or heroine. Prescribed drugs, whose main function is to improve or ease the pain, are really dangerous, not easy affordable for common people, apparently. But if you really think about it, it’s not so uncommon you to be prescribed something in case of signs of anxiety or insomnia, in my case, one I was in distress I was given something that contained diazepam. Here in Spain at the minimum sign of depression you’re prescribed Tranquimazin, and seems that many people are hooked up on that shit. Regarding doctors, those nice people in charge of our health, the history of drug abuse is extensive but hidden to public society, they’re human, and although medicines are under surveillance some cannot resist the temptation. And this happens to weak Bev, he cannot accomplish working routines without drugs, however, at a certain point he freaks out when he attempts to put his bizarre surgical stainless steel devices into practice. 

Cronenberg again succeeds in recreating a tough story, adding his personal touch, creating a suffocating atmosphere, and focusing on dependence in its full meaning. Nedless to say, Irons is also outstanding, a bit exploited by the director, playing the two principal roles, should had been challenging.

What a tandem!

I had originally intended to space out my articles on Videodrome and Existenz, but here it is. After seeing Videodrome at a young age, I became enamored by Cronenberg’s film work. As such, I distanced myself from his 1999 film, Existenz, as it sounded like a flop and was released close to a similar film, 13th Floor. Building on themes that he had introduced in his previous works such as the aforementioned Videodrome and Naked Lunch, Existenz poses a number of questions on the nature of reality and our place in it.

The plot involves an assassination attempt on the life of award-winning game designer Allegra Geller(played by Jennifer Jason-Leigh) as she is about to unveil her latest immersive video game on a group of test subjects. Running wild into the outside world, she randomly falls into the care of unassuming marketing trainee Ted Pikul (played by Jude Law). The assassin is a member of a movement determined to wipe out immersive video gamers. While Geller plays the tough bitch in public, she actually suffers from mild social anxiety and reluctantly trusts Pikul to protect her while she attempts to scavenge what remains of her game from its unusual player. To make sure that the game is still in working order, she asks Pikul to co-pilot a test run with her, and after the pair plug in, they fall down the rabbit hole of fantasy.

Trailer

The role of the game, where the player must decipher what s/he is meant to do in certain situations with little prompting was a timely statement in 1999. Not as overly flamboyant as the Matrix, Existenz portrays the modern gamer escaping reality for a custom-made one where s/he gets to re-invent themselves in whatever way they choose. As Internet chat rooms and the like were coming into fashion at the time, this was a rather bold statement that might have been viewed as obvious and pretentious. The line between the game and reality becomes soft, at one point the two characters that we have been following come out of the game to find themselves not as the characters that we have accepted them to be, but instead a pair of beta-testers trying out a new game. The testers joke about their outlandish behavior in the game as actors would after a performance, adding another layer to the film.

Metaflesh Game Pod

The gamepod itself is an oddity, looking more like the breathing typewriters from Naked Lunch. The Metaflesh Game Pod isn’t constructed at all, but rather it is grown from ‘amphibian embryos.’ The device looks almost pornographic as it undulates information the the player through a Umbycord. Rather than switches or buttins, nipple-like protuberances are used to interact with the Game Pod. Not only does it breath, it coos when it is stroked. In the real world, the term ’sexy’ is placed on technology every day and many of is spend more time with a keyboard than our loved ones… so Cronenberg ain’t far off with this idea.

The whole movie is like a Gordian knot as the line ‘are we in the game’ becomes something that was initially spoken in excitement but later turns into a statement of anxiety and fear. After Pikul and Geller gun down the beta-testers in cold blood, revealing themselves to be anti-game terrorists in strict defiance to the drug-like effect that Existenz has on humanity, the last victim does a double take, his reaction changing from horror to confusion, ‘are we in the game?’ If we are not in the game, then what are we doing is the question asked. Who are we? Why are we doing anything at all? And is the real world so bad that escapism is the only answer? In a world where real live people are married online in MMORPGs and would rather spend an evening pretending to be someone else, it’s a valid question.

A forgotten gem to some, Existenz nonetheless garnered several awards including the Saturn award for best sci-fi film of 2000. If you have not seen it, give it a shot.

Before going on to remake the Fly, Canadian director David Cronenberg made a name for himself with bizarre outlandish films designed to both expand the mind of his viewers while simultaneously causing feelings of revulsion. In other words, he is a consummate horror director. Released in 1983, his film Videodrome remains both of its time and ahead of its time all at once. A bold statement on the human condition as it relates to the media and the distancing of nearly any event through the media, Videodrome is sure to completely miss many people as it relates its message through sporadic bursts of extreme violence and perversion. Trying to understand the meaning of Videodrome is actually a lot like trying to find meaning in late night television.

The film follows the steady decline of cable TV producer Max Renn (played by James Woods) who comes across a stray transmission one night while looking for new program ideas. Having established himself as a shock TV personality, Renn is not satisfied with the base material he has to work with and is hungry for something new, something raw. Harlan, Renn’s soft-spoken his cohort who is assisting him in obtaining new programs using a pirate satellite dish, shows him Videodrome and Renn is lovestruck. The program consists of subjects being strapped to a wall and tortured, something that Renn seems hypnotized by rather than disgusted. This is something real, something raw, that he can use. In watching the film, I don’t think it really occurs to Renn that what he is seeing is not intended for entertainment at all.

During his TV appearances as a minor celebrity, he is pitted against a sexy psychologist named Nikki (played by Blondie’s Debbie Harry) whom he not only disgusts with his theories but propositions as well. The third interviewee, the eccentric Brian O’Blivion, is more concerned with the future of humanity through TV rather than what we accept as real. Exposing Nikki to Videodrome, Renn finds another convert. Nikki is determined to audition to be on the program and after finding that it is not transmitted from some obscure third-world country but Pittsburgh, she immediately boards a plane. Desperate to find out more, Renn encounters softcore porn magnate Masha who tries her best to put Renn off the scent by explaining that Videodrome is part of a political mission that has very violent aims… only to make him even more interested. The threads lead back to O’Blivion’s Cathode Ray Mission and soon Renn finds himself a tool of Videodrome and a vanguard of ‘the new flesh.’

Renn experiences several hallucinations throughout the film, such as the famous living flesh television set that urges him to interact as if it were his lover Nikki’s willing body and the horrific handgun that becomes fused to Renn’s hand. The nature of perceived reality becomes soft and pliable, much as Renn himself becomes twisted from a voyeur into an active participant in the horrific images that he is so attracted to.

When I first saw this film, I appreciated it on a surface level, recognizing it as an odd twisted film from a deranged director. As I grew more enamored with Cronenberg’s work, I could more easily appreciate the subtle touches that he placed in this film alongside the moments that both shock and repulse me as a viewer. Renn’s reaction to the torture chamber of Videodrome as entertainment speaks volumes of our society’s disassociation with reality as it has grown more accustomed to fiction. Even reality television has turned viewers into leering creatures peeking in on others if only to laugh at their expense. Videodrome exposes that truth for what it is and its message as a film is a brutal one.

Turner Classic Movies will be replaying Videodrome this Friday and offer a preview on their Underground mini-site. Honestly, I cannot imagine what this film will look like on cable, even at 2AM. Make no mistake, this is not a movie for the faint of heart. But it is also one of the most unique movies you’ll ever see.

It’s back! Thank God for October. I was on a George Cukor kick, and with all that charming banter, those adorable outcomes, and those encouraging representations of gender, I was getting pretty blood-thirsty.

So, to recap: the rules of the game are simple. Scott and I watch at least one horror film every day in the month of October. It sounds easy, but trust me, when the only horror movie you have on hand is Poltergeist 3, it’s 2:00 a.m., and you just got back from the Dr. Dog/Jolie Holland show, you’re going to be regretting that Month of Terror commitment. Big time.

Luxurious hair.

We started off the month with Cronenberg’s The Fly: A movie so good, we watched it twice. Or, “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

For me, The Fly has to be one of the most tragic, sympathetic horror films out there. Seth Brundle starts as a geeky-but-slightly-handsome physicist just trying to change the world. And get laid. Unfortunately, Brudle can’t really deal with the pressures of a relationship (not with his baboons, but with an actual human being) and accidently turns himself into BrundleFly.

Stage One: Fly Acne.

It turns out there are some good things associated with being genetically spliced with a housefly. For one thing, you can walk on walls. Yes, your fingernails all fall off, but you also can have marathon sex with Geena Davis. You have immense strength, a sweet tooth that sustains you, and you think at a mile a minute. Unfortunately, you completely deteriorate until you become unable to express your emotions, including your love for Ms. Davis.

Largely regarded as a metaphor for the horror of AIDS (Brundle “contracts” his “disease” only after finally finding a sexual partner), Cronenberg denies this claim and insists that the film is about dying and disease in general. As his girlfriend watches on, Brundle is wasting away from disease, and the two – as a couple – have to learn to with all the stages (both physiological and psychological) of that disease.

Stage Two: Regurgitation Digestion. Delicious.

Like all Cronenberg films, The Fly incorporates a delightful amount of disgust with the male body. The admiration Cronenberg has for Goldblum’s body is evident in the film, but is also made abundantly clear in his commentary. Goldblum was able to perform many of his stunts himself, and his shiny muscles are often on display. But that seems to make it all the more for fun Cronenberg to slowly deteriorate that body, turning Goldblum into a mass of sticky flesh. It is the “excitation of the flesh” that finally does Brundle in.

Stage Three: BrundleFly.

“You’re afraid to dive into the plasma pool, aren’t you? You’re afraid to be destroyed and recreated, aren’t you? I’ll bet you think that you woke me up about the flesh, don’t you? But you only know society’s straight line about the flesh. You can’t penetrate beyond society’s sick, gray, fear of the flesh. Drink deep, or taste not, the plasma spring! Y’see what I’m saying? And I’m not just talking about sex and penetration. I’m talking about penetration beyond the veil of the flesh! A deep penetrating dive into the plasma pool!”

Penetrating the flesh (with a phallus, presumably) is exactly what Seth has done when he merges his DNA with a fly, and his God-like use of the phallus turns his own flesh…wrong. When Brundle penetrates further (literally. sex.) Geena Davis is infected by his masculinity with her pregnancy.

Stage Four: BrundleFly spliced with a teleporter.

It’s also interesting to me that the males in her life are entirely ineffectual against the disease. Her ex-boyfriend/boss is acid-barfed on and barely manages to save her, her doctor fails to give her the abortion she wants/needs, and Brundlefly…well, he’s just a hot mess. In the end, Davis is the only one who successfully wields the phallus in the form of a gun blowing off Brundleflyteleporter’s head.

Anyway…those are just some ideas. I need to go back and read up on my Cronenberg criticism. That guy’s nuts.

And Goldblum the way he might want to be remembered.

- District 9 – 2009 – ♥♥♥♥ -

di

Neill Blomkamp

District 9 è un’ intera metafora sulla xenofobia e sul razzismo tramutata in linguaggio fantascientifico. E’ un film che parla di clandestinità e immigrazione rendendo lo spettatore compartecipe delle emozioni dei protagonisti, seppur alieni o mutanti. Si perchè gli umani in District 9 sono la razza cattiva e che discrimina, caratteristica purtroppo non lontana dalla realtà in taluni casi. Blomkamp costruisce il suo film interamente come se questo fosse reale e non vuole che lo spettatore pensi che si tratti di pura fantascienza. Intervalla sequenze da fiction e da documentario incorporando stili di ripresa che spaziano dalla telecamera a mano o amatoriale a quella frenetica che ben contraddistingue i film d’azione. Sovvertendo le regole imposte da film dello stesso genere il regista modella gli alieni rendendoli simili ad un incrocio tra cavallette e gamberoni ma ce ne da un’ immagine tutt’altro che spaventosa: li umanizza. E allora non è un caso che invece della scontata Manhattan gli alieni approdino a Johannesbourg, capitale sudafricana di uno dei maggiori avvenimenti storici xenofobi, e che il District 9 dove sono ghettizzati gli alieni nel film ricordi il District 6 nel quale venivano “esiliati” i “negri” durante l’ Apartheid. Ed è proprio pensando a questo che ben presto ci si rende conto che il film non vuole poi essere tanto fantascientifico ma che la storia dei soprusi e delle violenze nei confronti degli alieni è reale se riferita ai milioni di casi di discriminazioni razziali che vi sono in tutto il mondo. Anche non lontano da noi dove i campi – rom o i campi di accoglienza vengono visti come delle bidonville o delle cellule di sviluppo della criminalità. E conforme alle leggi italiane anche nel film gli alieni vengono spostati lontano dai centri abitati (esattamente come gli extracomunitari), perchè l’ integrazione è qualcosa di dannatamente difficile da concepire per l’essere umano. E’ di certo più semplice la disintegrazione. E allora per far capire tutto questo intervengono nel film sequenze che hanno del “disumano” (come quella del rogo delle uova aliene), ma che vengono compiute proprio dalla razza umana. Il tutto mostratoci sia come se fosse un mockumentary che allo stesso tempo la dolorosa storia di Wikus che a causa della sua stessa spavalderia muta in alieno e inizia ad essere trattato dagli umani come pura merce di scambio o di sperimentazione. Frequenti sono i riferimenti alla mosca di Cronenberg o al robottino di Wall e che rovistava nella spazzatura proprio come fanno gli alieni del distretto 9. E il protagonista alieno Christopher diventa paradossalmente l’ unica figura veramente umana del film, sovvertendo le regole tra ciò che è brutto visivamente e ciò che lo è di fatto. Diviene un umile eroe che cova come unico sogno quello di ritornare a casa con suo figlio, dopo 20 anni di soprusi e imposizioni da parte degli uomini. District 9 è sicuramente un ottimo spunto per riflettere su come spesso non sia la sola diversità a creare criminalità ma su come quest’ ultima sia soltanto una conseguenza delle condizioni disumane di “accoglienza” di colui che è “extraterrestre” o “extracomunitario”.

( L' ipocrita scultura all' ingresso del distretto 9)

( Comunicazione di sfratto dal District 9)

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